When your motto is "don't be evil", don't be surprised when you're held to a higher standard.
the higher standards are a little bit lower in Russia.
But not providing that choice based solely on a user's location, that's worthy of criticism.
The choice is there, you can change the settings, the ballot just doesn't popup.
It just seems that by your standards Google would have come out better off having never introduced the ballot, which was a good idea.
Google adores the reputation they have for somehow being above the fray and simply being the best. They cultivate this image. But over and over it's revealed that they are a normal company, who does things such as "delayed open source" to keep partners in line, purposely introducing systematic flaws in their Web search API, and of course the foregoing "special circumstances", all of which are sneaky ways to have the appearance of the image they want, while keeping their competitive advantage.
I don't begrudge them these decisions, but all the Google fawning does get a little hard to take, as if they have some sort of moral superiority. The facts say otherwise. They are not altruistic. They do not make decisions that might hurt themselves in order to give others an equal chance. Google has replaced Apple is the PR machine extraordinaire in the modern corporate world.