It is impossible for me to take this post at face value coming from a director at Google. That old saying about getting someone to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it comes to mind...

That said, the actions they've taken are concrete and verifiable, and this is a pretty explicit promise. I believe it has less to do with privacy as a goal and more to do with avoiding regulation.

* And another post on the front page indicates that Google is changing the way they track anyways, likely at little-to-no cost to them. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26328428