{"id":11852,"date":"2018-08-17T16:24:07","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T16:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=11852"},"modified":"2018-08-17T16:24:07","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T16:24:07","slug":"google-ceo-to-employees-were-not-close-to-launching-search-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=11852","title":{"rendered":"Google CEO to employees: We’re ‘not close’ to launching search in China"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Google CEO Sundar Pichai has sought to reassure employees who are worried the company might compromise its values to get into China.<\/h2>\n

Pichai, at a town hall meeting on Thursday, said he’s not rushing to launch a search product for China. The meeting was the first such event since media reports detailed Google’s efforts to build a censored app<\/a> for the country. <\/p>\n

“We are not close to launching a search product in China,” Pichai said, according to a source with knowledge of the conversation. <\/p>\n

“And whether we would do so, or could do so is all very unclear,” he said. “But the team has been in an exploration stage for quite a while now and I think they are exploring many options.” <\/p>\n

The discussion was part of a regular meeting that is open to all employees. <\/p>\n

Reports surfaced earlier this month that Google<\/span> (GOOGL<\/a><\/span>)<\/span> was working on a search engine for China that would block sensitive websites and search terms to comply with Chinese government censorship<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The New York Times reported Thursday<\/a> that around 1,400 employees have signed a letter questioning the plan and calling for more transparency. <\/p>\n

“To make ethical choices, Googlers need to know what we’re building. Right now we don’t,” reads a copy of the letter posted on the website of The Times. <\/p>\n

Google declined to confirm the authenticity of the letter, or comment on the town hall meeting. <\/p>\n

China has hundreds of millions of internet users and a thriving online shopping market, making it impossible for US tech companies to ignore. But jumping back into China presents ethical issues for Google, which has long advocated a free and open internet. <\/p>\n

Related: Google might return to China. Here’s why that’s so controversial<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n

\"google<\/figure>\n

Popular Google services including search, YouTube and Gmail have been banned in China for years. <\/p>\n

Google stopped offering search in China in 2010 following a political dispute between Beijing and Washington over hacking. <\/p>\n

Prior to 2010, the company had operated a Chinese language version of its search engine. It complied with China’s censorship rules, but alerted users to the fact that some search results were missing. <\/p>\n

— Kristie Lu Stout contributed to this article. <\/i> <\/p>\n

CNNMoney (London) <\/span> First published August 17, 2018: 7:54 AM ET<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has sought to reassure employees who are worried the company might compromise its values to get into China. Pichai, at a town hall meeting on Thursday, said he’s not rushing to launch a search product for China. The meeting was the first such event since media reports detailed Google’s efforts to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}