US senators lobby Google boss over China move

US SENATORS have attacked Google’s “deeply troubling” plans to develop a censored search engine in China, and called on the tech firm’s chief executive to deliver answers surrounding the rumoured project.

The group of six policymakers, made up of members from both the Republican and Democratic parties, have demanded more details from the US company over claims it is creating an app that would prevent Chinese citizens from searching terms about human rights, democracy and religion.

The app, made by Google, will also block access to sites including the BBC and Wikipedia, according to leaked internal documents seen by The Intercept news website. In a letter to Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai, the senators, who include former presidential Republican candidate Marco Rubio, said they need a response to the rumours which, if true, would involve Google in facilitating censorship. The letter said: “If true, this reported plan is deeply troubling and risks making Google complicit in human rights abuses related to China’s rigorous censorship regime.”

Google has yet to confirm or deny existence of a project, nicknamed Dragonfly, that has reportedly been in development since last spring and could launch within six to nine months.

Mr Rubio, who is a senator from Florida and vocal critic of the Chinese government, also remarked that it was “very disturbing” that Google was choosing to work with an authoritarian government, even though it decided to withdraw its efforts with the US military’s research into using Google’s vision recognition systems.

The move by Google could see it access the lucrative Chinese market of 750m web users who could provide billions in revenue. However, campaign groups have argued such a move is a dangerous precedent for other firms. A Google spokesman said: “We don’t comment on speculation about future plans.”