A key government from Google’s information division has reportedly resigned from his put up – a departure that occurred throughout a interval of rising tensions with publishers who’ve accused the search big of siphoning essential promoting income.
Shailesh Prakash had served as a vp and normal supervisor for Google Information. A supply confirmed that he’s now not with the corporate.
The Wall Road Journal first reported on his resignation, citing individuals aware of the matter.
The circumstances behind Prakash’s resignation weren’t instantly clear. Google declined to remark.
Prakash’s job expertise gave him distinctive perception into the information trade’s gripes with Google. He joined Google in Nov. 2022 after an 11-year stint on the Washington Put up, the place he served as chief product and expertise officer, in line with his LinkedIn profile.
He was credited with guiding the newspaper’s shift towards digital content material throughout that interval, together with its creation of an in-house promoting expertise enterprise, the Journal stated.
Prakash reportedly labored intently with billionaire Jeff Bezos after the Amazon founder purchased the Washington Put up for $500 million in 2013. The outgoing Google government beforehand held roles at Sears and Microsoft.
Google has confronted intense scrutiny in current months over its enterprise practices and the alleged hurt they’ve precipitated to information publishers, which depend on the search big for the positioning visitors that underpins advert gross sales.
The Large Tech big rankled on-line publishers final Could after it launched a function known as “AI Overviews” – which locations an auto-generated abstract on the high of its search outcomes whereas burying hyperlinks to different websites.
Information Media Alliance, a nonprofit that represents greater than 2,200 publishers, together with The Put up, stated the function could be “catastrophic to our traffic” and has known as on the feds to intervene.
Critics allege that Google used publishers’ copyrighted content material to “train” its synthetic intelligence instruments with out correct credit score or attribution. Google can be accused of dodging legislative efforts aimed toward making tech corporations pay their justifiable share.
Final month, The Put up solely reported on emails that exposed how Google leveraged its entry to the Workplace of the US Commerce Consultant because it sought to undermine abroad laws — together with Canada’s On-line Information Act, which required Google to pay for the precise to show information content material.
The Justice Division has a significant antitrust case focusing on Google’s digital promoting enterprise. The feds allege that Google has abused a stranglehold on digital market expertise to siphon income from publishers and advertisers alike.
In September, a former government from The Put up’s father or mother Information Corp testified that the publishing big thought-about switching away from Google’s advert merchandise in 2017, however balked after calculating that it might price the corporate no less than $9 million in misplaced income.
Closing arguments within the DOJ’s digital promoting case in opposition to Google are scheduled to happen on Nov. 25, with a last ruling anticipated early subsequent 12 months.
Individually, a federal choose dominated in August that Google operates an unlawful monopoly over on-line search. Choose Amit Mehta is predicted to rule on potential cures by subsequent summer season.
Whereas outlining potential options to interrupt Google’s monopoly, the DOJ warned that the rise of AI was an “emerging barrier to competition and risks further entrenching Google’s dominance” until steps are taken to handle it.
