People passing cynical comments at Google need to understand that at a big co like Google, something like this doesn't 'just happen'. It probably happened because some passionate L6/L7 engineer wanted to do it and pushed through the bureaucracy to get approvals for it, probably largely on their own time (by which I mean that this was at best a side-project for them and at worst a distraction that was losing them favor with their bosses). At every point in the process, they probably had to justify what they were doing to their leads, to lawyers, to privacy reviewers, who had no real stake in it and so had nothing to lose by saying No. They almost certainly won't receive any career progress out of this and would risk a setback if something slips through the cracks (such as some unredacted proprietary information).

They did it because they felt it was the right thing to do. Good things happen through the actions of individuals like this. We should acknowledge and celebrate it when they do, anti-big-tech cynicism can wait.