Interesting confluence of 2 stories today:
- One one hand, ZDNet is confused that Apple expressly asks its customer support reps NOT to do anything about the Mac Defender situation:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apple-continues-to-tell-support-reps-do-not-help-with-mac-malware/3375 - On the other hand, John Gruber at Daring Fireball has a post explaining Apple's implicit policy with regard to such events:
http://daringfireball.net/2011/05/measure_twice
Last time such a big software issue took place (during locationgate), Apple responded by quickly pushing a software update to its user base.
Therefeore, maybe the reason why Apple doesn't want Mac users to uninstall the Mac Defender malware is so that they can publish an update that will fix it for them, which requires that the file is still there?
UPDATE: indeed, here it is: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4650 :-)