...a publicly traded company like Google is not going to comment on acquisition rumors, for many, many reasons. Variety normally has good sources - if they're reporting it, a deal is almost certainly being discussed. Maybe it won't complete, but this isn't some random posting on Secret here.
Your comment made me wonder. Is there any site where people (users or editors) track and check up on predictions like this made by various media outlets?
I'd find it really helpful if I could point to a database showing that Variety or WSJ had a 90%+ accuracy in predictions like this, whereas another site might have a 50% accuracy.
From a 3rd party summary: "...Kenneth Ahern at the University of Southern California and Denis Sosyura at the University of Michigan, reviewed 2,142 articles written about 501 rumors between 2000 and 2011. Of those rumors, only 167 were followed by a public bid for the company. The Wall Street Journal was the most prolific publisher of such articles, with 158 during the time period. It was followed by Dow Jones Newswires with 67 and the New York Times with 38.
“The rumors published in the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones News Service are also more accurate than the average rumor, with accuracy rates of about 39%, compared to 33% for the average rumor,” wrote the researchers. “In contrast, the Los Angeles Times and NYT Blogs have accuracy rates less than 20%.”
The thing is that this report is that it is being discussed, that doesn't mean it will complete, and if it doesn't then this would lower Variety's "accuracy" %, even if they were entirely accurate about the discussion going on.
Declining to comment literally doesn't mean anything. They are not saying yes OR no, possibly because as a big company you need to weigh up various effects of making public statements that might seem trivial to the lay-person.
Yeah. I call this just a rumor.