The policy existed, management just assumed that they would implicitly understand that they shouldn’t work on research that will knee-cap Google.

Of course, they also hired unhinged woke employees so it’s no surprised they’re reaping the seeds they sowed

The Reuters article says exactly the opposite. If you have documentation that this policy has been in place but ignored, I think that would have a big impact on this unfolding story, it definitely strike me as newsworthy.

The Reuters article clearly refers to this as a new change in policy and procedure.

"Google’s new review procedure asks that researchers consult with legal, policy and public relations teams before pursuing topics such as face and sentiment analysis and categorizations of race, gender or political affiliation, according to internal webpages explaining the policy."

"Studying Google services for biases is among the “sensitive topics” under the company’s new policy, according to an internal webpage. Among dozens of other “sensitive topics” listed were the oil industry, China, Iran, Israel, COVID-19, home security, insurance, location data, religion, self-driving vehicles, telecoms and systems that recommend or personalize web content."

To be clear, there was a review policy prior to the new one, but it's focus was rather different, the primary concern was on not revealing proprietary information. Which is a fairly reasonable restriction, though I would be interested to know what, if any, papers were asked to be withdrawn or retracted under the old policy.