What's the deal with plural verb tense applied to a singular corporate entity?

See this article where the author says many things like:

> Apple are in many ways a gadget company today…

> Jobs doesn’t agree with everything Apple do but…

See what I mean?

That’s like saying that the Fluther Collective are a great group of people. It uses a plural verb tense to associate two singular terms.

I’ve seen this used from time-to-time before (usually with the word “data”)... but I seem to come across it much more frequently in the last few days and weeks. It must be experiencing a resurgence in popularity.

The Collective know that I’m always on the side of good grammar, punctuation, and spelling. But this one’s got me over a barrel. What do the Collective think?