If you're Facebook or Google you're used to being able to dictate terms to others. But there's always a bigger fish and in this case it's Apple.
They're outraged because they have no recourse. What they usually do to users or partners, dictate take-it-or-leave-it terms, is being done to them. They can't even complain to antitrust regulators because Apple is only lord of its own kingdom (which doesn't have market dominance).
If anything Google should be grateful Apple's support isn't as deliberately-shit as their own fake support system, they may yet resolve this instead of being banned for life.
Company-on-company support is an entirely different thing from customer support. These are developers with direct lines to one another. Google isn't filing a support ticket at an Apple Store.
I think our support that we get is probably quite different than the support Apple gives to the developers of Google and Facebook, who make most of the top 10 apps downloaded from the App Store.
There's plenty of recourse - politics-like fights in the court of public opinion. Nice vulnerability you've got there, it'd be a shame if it started to go to the press instead of being disclosed to you first.
Such an action would result extraordinary liability for a company. Public discovery would likely lead to consumer lawsuits, shareholders suits, replacement of the CEO, and shuffling of the board of directors. Not to mention possible criminal/civil penalties that pierce the corporate veil.
Merely leaking it would be of no consequence. They could even do it directly as a blog post from their security team. Attempting blackmail would be the trouble.
Its not blackmail. All you have to do is to get people to think there's no difference and that everyone is bad (just like "all politicians are bad" and "all cable companies are bad"). Then you don't have to have good service at all.
They're outraged because they have no recourse. What they usually do to users or partners, dictate take-it-or-leave-it terms, is being done to them. They can't even complain to antitrust regulators because Apple is only lord of its own kingdom (which doesn't have market dominance).