But then again, I'm neither in privacy team, nor Chrome team, know no specifics of this case and can't really argue any position (note how I'm neither defending nor condemning the issue of OP). Just pointing out generalities that I don't see mentioned.
If Google itself isn't acknowledging the problem, or worse, if Google is actively thwarting or working against its own privacy team, then anyone who gets involved will also end up starved for resources or moved to other teams. Google is not a level playing field for people who want to change the system from inside.
So it's not wrong at all for you to bring this up during an incident. But if we take the premise that this incident is the result of one of the largest companies in the world starving its own privacy team, not paying enough to attract talent, or not giving them enough input into internal processes... well, that's honestly something that needs to be discussed company wide. That's a very serious situation.
And if that's the case, users should be distrusting Google's privacy commitments until it has that conversation. The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging the problem -- you won't get anywhere trying to fix a system that doesn't want to be fixed.
From the responses that have come out of Google regarding this incident, it doesn't sound much like it wants to be fixed. Changing that is the first step. Hiring people is the second.
By all means, let's talk about Google's privacy team. I am all for that. Let's get productive. But let's get actually productive. Let's have an open, public talk about management and resource allocation, and why the team is understaffed. From Google's AI/self-driving divisions, we know what it looks like when the company gets serious about attracting talent. And we know it has the resources to do so.
This argument makes sense when you're talking about a problem that one or two people control rather than a large system with higher stakeholders who may not have interests aligned with your own.
But I'll assume you're right for a sec. Let's assume that Google cares a ton about making sure their privacy policy is consistent, but it's just an insanely hard job and nobody could do any better.
Why does that matter? In that scenario, I still don't trust your privacy policy. I don't care whether it's inconsistent because people are incompetent or because the problem is hard. In either case, the privacy policy is unreliable. If I can't trust it in Chrome's case, how can I trust it in Gmail's case, or in Adword's case, or in any other product?
In a way, saying it's a hard problem is even worse. I would have felt better if you had come back and said, "oh, the Chrome team is just uniquely incompetent, but everybody else has got their stuff together."