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As the “big tech firms” continue to come more and more under scrutiny, the C.E.O of Google, Sundar Pichai addressed a “congressional panel” in the U.S. whereby revealing that the company doesn’t plan to re-launch “a search engine in China”. However, he also added that the idea still being studied.
The employees of Google and lawmakers have expressed their concerns that the company would abide by the “internet censorship and surveillance policies” that exists in China if it re-joins the “search engine market” for the nations in Asia. Ever since the year of 2010, China has blocked out Google’s principle “search engine platform” inside the country, which harbours the maximum smartphone users in the world.
In Pichai’s word to the “U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee”:
“Right now, there are no plans to launch search in China”.
Although, her further informed that Google has internally “developed and looked at what search could look like. We’ve had the project underway for a while. At one point, we’ve had over 100 people working on it is my understanding.”
As per the chief executive, currently the company is not conducting any discussions on the said matter with the government of China, and he further assured of being “fully transparent” if the company were to introduce search engine platforms in China. In August, Pichai had given a letter to the U.S. lawmakers informing them that providing customised search engine to China comes with “broad benefits”.
On the other hand, a government official of China, choosing to remain anonymous, informed Reuters that the chances for Google to get launch clearance for “a search service in 2019” is an “unlikely” situation. When “Democratic Representative David Cicilline” questioned the Google C.E.O, Pichai expressed that he would be “happy to engage” in legislation discussion for empowering the “Federal Trade Commission” to attend to the “discriminatory conduct online”.
However, Ciciling said it is “hard for me to imagine that you could operate in the Chinese market under the current government framework and maintain a commitment to universal values, such as freedom of expression and personal privacy.”
Nevertheless, the rivals of the tech giants in “shopping and travel searches” have been complaining for a long time for “being demoted in Google search results”. The majority of the hearing session dealt with the concerns of “Google’s search results” being “biased”. Contrarily, democrats have rejected the allegation as “fantasy”.
In fact, Pichai stated that the search engine platform of Google “help people register to vote or find a polling place” and denied engagement towards “partisan activities”.
References:
reuters.com
The employees of Google and lawmakers have expressed their concerns that the company would abide by the “internet censorship and surveillance policies” that exists in China if it re-joins the “search engine market” for the nations in Asia. Ever since the year of 2010, China has blocked out Google’s principle “search engine platform” inside the country, which harbours the maximum smartphone users in the world.
In Pichai’s word to the “U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee”:
“Right now, there are no plans to launch search in China”.
Although, her further informed that Google has internally “developed and looked at what search could look like. We’ve had the project underway for a while. At one point, we’ve had over 100 people working on it is my understanding.”
As per the chief executive, currently the company is not conducting any discussions on the said matter with the government of China, and he further assured of being “fully transparent” if the company were to introduce search engine platforms in China. In August, Pichai had given a letter to the U.S. lawmakers informing them that providing customised search engine to China comes with “broad benefits”.
On the other hand, a government official of China, choosing to remain anonymous, informed Reuters that the chances for Google to get launch clearance for “a search service in 2019” is an “unlikely” situation. When “Democratic Representative David Cicilline” questioned the Google C.E.O, Pichai expressed that he would be “happy to engage” in legislation discussion for empowering the “Federal Trade Commission” to attend to the “discriminatory conduct online”.
However, Ciciling said it is “hard for me to imagine that you could operate in the Chinese market under the current government framework and maintain a commitment to universal values, such as freedom of expression and personal privacy.”
Nevertheless, the rivals of the tech giants in “shopping and travel searches” have been complaining for a long time for “being demoted in Google search results”. The majority of the hearing session dealt with the concerns of “Google’s search results” being “biased”. Contrarily, democrats have rejected the allegation as “fantasy”.
In fact, Pichai stated that the search engine platform of Google “help people register to vote or find a polling place” and denied engagement towards “partisan activities”.
References:
reuters.com
