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Google co-founders step aside as antitrust scrutiny heats up

Published:Wednesday | December 4, 2019 | 12:45 PM
In this September 2, 2008, file photo Google co-founders Sergey Brin (left) and Larry Page talk about the new Google Browser, "Chrome," during a news conference at Google Inc. headquarters in Mountain View, California. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google’s co-founders are relinquishing their executive positions just as state and federal regulators, not to mention the Department of Justice and Congress, are taking a keen interest in possible abuse of its privacy practices and market power.

But their long foreshadowed successor, Sundar Pichai, has been well-prepped to serve as the public face of the company in addition to his current role as chief executive.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin are stepping down as CEO and president, respectively, of Google parent company Alphabet.

The move caps more than two decades during which the pair have shepherded the one-time startup they founded in a Silicon Valley garage.

Pichai, who has been Google’s CEO since 2015, will now also head up Alphabet.

The company isn’t filling Brin’s position as president.

Google is facing increasing criticism and investigations from authorities in the US and Europe about its privacy policies and nature of its many-legged business.

That will now fall to Pichai to wrangle and push through — though Brin and Page, both 46, have noticeably backed out of the spotlight already.

Both stopped making appearances earlier this year at the regular question-and-answer sessions with employees, and Page didn’t attend this summer’s Alphabet shareholders meeting even though he was still in the CEO role.

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