Google's leading lobbyist in Washington resigns

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Google's leading lobbyist in Washington departs as the US tech company is criticized at Capitol Hill over issues such as privacy and investment plans in China, Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) said Friday.

Former US Representative Susan Molinari, who runs Google's office in Washington and her US strategy team for nearly seven years, will take up a new senior advisory role in January, the company said in a statement. communicated. Google is looking for a new policy officer for the Americas, he added.

"I'm comfortable making the transition," said Molinari, 60, vice president of the House Republican Conference, before resigning from Congress in 1997 to become the Saturday morning news presenter on CBS. She added in a statement that she was "looking for the right moment to step back".

Republicans and Democrats have criticized Alphabet for refusing to send parent company president Larry Page or Google CEO Sundar Pichai to a Senate hearing in September, where senators have left an empty seat next to Twitter Inc. (TWTR.N) CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook Inc (FB.O) Chief Executive Officer.

In September, Pichai canceled a trip to Asia to meet legislators and agreed to testify before Congress later this year.

Google has also been confronted this year with numerous accusations by President Donald Trump and other Republican leaders that his research results promote content criticizing conservatives and demoting right-wing media outlets, which Google denies.

Lawmakers have wondered whether it would accept China's censorship requirements, which plans to return to the search engine market. Last month, Vice President Mike Pence called on Google to abandon the Chinese project.

Pichai said at a forum on Thursday that the project was "more of an experience" and reiterated that there was "nothing imminent" about the possibility of launching an engine. research in China.

In June, Google hired Karan Bhatia to lead the global policy of General Electric Co (GE.N) Bhatia served as US Deputy Trade Representative to former President George W. Bush. The company also named Pablo Chavez, a Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) lobbyist and former senior advisor to Republican John McCain, as another senior lobbyist in June.

Alphabet announced last month that it would close the mainstream version of its faulty Google+ social network and tighten its data sharing rules after announcing that the private profile data of at least 500,000 users would have been exposed to hundreds of external developers.

"Google must be more open with the public and lawmakers if the company wants to maintain or regain the trust of users of its services," said three high-ranking Republicans to Google in a letter of Oct. 11. They said they were "particularly disappointed" by the fact that Google did not reveal the problem at a hearing on privacy two weeks earlier.

In 2012, Google agreed to pay a record civil fine of $ 22.5 million for the Federal Trade Commission's charges against the Federal Trade Commission that it would provide misleading information to Apple Inc.'s users (AAPL.O) Safari Internet Browser that does not place tracking "cookies" or deliver targeted ads to them.