Keith Enright is leaving Google after 13 years as the tech giant restructures its privacy and compliance teams. Matthew Bye, director of competition law, is also departing.

Google’s chief privacy officer, Keith Enright, will depart the tech giant after 13 years, with no plans yet to replace him, as the company restructures its teams in charge of privacy and legal compliance.

Staff were informed of Enright’s departure in mid-May, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter. One told Forbes the news came as a shock to employees, as Enright was well-liked and respected, having steered Google’s privacy team through years in which its data handling practices were held under a microscope by lawmakers, regulators and civil courts.

Matthew Bye, Google’s head of competition law, will be leaving as well, after 15 years with the company and during a critical moment for Google when it comes to antitrust. Last month, the company wrapped up closing arguments in a landmark competition trialbrought on by the Department of Justice, over Google’s contracts with device manufacturers that push users to Google search. Bye did not respond to a request for comment.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    20th century Google: “Don’t be evil.”

    Wow. They sure let that motto slide, didn’t they?

    • Alphane Moon@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      I was young in the 90s/2000s and it honestly felt like computing was a new stage for human progress.

      I clearly wasn’t the only one. There was the “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” in 1996:

      Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

      I think the moral of all this is that fundamentally technology doesn’t matter. If you don’t have the public structures to reign in the oligarchs, shills and liars, you’re not going to get anywhere.

    • Empricorn@feddit.nlEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      I mean, it’s now the same as every massive corporation: “Quarterly profits.”

      No single person will ever be as greedy as a Board filled with the fuckers. It will never be enough…

    • DandomRude@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      They changed it to “do the right thing” around 2018 but never defined what “the right thing” might be - mostly shareholder value, I guess.

    • dinckel@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      Money always comes first, for most of these companies. The era where your data was private is truly over. Now most of these platforms only give you a choice between your data being sold, and your data being sold for like a 2% cut