Every program to be installed in system directories like /usr/bin, for use by all users on the system, needs root access in order to do the install.
My guess, it’s photo shopped by odumbo to take the heat off all his OTHER phony scandals. IMO, he’s still GUILTY as suspected but not yet charged.
Mac OS X, as well as regular ol' UNIX for that matter, allows you to put the application wherever you want. You want it to be used by all users? Simple: put it in the "/Applications" directory. No root access needed, the drag-and-drop just needs to be done by someone with administrator privileges.
Google's request for such privileges for a simple app install is ridiculous, dangerous, and given Google's proclivities and ties into those with even worse proclivities, troubling.