Again, tempest in a teapot. Apparent bad behavior is uncovered, immediate denial is issued. Followup investigation reveals that a third party contractor a

Again, tempest in a teapot. Apparent bad behavior is uncovered, immediate denial is issued. Followup investigation reveals that a third party contractor acted out of line, has admitted guilt, and remedial action taken. question: when other companies have had external contractors try to game google by paying for links or posting paper-thin irrelevant paid for blog posts, has google accepted "our bad, it was an external contractor and we had no idea" as an excuse or have they penalized the companies anyway?