Google had said a lot of things during the years. Lying is second nature. As soon as there is a possibility to increase revenue, get on the good side of advertisers, or decrease competition, they will.
You have to understand that they are working under capitalism, where the only thing that matters is to grow your profits every year, or your stocks tank.
They are there for profits, and don’t care at all about the internets health or wellbeing. Maybe some employees do but it doesn’t matter. They don’t decide what to work on.
Google wants the internet sites to be like cable TV. You subscribe to them, you can’t block ads, and you have to run their allowed operating systems and devices. They make all the rules. You can do nothing.