Star Trek Online

I keep hearing people say Star Trek Online is canon or otherwise making reference to its canon status, but where the devil is that coming from?   Whenever I look I can't find a single quote to support it, and no one can provide one.   What gives?

Even Cryptic's executive producer for STO in 2009 made it clear that, in their view, STO was not, itself, canon, that they were using the novels as a soft canon and that they were a licensee . . .

MTV Multiplayer: Who came up with the story? 

Zinkievich: We were working really close with CBS, which owns the license. With their licensing team, they know the universe really well.     [...] 

MTV Multiplayer: Is the story in "Star Trek Online" part of the official canon? 

Zinkievich: What is the official canon is really an argument that anyone can have. For us all the shows and movies are canon. But you can get in an argument with any of the fans about how even some of the shows may have small contradictions in them. We want to make sure that we follow that timeline, and we're true to that timeline. We see the shows and movies as canon. We're reading the novels now; the novels are considered soft canon with a lot of more conflicts in there. You can never call yourself "canon," but we can't take a 90-degree angle and go it's all totally different.

- Craig Zinkievich, Star Trek Online Executive Producer (Cryptic Studios), Feb. 2009, "Captain Kirk Not Returning In 'Star Trek Online'" interview with MTV Multiplayer, http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/02/12/captain-kirk-not-returning-in-star-trek-online/

So is there some ultimate kickbutt STO-is-canon quote that I'm missing?   Assistance welcome!