That's an excellent point: they get a lot of potential benefits

1. A business reason to not divulge sensitive details about any projects in future meetings.

2. Employee support for 1.

3. Actually being able to keep employees in the dark about this Google Search in China endeavor.

Now, the questions that present themselves are:

1. Was the leak planned to have that effect?

2. Was the leak planned and/or executed by one or more members of Google's management team?