7 ms·

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

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."

shaki-dora 8y ago
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?
- tivert 8y ago
  > 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.
  - jiveturkey 8y ago
    > It seems like 265.com was purchased to do exactly what the Google Privacy Team has forbidden. from TFA it was purchased in 2008. the privacy team wasn’t really a powerful thing until 2011, as a result of the ftc consent decree.
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  Waiting until the Republicans aren't coming after them. The kiss of death was last week, Republicans saying "they'll work with China but they won't work with the military!" The ads write themselves. The Republicans are much scarier than a loud minority of slacktivist employees.

shaki-dora 8y ago

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?

tivert 8y ago
> 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.
- jiveturkey 8y ago
  > It seems like 265.com was purchased to do exactly what the Google Privacy Team has forbidden. from TFA it was purchased in 2008. the privacy team wasn’t really a powerful thing until 2011, as a result of the ftc consent decree.
yourbandsucks 8y ago
Waiting until the Republicans aren't coming after them. The kiss of death was last week, Republicans saying "they'll work with China but they won't work with the military!" The ads write themselves. The Republicans are much scarier than a loud minority of slacktivist employees.