> [citation needed] one has to be privy to such contracts to make these conjectures, also they're software might have been of the "off the shelf" variety. Fine

> [citation needed] one has to be privy to such contracts to make these conjectures, also they're software might have been of the "off the shelf" variety. Fine, it's true, the contact could have said anything, including "if you are acquired, you are released of any obligations," although I find that hard to believe. Yes, and it could have been off the shelf with no support contact. However, in my experience, having gone through an acquisition where the acquired company had existing obligations, those obligations were transferred to the acquiring company and understanding them were a large part of the due diligence. > but you should get the facts straight before lobbing accusations What was my accusation? All I did was quote the article. You tried to refute it -- claiming any interaction between PittPatt and the NSA was pre-Google -- by giving dates which were still entirely consistent with the article as written (docs from 2011, acquisition from July of that year). > My main objection is that the NYT should have used "... now owned by Google" instead of "owned by Google" in their piece. Again, I don't see any compelling evidence you've given for contracting the article as written. I'm going to have to go with the professional reporting on this one. > as for 'companies that acquire companies' point, I don't subscribe to any guilt by association sort of animosity, this doesn't seem fair That's fine, think whatever you want. We disagree.