For me it does the opposite. Hearing engineers speaking off-message inspires trust, while pr-evasion and weasel speak makes me think they have something to hide.
That's nice. But in this particular case the engineer says things that I know for a fact are not in line with DDG's mission statement so even if he speaks off-message he's actually destroying that trust. There is nothing about @yegg's response that strikes me as weasel speak, it is the content that is different and exactly where it matters: privacy first.
