You're absolutely right! There very much is such a scale. Even the companies who are the very best at communications will tend to struggle to communicate clear

You're absolutely right! There very much is such a scale. Even the companies who are the very best at communications will tend to struggle to communicate clearly when filtered through a press that have strong incentives to construe everything as a data breach. Lay people reading either of your statements will tend to stop at "there's no evidence" and go "What do you mean, 'no evidence'!? I want certainty!". Witness how readily and widely this whole G+ event has been mis-reported as MASSIVE DATA BREACH. While you're completely correct, perhaps there's room for subtlety here.