Google’s controversial censored search engine project for China is dying off
Following months of public backlash, several employee resignations, and hundreds of employees signing a letter against the project, it appears Google (GOOGL) has abruptly hindered progress on its search engine website for Chinese markets. A report from The Intercept back in August disclosed that the worldwide search engine giant was working hard on a “censored search engine” for China, a decision that prompted severe backlash towards the company.
The Interceptor’s report claimed that Google was taking search data from a Beijing-based web directory service owned by Google, called “265,” and using that data to see if the results presented would be blocked by the country’s Great Firewall. Unlike other Google services, such as Google search and the company’s video sharing website YouTube, 265 is not blocked in China by the country’s firewall that blocks Internet content that is considered to be “undesirable” by the ruling Communist Party. The website is frequently used to redirect users towards other content, including sending any search queries to China’s most prominent search engine, Baidu. Before search queries are redirected to Baidu, however, Google then collects the search query anonymously and stores it for future use. One of those uses, The Interceptor claimed, was for Google’s Project Dragonfly, a new search engine for China that would censor information in order to comply with China’s strict Internet guidelines.
According to sources familiar with the project, the data from the Chinese website 265 was “integral” to the development of Project Dragonfly. However, after the report from The Intercept broke out, the Google engineers working on Project Dragonfly had their access to the 265 search data suspended. This was because under the company’s protocols, access to search data is subject to tight constraints, and privacy staffers for Google became “really pissed” about the way the 265 data was being used, and suspended the team’s access to it.
In the weeks following the 265 data debacle within the search engine company, the Project Dragonfly team was ordered to use other methods of analyzing search queries. Their latest efforts have been to use “global Chinese” search queries, or queries made from people living in countries besides China. However, these queries are supposedly very different from the searches made from within mainland China, making the team’s data analysis almost impossible. This has resulted in the project essentially dying off, and several teams of engineers have been removed from the Dragonfly team and placed elsewhere to focus on more important efforts in other countries.
Another source familiar with the matter told Fox News that Google’s goal to serve Chinese users “has not diminished” and added that the company’s mission is to “create access for all the world’s information to as many users as possible.” Google search has not serviced Chinese users in roughly eight years, as the company famously pulled out of China back in 2010, saying that it would not provide a censored search engine for the country.
“Right now there are no plans for us to launch a search product in China. We are, in general, always looking to see how best it’s part of our core mission and our principles to try hard to provide users with information. We have evidence, based on every country we’ve operated in, us reaching out and giving users more information has a very positive impact and we feel that calling. But right now there are no plans to launch in China. To the extent we approach a position like that, I will be fully transparent, including with policy makers here, and engage and consult widely.”
— Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, in a testimony given to Capitol Hill last week.
Google originally planned to launch Project Dragonfly in China sometime between January and April of 2019, but sources claim that the “extraordinary” backlash that ensued after the news broke out has forced the company to halt the project. The company was also engulfed in several internal conflicts following the reports, including the resignation of several Google employees and over 700 employees signing a letter in opposition of the project. Those employees who were in opposition of the censored search engine claimed that the project would enable state surveillance, more censorship, and government-directed misinformation within the country. They also claimed that the search engine would help violate basic human rights and the company’s own moral values.
The Project Dragonfly debate is just the latest example of internal conflict within the company, as earlier this year Google employees signed a letter urging the company to stop progress on Project Maven, an artificial intelligence program that would assist with government drone strikes. Googlers also walked out over issues like sexual harassment and pay inequality within the company a few months ago.
The halting of Project Dragonfly appears to be a huge win for human rights and Internet rights activists, who were also concerned by the plan to aid the People’s Republic of China in its efforts to censor and control information from within its own country. The country’s Internet firewall remains intact and stronger than ever, however, as recent efforts have been made to entirely block Virtual Private Networks, a tool commonly used to bypass the Great Firewall. The country, which has an population estimated to be more than 1.38 billion people, would be a huge market for Google to compete in (and earn plenty of revenue from advertising), but it seems the search engine giant will have to steer clear from the country for a little while longer.