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[Wings 嫩翼翻せ]

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On December 11th, Google CEO Sundar Pichai faced the House Judiciary Committee to discuss increased concerns over privacy matters, bias concerns, and the elephant in the room: China. This began when Pichai reportedly had accelerated the progress of "project Dragonfly" after he met in secret late last year with a Chinese government official, while it had already been in the works since spring last year. What has been introduced to the public by The Intercept (online news magazine) early 2018 continued to be a great concern for American lawmakers as Pichai faced grilling questions, responding often with ambivalent statements.

The key points of debate during his testimony to Congress included censorship requirements which Google must abide by to have means to launch such a service, which had been an issue in the past (hence the shut down of a previous search provision in 2010) describing China's increased, "onerous" requirements had caused issues.

He acknowledges during the several-hour-long questioning that more than 100 employees were at one point working on a China search engine. (Most recent article link)

Some excerpts:

Pichai, who sat for several hours of broad questioning by the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, was grilled about the company's China plans. The Google CEO sidestepped many of the questions by repeating that "right now, there are no plans to launch a search service in China."

But the repeated, and increasingly specific, questions eventually forced Pichai to divulge some details about the internal workings of the censored search project, known as Dragonfly.

"We have explored what search could look like if it were to be launched in a country like China, that's what we explored," Pichai said at one point.

"The number of engineers on the project have varied over time. At one point, we had over 100 people working on it is my understanding," he said in response to questions about the size of the project.

[...] At one point during Tuesday's hearings, a protester barged in and held up a sign that combined the company name and the Chinese flag.

Google offered a censored search engine in China years ago, but the company shut down the service in 2010, saying that the Chinese government's censorship requirements had become too onerous and violated the company's ethics. Dragonfly would represent a major reversal of Google's stance, positioning the company to tap into the world's largest internet market.

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What do you think, GAF? Amidst Google's increased scrutiny, is there a chance it will "turn back" on its values to explore the market in China, home of the most smartphone users? *btw* there are some direct quotes in the article, I highly recommend giving them a read.

 

[Dirk Benedict]

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On December 11th, Google CEO Sundar Pichai faced the House Judiciary Committee to discuss increased concerns over privacy matters, bias concerns, and the elephant in the room: China. This began when Pichai reportedly had accelerated the progress of "project Dragonfly" after he met in secret late last year with a Chinese government official, while it had already been in the works since spring last year. What has been introduced to the public by The Intercept (online news magazine) early 2018 continued to be a great concern for American lawmakers as Pichai faced grilling questions, responding often with ambivalent statements.

The key points of debate during his testimony to Congress included censorship requirements which Google must abide by to have means to launch such a service, which had been an issue in the past (hence the shut down of a previous search provision in 2010) describing China's increased, "onerous" requirements had caused issues.

He acknowledges during the several-hour-long questioning that more than 100 employees were at one point working on a China search engine. (Most recent article link)

Some excerpts:







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What do you think, GAF? Amidst Google's increased scrutiny, is there a chance it will "turn back" on its values to explore the market in China, home of the most smartphone users? *btw* there are some direct quotes in the article, I highly recommend giving them a read.

The way I see it, is if China is willing to give them access to their people, Google WILL want to get in there with Dragonfly. There is so much growth ahead and Google serving ads in China is an end game goal. I wonder if it will happen, though? What they're doing goes against a piece of what makes this country so great. Although we do have censorship, it's nowhere even close to how China doles it out.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

There's no way Google will turn back now. Too profitable. Too lucrative. Why wouldn't they want marketing data on one of the fastest-growing middle classes on planet Earth? That's their bread and butter.

 

[Wings 嫩翼翻せ]

There's no way Google will turn back now. Too profitable. Too lucrative. Why wouldn't they want marketing data on one of the fastest-growing middle classes on planet Earth? That's their bread and butter.

His clear disdain for answering the most important questions in a clear-cut manner seem to be the biggest problem, will definitely show how Google is unable to be trusted as time goes on. Backlash is inevitable with this attitude.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

His clear disdain for answering the most important questions in a clear-cut manner seem to be the biggest problem, will definitely show how Google is unable to be trusted as time goes on. Backlash is inevitable with this attitude.

I didn't want to read too much into the tone but yeah I got the same impression.

 

[Dirk Benedict]

I wish more would participate in this discussion I feel it's very meta and important to throw this topic about.

 

[Weiji]

Google and censorship are two peas in a pod. To think there was a time I thought highly of this scumbag.

 

[CasinB]

Bing.com is getting better and better

 

[Wings 嫩翼翻せ]

Bing.com is getting better and better

I hear DuckDuckGoose is rising in popularity as well.