Google is still considering whether to launch a censored version of its search product in China, as confirmed by CEO Sundar Pichai during a recent event. “It’s very early. We don’t know whether we could or would do this in China, but we felt it was important for us to explore,” Pichai stated at the Wired25 conference in San Francisco on Monday.
The company publicly acknowledged the existence of this controversial project during a Senate committee hearing in late September. Codenamed “Dragonfly” within Google, the initiative was first reported by The Intercept in August. Initially kept under wraps, Google faced significant scrutiny when news about Dragonfly leaked, leading to over 1,000 employees signing a letter demanding more transparency about the project, according to a report by The New York Times.
Pichai’s comments underscore the complexity of operating in a market like China, where internet censorship is prevalent and government regulations are stringent. The implications of re-entering such a market are profound, not just for Google but also for users who seek unfiltered access to information. This situation continues to evolve as stakeholders on all sides watch closely for developments.
On Monday, Pichai characterized Dragonfly as an exploratory internal project aimed at understanding the implications of operating in a market like China. He expressed that Google’s absence in China — a country home to 20% of the world’s population — weighs heavily on the company’s mission to deliver information “to everyone.” “We wanted to learn what it would look like if Google were in China,” Pichai explained. “So that’s what we built internally. If Google were to operate in China, what would it look like?” According to Pichai, their findings suggested that Chinese government censors would block less than 1% of users’ searches, indicating that a censored version could still provide significant access to information for users in China.