All the large tech companies train their employees how to request advice from counsel and use privileged and confidential email communication. I've never worked for Google but worked for two of the other MAGMAs and it was pretty standard. Nothing I saw about the training or common usage seemed suspicious; I think it's in the eye of the beholder.

After several big companies got their internal email used against them in lawsuits, esp. antitrust lawsuits, they focused heavily on training employees how and when to discuss sensitive topics related to competition, e.g. "don't say exaggerated things like "we're going to kill the competition", etc. And the trainings emphasize being extremely accurate and precise, and not speculating as to legality unless you actually are a corporate counsel. They teach you to take such questions to corporate counsel, e.g. "We're thinking about doing X, what do you think?" on P&C email threads.

I'm sure that some people could overuse this, but again, I didn't see anything suspicious, and I remember seeing one guy get called down for addressing email to corporate counsel as P&C and not actually asking a question.

I'm sure in every org there are weasels who would try to misuse this, but I'd have to see more evidence before I would believe that this was cultural at Google.