And so they built it.
Google's plan was to launch a search engine in China, approved by the country's government forces, who would also have the opportunity to censor all content they do not want the population to see.
And so they built it.
Google's plan was to launch a search engine in China, approved by the country's government forces, who would also have the opportunity to censor all content they do not want the population to see.
Stopped by internal disagreements
But the project should now have been put on ice after the plans for a censored Google search engine were revealed by The Intercept in August. Google employees should have just received the service during the late summer, and many of them did not like what they saw at all, and made among the China censorship meme-they were spread internally.
Many were also anxious about what the company was doing, as the project became more and more closed and the fact that Google did not want to discuss it.
Used widely used portal to gather information
As late as August, Google employees worked with Dragonfly, which is the code name of the project.
More specifically, they should have used a Bejing-based website to develop blacklist for the search engine. The blacklist would block not only individual websites and services but entire categories of information, including "democracy", "human rights" and nonviolent demonstrations. Just the same powers in the country wanted it.
It's also interesting to know that Google has used 256.com, referred to as the country's most widely used website, to retrieve information about what people are looking for in order to better create a censored search engine. Google bought 256.com from Cai Wensheng, a Chinese billionaire, back in 2008.
Is the project on ice?
And that's what The Intercept now reports: The company's management must have met so much skepticism internally that they've probably dropped the entire search engine project - it's supposed to be the company's human rights division that set foot.
This is a big defeat for Google boss Sundar Pichai, who fought hard on this and just had to respond to American politicians, including in relation to alleged censorship in the United States. Pichai then said that "right now" there are no plans to launch Dragonfly.
As far as 256.com is concerned, the Personnel Division has not been aware of what they used the domain but should have reacted strongly after The Intercept disclosed the information. It eventually ended that the domain could no longer be used, which destroyed a lot for Dragonfly.
The plan was originally to launch Dragonfly between January and April 2019, but two sources claim that the project has been stopped. At least until now.