Google is preparing to launch a special version of the censored search for China. The new search engine under the pilot name Dragonfly will not search for sites and search queries that are contrary to the policies of the Chinese authorities.
According to sources at Google, work on this project has been going on since spring of last year and has accelerated significantly since the meeting of the head of Google, Sundar Pichai, with top government officials in China in December 2017.
Dragonfly will comply with all laws of China, including a ban on Facebook and Twitter, as well as the display of opposition sites. The search engine will automatically remove requests related to human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protests from search results.
The company has already created several versions of such a search engine for the Android system. The final version may be introduced six to nine months after approval by the Chinese government.
Recall that at this time, the Google search engine and all other services of the company, including Gmail and Google Maps, are prohibited in China. To access them, users have to use a VPN.
The conflict between Google and China erupted in 2010 after the search leader refused to censor search results in the country. As a result, Google transferred most of its Chinese operations to Hong Kong. After these events, difficulties arose with access to the company’s services in mainland China.
The last time Google came under attack from the Chinese authorities was in June 2014, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the suppression of pro-democratic protests in Tiananmen Square. During this period, Google’s service package, including Google+, Gchat and Drive, was blocked. At the end of 2014, the Chinese authorities have completely restricted access to the Google email service – Gmail.
