[nightpool]

All of the reporting is ignoring this fact because everyone who's commenting on this issue is ignoring this fact in favor of their own assumptions about how the platform works. "Opt-out for testing, opt-in for production" has been the design from day one, but a lie can run 'round the world before the truth has got its boots on.

(And while the author does say "Best guess", this isn't just an empty Google promise—if this changes, it would change the entire tenor of consensus-based standardization discussions that are happening here, and significantly lower Google's standing in the web standards community, which they care a lot about)

[t0mas88]

Not just an empty Google promise, but really not even a promise at all. This is just some poor guy that really wants to believe his employer "won't be evil" while the rest of the world already knows they are. But hey, a few more years of making money from his stock options and more obvious moves from Google and then he'll leave and talk like he's the world's biggest privacy advocate...