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.
While we are saying it's going to be six and nine months [to launch], the world is a very dynamic place.
These comments come in stark contrast to public statements given recently by both Gomes and Google's chief privacy officer, Kieth Enright.
As we gather here, a new consensus is rising across America. More business leaders are thinking beyond the next quarter, and thinking twice before diving into the Chinese market if it means turning over their intellectual property or abetting Beijing's oppression. But more must follow suit. For example, Google should immediately end development of the "Dragonfly" app that will strengthen Communist Party censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers.
Google has already developed and is reportedly planning to launch a version of Search that censors terms like "Nobel Prize," "democracy," and "peaceful protest" for the citizens of the world's most populous nation. And the company has beefed up Search with special features just for China: It's added full phone number, IP, and location tracking so that every query can be attached to a person.