Yes. They have been outspoken advocates of net neutrality in the past.

I could understand if net neutrality fell by the wayside and lots of companies started bidding on preferred access, Google could reasonably say "we wanted net neutrality, but in order to compete in a world without it, we have to buy preferred access as well". But having them be one of the first to bid for preferred access is immensely disappointing.

Well, they could be the one of the first to be reported as bidding for preferred access. I am sure telco's were talking "what-if" with content providers before this.