Tech Quisling

Google Testing A Censored Search Engine For China

By JAMES DOUBEK

Google is testing a mobile version of its search engine that will adhere to the Chinese government's censorship demands, including the blocking of websites and search terms, according to multiple reports.
China's government goes to great lengths to control its citizens' access to information on the Internet, creating what's been dubbed the "Great Firewall."
Google removed its search engine service from China in 2010 and said at the time that it "could no longer continue censoring our results" in the country.
The website The Intercept, which first reported the program, said the search engine "will blacklist websites and search terms about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest."
The Intercept reports Google's new app could launch within six to nine months, though The Wall Street Journal and New York Times reported separately, citing anonymous sources, that the product is only being tested and may never be deployed.
Chinese authorities would have to approve any version before it is launched. 

Google has demonstrated the app to officials from the Chinese government, according to The Intercept and the Times.
The project is code-named "Dragonfly" and started in the spring of 2017, The Intercept reported.
With more than 770 million Internet users as of late last year, China has long been an attractive market for tech companies.
But operating in China has been a complex struggle for many U.S.-based businesses. 

Among the complaints are that Chinese companies are stealing their trade secrets.
California-based Google would also face stiff competition from China's Baidu — though stock in that company fell Wednesday on news of Google's possible return.
Human rights activists denounced Google's possible reversal. 

"It will be a dark day for internet freedom if Google has acquiesced to China's extreme censorship rules to gain market access," Amnesty International's China Researcher Patrick Poon said in a statement. 

"... For the world's biggest search engine to adopt such extreme measures would be a gross attack on freedom of information and internet freedom. In putting profits before human rights, Google would be setting a chilling precedent and handing the Chinese government a victory."
Tech companies have seen pushback from human rights advocates before for accepting demands imposed by the Chinese government. 

Last summer, Apple faced criticism after it removed VPN software — which many Chinese use to get around the "Great Firewall" — from its Chinese app store.
Despite pulling its search engine in 2010, Google currently has more than 700 employees in China, according to the Times. 

"We provide a number of mobile apps in China, such as Google Translate and Files Go, help Chinese developers, and have made significant investments in Chinese companies like JD.com," Google spokesperson Taj Meadows told the newspaper, adding that he wouldn't comment on "speculation about future plans."
Some of Google's own employees were not happy about the prospect of offering a censored search to appease China's government. 

One employee told Bloomberg the project was a "censorship engine," while several employees "expressed their disappointment about the China project on internal messaging platforms," according to the Times.
The ongoing trade dispute between President Trump and China's government further complicates the prospect of Google re-entering China's market. 

On Wednesday, the Trump administration threatened to increase proposed tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports. 

Tech Quisling

Whistleblower reveals Google’s plans for censored search in China
The search engine would filter sites like Wikipedia and information about topics like freedom of speech
By James Vincent

Google is planning to re-launch its search engine in China, complete with censored results to meet the demands of the Chinese government. 

The company originally shut down its Chinese search engine in 2010, citing government attempts to “limit free speech on the web.” 

But according to a report from The Intercept, the US tech giant now wants to return to the world’s biggest single market for internet users.
According to internal documents provided to The Intercept by a whistleblower, Google has been developing a censored version of its search engine under the codename Dragonfly since the beginning of 2017. 

The search engine is being built as an Android mobile app, and will reportedly “blacklist sensitive queries” and filter out all websites blocked by China’s web censors (including Wikipedia and BBC News). 

The censorship will extend to Google’s image search, spell check, and suggested search features.
The whistleblower who spoke to The Intercept said they did so because they were “against large companies and governments collaborating in the oppression of their people.” 

They also suggested that “what is done in China will become a template for many other nations.”

The web is heavily censored in China, with the country’s so-called Great Firewall stopping citizens from accessing many sites. 

Information on topics like religion, police brutality, freedom of speech, and democracy are heavily filtered, while specific search topics (like the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and Taiwanese independence) are censored completely. 

Advocacy groups report that censorship in the country has increased under Xi Jinping, extending beyond the web to social media and chat apps.
Patrick Poon, a researcher with Amnesty International, agreed with this assessment. 

Poon told The Intercept that if Google launches a censored version of its search engine in China it will “set a terrible precedent” for other companies. 

“The biggest search engine in the world obeying the censorship in China is a victory for the Chinese government — it sends a signal that nobody will bother to challenge the censorship any more,” said Poon.
In a statement given to The Verge, a spokesperson said: “We provide a number of mobile apps in China, such as Google Translate and Files Go, help Chinese developers, and have made significant investments in Chinese companies like JD.com. But we don’t comment on speculation about future plans.”
According to The Intercept, Google faces a number of substantial barriers before it can launch its new search app in China, including approval from officials in Beijing and “confidence within Google” that the app will be better than its main rival in China, Baidu.
Google previously offered a censored version of its search engine in China between 2006 and 2010, before pulling out of the country after facing criticism in the US. (Politicians said the company was acting as a “functionary of the Chinese government.”) 

In recent months, though, the company has been attempting to reintegrate itself into the Chinese commercial market. 

It launched an AI research lab in Beijing last December, a mobile file management app in January, and an AI-powered doodle game just last month.
Although this suggests Google is eager to get a slice of China’s huge market of some 750 million web users, ambitions to re-launch its search engine may yet go nowhere. 

Reports in past years of plans to bring the Google Play mobile store to China, for example, have so far come to nothing, and Google regularly plans out projects it ultimately rejects.
Notably, relations between China and the US have worsened in recent weeks due to trade tariffs imposed by President Trump. 

The Intercept reports that despite this Google staff have been told to be ready to launch the app at short notice. 

The company’s search engine chief, Ben Gomes, told employees last month that they must be prepared in case “suddenly the world changes or [President Trump] decides his new best friend is Xi Jinping.”