Courts of law have a good reason to hold high standards of evidence. For everyone else it's just an excuse for laziness. Not that I'm any better, I just don't insist on rationalizing it :-)
I agree that it's trivial to exploit, but I choose to believe that, in the general case, people/entities are lazier than they are evil. That said, laziness can be in the form of "not taking into account the externalities", which can be indistinguishable from actual malice (which I define as knowingly and/or willfully causing harm).
I still think Lenovo's behaviour in this case is that form of laziness, though my comment above means I'm on the fence.
FWIW, I agree with you: I put thoughtlessness and callousness fall under the laziness umbrella.
Then again, I may be underestimating management's ability to drink their own kool-aid.