I'm guessing the intent of the title was to mean "A privacy watchdog should be an independent, possibly public entity, so it's surprising and problematic that a

I'm guessing the intent of the title was to mean "A privacy watchdog should be an independent, possibly public entity, so it's surprising and problematic that a large US corporation has this level of influence over decisions on privacy in Europe". However, without reading the article content, it very much comes across as "Google is doing such surprisingly benign work that it fills the role of privacy watchdog for Europe".