It's rare to see a straightforward public apology with nary a weasel-word in it, but that's precisely what Jeff Bezos has produced. Good for him. Not that my concerns are assuaged, but good for him.
Text Patterns
July 24, 2009
He admitted fault! Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of litigation!
Hmm. On reread, I see that he did no such thing. He says they were "stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles" which sounds humble and all, but he doesn't actually name anything that they did wrong.
I'm not sure this is materially different from a weasel apology of the "I'm sorry you were offended by what I did" genre. I'm tempted to say that an apology that doesn't make you vulnerable to a lawsuit is not a real apology. A real apology ought to demonstrate you understand what harm you did and why it was wrong.