Of course, I didn’t let the company’s silence stand in my way and proceeded to bug several executives, asking about it in all sorts of clever ways (okay, maybe not really that clever.). But, of course, Verizon has lots of practice carefully avoiding all mention of the iPhone or Apple, unless referring to a fruit grown in Washington.

I tried asking Chief Marketing Officer Marni Walden whether Verizon’s network will be strong enough to handle a crush of data demand from the iPhone, but she saw right through me.

“I obviously won’t comment on iPhone at all–rumor and speculation here,” she said. That said, she noted that the company has spent $65 billion over the last 10 years on its network to make sure that any device can run smoothly on it.

Okay, I said, but you know the company’s full roadmap for the year–are you sure that your network will be able to handle all those devices, including perhaps some unannounced ones?

“I am confident we have built a network and invested in a network that will continue to provide customers with the best possible experience,” Walden said.

So there you have it. Well, as much of “it” as you are going to get.

But it turns out that the party line extends beyond the employees and all the way down to the Verizon phones themselves. When handed a demo unit of the new Samsung LTE Android phone, I proceeded to do a Google search for Verizon iPhone–I got an error message saying that that page could not be reached (see image). Now that’s what I call good corporate messaging.

At least theoretically: I just tried to download the new app to my year-old Tour, and got an error message. And BlackBerry’s support link for the app gave me a 404 error.

Meanwhile, some context: Various retailers, carriers and phones have offered over-the-air downloads for years, and Apple brought them to the iPhone in 2009.

Despite the music industry’s big hopes, they’ve never really taken off in the U.S.

Clearly, Google’s (GOOG) redirection of Google.cn to Google.hk and the implied reminder that Hong Kong is free and mainland China is not, did not go over well with Beijing.

Gang did not comment on the legality of Google’s new approach to China or explain how his country’s government will respond. But he did reiterate Beijing’s you-will-play-by-our-rules mandate to foreign business. Said Gang: “Any foreign company operating in China must abide by Chinese laws and regulations.”

Was he implying that China feels Google is violating its laws by offering an uncensored search service from Hong Kong? That’s not yet clear, though I’m sure it will become more so in the days ahead. Already, there are reports that Google searches for sensitive or banned terms conducted from China are returning error messages.

PREVIOUSLY:

• China: Google Broke Promise, Wrong to Stop Censoring
• Google Shutters Google.cn
• China to Google: Go Ahead and Leave, Ya Big Loser
• Report: Google Bailing on China in Early April
• Beijing to Google’s China Partners: Nice Site You Got There. Shame if Something Happened to It.
• China: We Are in Talks With Google. Also, We Are Not in Talks With Google.
• Chinese Scientists Recalibrate Google’s Evil Scale
• Chinese Schools Tied to Attacks on Google? Where’d You Read That, Mad Magazine?
• World War WAN: Google Hack Traced to Schools in China
• Nearly a Month After Debut, Google’s “New” Approach to China Still a Lot Like the Old One
• Google CEO: Ask Not What Google Can Do for China–Ask What China Can Do for Google
• China on “Google Farce”: Our Internet Is Open
• China to Google: No Worries, We Were Planning to Clone Those Android Phones Anyway
• U.S. State Department to Complain to China About Google Hack. Not That China’s Going to Listen.
• Microsoft: “Don’t Be Evil” Is Google’s Motto, Not Ours
• What’s the Chinese Word for Bing? Google Threatens to Leave China.

Google also offers up this graph, below (click to enlarge), to give you a sense of the traffic spike it got from Jackson-searchers. It’s impressive, but without metrics it’s sort of hard to gauge what it really means–just like the chart that Google (GOOG) provided about query volume during Barack Obama’s inauguration.

(Many thanks to HeWhoCannotBeNamed for the tip.)