Google, just like any other company, has to balance between something working and working the right way. The Google managers are probably just fine with polling

Google, just like any other company, has to balance between something working and working the right way. The Google managers are probably just fine with polling and, as you said, the bandwidth isn’t even a rounding error. Who sits at the Google search page for longer than a minute or two waiting for scores to update? They probably aren’t waiting for more than a couple polls.