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Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

theintercept.com

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Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#101

Post by tivert »

shaki-dora wrote: post #82
user2426679 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that this is a great example by Gallagher of all-too-rare "real" journalism. The unfortunate thing is that the headline of this article should probably be "Google's Secret China Project Now Even More Secret."

How would that work? A secret search engine? Or Google pretending to give in under pressure from employees, then turn around and tell them (and everyone else) "haha, we lied" and launching it? How would that not create far larger harm than just not giving in in the first place?

> Or Google pretending to give in under pressure from employees, then turn around and tell them (and everyone else) "haha, we lied" and launching it? How would that not create far larger harm than just not giving in in the first place?

Google hasn't pretended to give in to pressure from employees. Project Dragonfly is still being worked on:

> In recent weeks, teams working on Dragonfly have been told to use different datasets for their work. They are no longer gathering search queries from mainland China and are instead now studying “global Chinese” queries that are entered into Google from people living in countries such as the United States and Malaysia

...and Google has made no promises that they won't launch it in the future:

> Pichai stated that “right now” there were no plans to launch the search engine, though refused to rule it out in the future. Google had originally aimed to launch Dragonfly between January and April 2019. Leaks about the plan and the extraordinary backlash that ensued both internally and externally appear to have forced company executives to shelve it at least in the short term...

I think the title overstates the situation. This doesn't seem so much like an end to the project than an internal political squabble. It seems like 265.com was purchased to do exactly what the Google Privacy Team has forbidden. I don't know Google's internal politics, but I'd be surprised if its privacy team has enough power to hobble one of the CEO's priorities enough to actually kill it.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#102

Post by saalweachter »

shaki-dora wrote: post #77

Now where are the people claiming nothing but quitting, and not even that, would ever change a company's decision? Or how not investing in China will get Google managers thrown into a dark Delaware jail for wasting an opportunity to maximise shareholder value?

Flame wars are no place for straw men.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#103

Post by ganzuul »

sunstone wrote: post #61

It seems Google has now strayed far from the "don't be evil" path. First came the illegal agreement not to hire from other tech companies, then the "say nothing to no one" employment agreement all employees have to sign and now this product the help Mr. Xi put the jack boot to every neck in China. I've probably missed a few, please fill in the blanks if you can. To a large extent Google's business, like Enron's befor…

Less colored than your take, but; Each time they cancel a beta, a vast amount of engineering work gets laid to waste. These engineers could be making the world a better place in other industries.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#104

Post by Nasrudith »

iaw wrote: post #80

> Scott Beaumont, Google’s leader in China and a key architect of the Dragonfly project, “did not feel that the security, privacy, and legal teams should be able to question his product decisions,” If I was more eloquent I'd draw some analogy between Scott Beaumont's behavior and China...

Well it is clearly an authoritarian personality - don't question his decisions and just obey. Sucks to work under but isn't usually quite as bad as an authoritarian government. And really that sort of thing should be a reason to be fired instantly from a tech company - not because of employee morale, expecting people you pay to think not to think being bad management, ethics, or anything like that but just because that it is a massive security liability. If your boss really is the sort to demand to send over all employee records over email or else you are fired that makes everyone far more phishing vulnerable.

Of course if it is 'disregard safety procedures both can kill you just the same'.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#105

Post by patrickaljord »

reaperducer wrote: post #38
tomatotomato37 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has a very significant manufactoring presence in China, so unfortunately they can't cleanly separate from China like Google can without risking retaliation

Apple has a very significant manufactoring presence in China, so unfortunately they can't cleanly separate from China like Google can without risking retaliation Apple can walk away from China whenever it wants to. Apple is the one company in the entire world best equipped with the cash to make this kind of public stand. But it doesn't want to because doing so will cost a lot of that money. The only thing stopping Ap…

> Disclosure: Apple shareholder, with morality, but not enough shares for Apple to care.

If you really cared about this, shouldn't you sell your Apple stocks and invest in a company with morals compatible with yours instead? Otherwise, you're part of the problem as you're willing to profit from China just like Apple.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#106

Post by whoisjuan »

snaky wrote: post #97
yadongwen wrote: post #79

This is a great loss to Chinese people who have to use worse products such as Baidu and so.com. I was hoping Google's re-entering could result in a better Internet (or Intranet) ecosystem in China but alas...

Maybe that's an opportunity for Yandex https://yandex.ru/jobs/vacancies/global/head_chinaoperations...

How good is Yandex indexing and search technology?...My guess is that probably not even close to Google, and heavily optimized for slavic inflections and cyrilic.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#107

Post by jjcc »

yadongwen wrote: post #79

This is a great loss to Chinese people who have to use worse products such as Baidu and so.com. I was hoping Google's re-entering could result in a better Internet (or Intranet) ecosystem in China but alas...

Agree. A lot of Chinese like Google more than Baidu but they have no choice. I have no problem to use Google as I'm now in China but a lot of normal people don't know how to get around GFW.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#108

Post by patrickaljord »

mlindner wrote: post #89
izacus wrote: post #5

Great! So will Apple employees walk out next in protest of Apple assisting Chinese government by giving them iMessage and iCloud data? Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud-insigh...

Apple doesn't store iMessage messages in the cloud. Those are stored on the device and have end to end encryption. That has always been true and will continue to be true.

Last time I checked, if I forget my iCloud password, Apple can send me a new one. This means Apple holds the private key to decrypt whatever I store on iCloud. iMessages on my phones are encrypted though but that's not what OP was talking about.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#109

Post by arthur_pryor »

guelo wrote: post #76
_8j50 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you're saying but a country is sovreign from othets and corporations don't get to decide what's acceptable in a country. It comes down to this imo: will the product be used in ways that are morally wrong? Or will it be used in ways which are legally wrong or socially unacceptable? I agree with you that a company should not sell their products to enable a moral wrong in any country. However, free speech and…

> It certainly isn't a human right. Freedom of expression is in Article 19 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

why downvote this comment?

i'm not saying you have to agree with it, but this seems like as universally accepted an answer to "what are basic human rights?" as any that might be given (i'm assuming there is actually no universally agreeable definition, but this seems like one of the more respectable and frequently cited sources).

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#110

Post by arthur_pryor »

_8j50 wrote: post #67
aaomidi wrote: post #33

So many people here only look at the business cost of what Google wanted to do and don't care about the human cost. It's great that you were born in a western country with a good understanding of freedom and your rights. The majority of the world don't have these conditions. Your "business" decision effects billions of people in the world. I was born and mostly raised in Iran. "Business" decisions from companies that…

I get what you're saying but a country is sovreign from othets and corporations don't get to decide what's acceptable in a country. It comes down to this imo: will the product be used in ways that are morally wrong? Or will it be used in ways which are legally wrong or socially unacceptable? I agree with you that a company should not sell their products to enable a moral wrong in any country. However, free speech and…

> However, free speech and oppression of democracy is not a moral wrong.

i and many others disagree with this statement.

> "Free speech" in the west means the Government shouldn't censor speech,this is a relativly new concept almost unheard of in history. It certainly isn't a human right. If a legitimate government of a country censors speech they're merely excercising their authority unless their laws restrict them from doing so as in the west. Whatever your view may be, a corporation does not get to decide social norms and what should be legal in any country.

why should the sovereignty of a national government supersede the inalienable rights of an individual? what makes a particular government "legitimate"?

if a totalitarian government decided that ethnic cleansing against a minority population was the correct course of action for itself, and if it carried that out entirely within its borders, would you consider that to not be a moral wrong, because the nation was exercising its own sovereign power? i'm just trying to figure out how much sovereign government power justifies in your moral framework.

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