We can all speculate and make up theories on a late friday night but the fact is Google has a lot going on. Some of which is probably currently unknown by their competitors. They want to keep it that way. Who knows what these guys are working on. Naturally, this isn't the best PR story ever. They could have handled it better.

Clearly, from this guy's perspective, it was wrong for him to get fired but I'm sure the vendor that was providing him as contracted labor had to make a statement that they wouldn't tolerate this kind of thing. Would you hire a firm to video your office if they didn't fire a guy recording stuff you wanted confidential?