Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

guest · Aug 1, 2018

Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
August 1, 2018
https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engine-censorship/

The project – code-named Dragonfly – has been underway since spring of last year, and accelerated following a December 2017 meeting between Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai and a top Chinese government official, according to internal Google documents and people familiar with the plans.

The app has already been demonstrated to the Chinese government; the finalized version could be launched in the next six to nine months, pending approval from Chinese officials.

[...] the first time in almost a decade that the internet giant has operated its search engine in the country.
The app Google is building for China will comply with the country’s strict censorship laws, restricting access to content that Xi Jinping’s Communist Party regime deems unfavorable.

Patrick Poon, a Hong Kong-based researcher with human rights group Amnesty International, told The Intercept that Google’s decision to comply with the censorship would be “a big disaster for the information age.”
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mirimir · Aug 1, 2018

Oh, well.

guest · Aug 4, 2018

Google Is in China Cloud Talks With Tencent, Others
August 03, 2018
https://www.itprotoday.com/premisecloud/google-china-cloud-talks-tencent-others

Google wants to get back into China, and is laying the groundwork for a key part of the initiative: bringing its cloud business to the world’s second-largest economy.

The goal is to run Google internet-based services -- such as Drive and Docs -- via the domestic data centers and servers of Chinese providers, similar to the way other U.S. cloud companies access that market.

After years of slowly rebuilding a presence in China, Google has pressed the accelerator recently. It’s building a cloud data center region in Hong Kong this year and opened an artificial intelligence research center in Beijing in January. [...] A cloud partnership for Google in China would help the company compete more with larger rivals Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp.
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Rasheed187 · Aug 4, 2018

mood said: ↑

Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
August 1, 2018
https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engine-censorship/
Click to expand...

Yes I saw this, Baidu got hammered on the stock exchange, not surprisingly. I remember when I was using Yahoo, Lycos and Ask Jeeves back in the days, then came Google with a vastly superior product.

guest · Aug 5, 2018

Senators grill Google over rumored China search engine
They want to know what changed since Google left the Chinese market nearly a decade ago.
August 05, 2018
https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/05/google-censored-search-engine-china-senators-letter/

A group of six Democratic and Republican Senators led by Marco Rubio has penned a letter addressed to Google chief Sundar Pichai demanding concrete answers. They want to know once and for all whether the tech giant is conjuring up a version of its search engine that'll work behind the Great Firewall.

They explained that the project (again, if it actually exists) sets a worrying precedent. After all, if the country's government can force the biggest search engine in the world to comply with its censorship requirements, then smaller entities would have a hard time entering the market without compromising their values.

Another question Rubio wants answered is whether Google will turn over users' search histories if the country's government demands it. As a final dig at the tech giant, they're asking for any other info it can share to prove that it can reconcile this move with its "Don't be evil" motto.
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letter (PDF): https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/9b139bf6-d0c1-4969-aaf2-4a4aede8ed35/397FE4632728A13B6EEABDB5956550AC.8-3-18-letter-to-mr.-pichai-re-censorship-in-china.pdf

guest · Aug 9, 2018

Google tracked banned words to refine rumored China search engine
It may have been studying these search terms for years.
August 08, 2018
https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/08/google-used-site-to-refine-censored-china-search-engine/

The Intercept has obtained documents reportedly showing that Google has been using 265.com, a hybrid information and search portal it acquired in 2008, as a "honeypot" that would help it develop a blacklist for search terms in China. Google has supposedly been collecting info about search queries, which technically redirect to Baidu, to see if they would be censored.

If this is accurate, though, it suggests that Google has been looking into a potential Chinese search engine for a long time -- even if its leadership has raised objections to the idea.
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chrisretusn · Aug 11, 2018

Test bed for else where. <grin>

mirimir · Aug 11, 2018

Damn, I'm glad that I don't live in China. Or pretty much anywhere in the Middle East.

Dermot7 · Aug 16, 2018

Google Staff Tell Bosses China Censorship is “Moral and Ethical” Crisis

Ryan Gallagher
August 16 2018, 5:38 p.m.

Google employees are demanding answers from the company’s leadership amid growing internal protests over plans to launch a censored search engine in China.

Staff inside the internet giant’s offices have agreed that the censorship project raises “urgent moral and ethical issues” and have circulated a letter saying so, calling on bosses to disclose more about the company’s work in China, which they say is shrouded in too much secrecy, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter.
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hawki · Aug 16, 2018

Dermot7 said: ↑

Google Staff Tell Bosses China Censorship is “Moral and Ethical” Crisis
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"...The letter is circulating on Google’s internal communication systems and is signed by about 1,400 employees..."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Trooper · Aug 16, 2018

chrisretusn said: ↑

Test bed for else where. <grin>
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Yup. My thoughts exactly.

mirimir · Aug 17, 2018

I do get, of course, concerns about Google (re)launching in China, and agreeing to cooperate with its government.

On the other hand, how different is that from Google's compliance with the "right to be forgotten" in the EU? Or from other forms of court-ordered censorship in the UK? Or from various sorts of censorship by the US etc?

Dermot7 · Aug 17, 2018

Google Executives Misled Staff in Meeting on China Censorship. Here Are 13 Questions They Must Answer.

Ryan Gallagher
August 17 2018, 2:09 p.m.

Google bosses have broken their silence on the company’s plan to launch a censored search engine in China amid mounting internal protests over the project.

On Thursday, CEO Sundar Pichai admitted to employees during an all-hands meeting that the censorship project – code-named Dragonfly – had been “in an exploration stage for quite a while now,” according to two sources who heard his remarks. Pichai emphasized his belief that Google should return to China, but claimed that the company was “not close to launching a search product in China.” Facing employee criticism for shrouding Dragonfly in secrecy, Pichai vowed that “we’ll definitely be transparent as we get closer to actually having a plan of record.”
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mirimir · Aug 17, 2018

Isn't it likely that Dragonfly started before, or soon after, Google exited the Chinese market, some years ago?

Dermot7 · Aug 17, 2018

mirimir said: ↑

Isn't it likely that Dragonfly started before, or soon after, Google exited the Chinese market, some years ago?
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Probably so, but the censorship has been increased and intensified more widely in the time since Google's first venture. So compliance becomes more questionable now?

oliverjia · Aug 17, 2018

This stupid Pichai guy is a greedy corrupted moron. He should resign from his position.

mirimir · Aug 17, 2018

Dermot7 said: ↑

Probably so, but the censorship has been increased and intensified more widely in the time since Google's first venture. So compliance becomes more questionable now?
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Sure. But what are Google's options? They can refuse to cooperate with the Chinese, and be accessible only through VPNs. Not even via Tor, given how they block Tor users. And now that Google has acknowledged that the EU can censor them, it becomes harder to argue that it's immoral to let China censor them. Also, the Chinese market is huge. And I'm sure that refusal to cooperate with the Chinese limits their ability to profit in that market.

So both practical morality and profit motive argue for participation.

Personally, I'd rather see something like Google that operated outside all jurisdictions, and was entirely uncensored. And not advertising driven. But so it goes.

Dermot7 · Aug 17, 2018

mirimir said: ↑

Also, the Chinese market is huge. And I'm sure that refusal to cooperate with the Chinese limits their ability to profit in that market.
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Indeed, dollar-desire is usually the ultimate motivator/decider, even at sometimes questionable impact/cost.
Sorry, but I see your argument about the European compliance as a slightly 'apples v oranges' view.

Minimalist · Aug 18, 2018

China's National Cybersecurity Standards Considered a Risk for Foreign Firms

The Chinese government may use a collection of 300 so-called "national cybersecurity standards" to deter or sabotage the efforts of foreign tech firms trying to enter the Chinese market.

These national cybersecurity standards are government-issued documents containing various cybersecurity-related recommendations for the design and operation of various products, such as routers, firewalls, or even software applications.

Some of these standards describe methods of providing the Chinese government with access to sensitive data belonging to Chinese citizens that's handled by a particular type of service or hardware product. Other stipulations provide a list of acceptable encryption algorithms, while other specify a product's desired cross-border data transfer and behavior.
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https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...tandards-considered-a-risk-for-foreign-firms/

guest · Sep 13, 2018

Google employees are reportedly resigning over China search efforts
September 13, 2018
https://www.cnet.com/news/google-employees-are-reportedly-resigning-over-china-search-efforts/

Google employees unhappy with the search giant's efforts to re-enter China are resigning in protest, according to news reports published Thursday.

Now, some employees appear to be going to the next level by leaving the company altogether. That includes Jack Poulson, a senior research scientist who worked at Google for more than two years, according to articles by The Intercept and BuzzFeed. He was previously an assistant mathematics professor at Stanford, according to his LinkedIn profile, and tendered his resignation from Google on Aug. 31.

At least six other employees have also resigned over Dragonfly, according to BuzzFeed. A list of employees' names has been circulating throughout the company's internal communications systems, the report said.

According to The Intercept, Poulson said in his resignation letter that he was concerned not only about censorship, but the prospect of China hosting consumer data, where it could be accessed to go after political activists and journalists.
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guest · Sep 15, 2018

Google China Prototype Links Searches to Phone Numbers
September 14, 2018
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype-links-searches-to-phone-numbers/

Google built a prototype of a censored search engine for China that links users’ searches to their personal phone numbers, thus making it easier for the Chinese government to monitor people’s queries, The Intercept can reveal.

Previously undisclosed details about the plan, obtained by The Intercept on Friday, show that Google compiled a censorship blacklist that included terms such as “human rights,” “student protest,” and “Nobel Prize” in Mandarin.

“This is very problematic from a privacy point of view, because it would allow far more detailed tracking and profiling of people’s behavior,” said Cynthia Wong, senior internet researcher with Human Rights Watch. “Linking searches to a phone number would make it much harder for people to avoid the kind of overreaching government surveillance that is pervasive in China.”
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JRViejo · Sep 21, 2018

Every time we hear a new report about Google's alleged censored search engine for China, it sounds more damning. Now, The Intercept is reporting that Google tried -- and apparently, failed -- to suppress a memo that may have revealed how that search engine could have allowed the Chinese government to track those citizens who used it.
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Report: Google suppressed an explosive memo about its Chinese search engine by Sean Hollister.

guest · Sep 26, 2018

Ex-Google employee calls for more transparency about China search project
September 26, 2018
https://www.cnet.com/news/ex-google-employee-calls-for-more-transparency-about-china-search-project/

Now, as Google and other tech companies prepare to be grilled by the Senate on Wednesday over consumer data and privacy, Poulson argues that legislators need to drive them to be more transparent and accountable over the services they build.

"Greater oversight and accountability of not only data, but also the systems that are designed and deployed based on such data, is urgently needed," Paulson, a former senior research scientist in Google's Research and Machine Intelligence division, wrote in a letter to Congress, which he shared with CNET.

"Trust in big tech is at an all-time low," said Cynthia Wong, senior internet researcher at the Human Rights Watch, who has read Poulson's letter. "The fact that Google isn't responding to its own employees is troubling."

The full letter is below: [...]
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guest · Sep 26, 2018

Google confirms Dragonfly project in Senate hearing, dodges questions on China plans
September 26, 2018
https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/26/...nate-hearing-dodges-questions-on-china-plans/

During a Wednesday Senate hearing, Google’s chief privacy officer Keith Enright confirmed that the company has a project codenamed Dragonfly — reported to be a censored search engine that’s being prepared to launch in China — but didn’t say what the project covers.

“I am not clear on the contours of what is in scope or out of scope for that project,” Enright said in response to a question from Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). It appears to be the first time that someone from Google has confirmed that the company has a project codenamed Dragonfly, after nearly two months of speculation about it.

Sen. Cruz also asked Enright if “in your opinion, does China engage in censoring its citizens,” to which Enright responded, “As the privacy representative for Google, I’m not sure that I have an informed opinion on that question.”
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guest · Oct 10, 2018

Report: Google to launch censored Search in China despite denials
October 9, 2018
https://thenextweb.com/artificial-i...nch-censored-search-in-china-despite-denials/

Google intends to launch a censored version of its Search app for China sometime in the next six to nine months, according to a leaked transcript from a private employee meeting held last month.

The Intercept’s Ryan Gallagher today reported the company’s Search engine chief, Ben Gomes, held a meeting to congratulate a room full of employees working on the platform, dubbed Project Dragonfly.

He goes on to point out that the current political climate makes it difficult to pinpoint a definite timeline, but indicates employees should be ready to launch whenever a “window opens.”

These comments come in stark contrast to public statements given recently by both Gomes and Google’s chief privacy officer, Kieth Enright.
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