Google’s top lobbyist stepping down

WASHINGTON: Google’s top lobbyist in Washington is stepping aside as the US technology company faces criticism on Capitol Hill on issues including privacy protections and its investment plans in China, the Alphabet Inc unit said on Friday.

Former US Representative Susan Molinari (pictured), who has run Google’s Washington office and its Americas Policy team for nearly seven years, will move to a new job as senior adviser in January, the company said in a statement. Google is seeking a new head of Americas policy, it added.

“I am comfortable in making the transition,” said Molinari, 60, who had served as vice chair of the House Republican Conference before resigning from Congress in 1997 to become a Saturday morning news anchor on CBS. She added in a statement that she had been “looking for the right time to step back.”

Alphabet faced criticism from Republicans and Democrats for refusing to send parent company Chief Executive Larry Page or Google CEO Sundar Pichai to a Senate hearing in September, where senators left an empty chair next to Twitter Inc’s CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook Inc’s chief operating officer.

Pichai in September cancelled a trip to Asia to meet with lawmakers and agreed to testify before Congress later this year.

Google also has faced this year numerous accusations from President Donald Trump and other Republican leaders that its search results promote content critical of conservatives and demote rightleaning news outlets, a charge that Google denies.

Lawmakers have questioned whether it would accept China’s censorship demands as it considers reentering the search engine market there. Last month, VicePresident Mike Pence called on Google to abandon the Chinese project.

Pichai said at a forum that the project was “more of an experiment” and reiterated that there is “nothing imminent” on whether it will launch a search engine in China. — Reuters