The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation hits Friday, and multinational tech company Google Inc. has just taken one of the biggest steps toward compliance—appointing a data protection officer.

Google has tapped Keith Enright, who is already well-positioned for the role as Google's legal director for privacy.

In explaining why Enright was chosen, a Google representative cited Enright's more than seven years at the Mountain View, California-based company and the fact that he has spent more than 10 years “at high-growth startups, large consulting practices and Fortune 500 retail and online services organizations.”

As legal director for privacy, Enright has led a team of Google's privacy specialists worldwide and has publicly represented the company, meeting with international and domestic policy makers on privacy and data protection issues, according to his LinkedIn bio.

Prior to joining Google, Enright was chief privacy officer and vice president, privacy for American retailer Macy's for three years. He has also worked in-house at Limited Brands Inc., IBM Corp., Adknowledge Inc. and Lucira Technologies. He earned his J.D. at the George Washington University School of Law.

Enright's DPO responsibilities began Thursday, as Google holds talks with major publishers at four of its global offices about its GDPR plans.

But many publishers and four trade bodies, Digital Content Next, European Publishers Council, News Media Alliance and the News Media Association will not be attending Thursday's Google talks, according to Ad Age. The publishers declined the company's invitation amidst complaints that Google is using its leveraged position in the marketplace to force publishers to accept unfair terms if they want to host Google ads on their sites.