A very important part of a good apology is, in no unclear terms, acknowledging what you did wrong - they do not do that, it's extremely vague and only hints at "we weren’t explicit enough." Explicit about what? Why were people upset? It also gives a mild air of "sorry you were upset" non-apology. Not quite, but definitely has gives off that vibe.

Basically, bad apology

So, I'm totally unfamiliar with this and the CEO doesn't elaborate on what happened at all so can someone give some context? Reading this thread I can see it is something to do with GMail...

What is/was unroll.me? What service did they claim to provide? What did they get caught doing? How did they get caught? What did their private policy not say?

BTW, if you are interested in the art of the apology and apology analysis check out http://www.sorrywatch.com particularly http://www.sorrywatch.com/2012/12/11/the-parts-of-a-good-apo... and http://www.sorrywatch.com/2012/12/12/parts-of-a-bad-apology/