Google workers revolt

Hundreds of Google employees including dozens of senior engineers have signed an open letter protesting against the company’s involvement in building a censored search engine for China.

The letter, which has more than 400 signatures, exposes a growing rift between staff and senior executives over the direction the company is taking towards China.

Last month thousands of Google employees around the world walked out over the company’s handling of allegations of sexual harassment and assault by a number of Google executives.

Google is working on a search engine for China codenamed Dragonfly, which will apparently block certain words and phrases such as ‘‘human rights’’, ‘‘student protest’’ and ‘‘Nobel prize’’. The staff letter states that such a tool ‘‘enables state surveillance’’ and will make Google ‘‘complicit in oppression and human rights abuses’’.

The company would also have to comply with Chinese law requiring internet service providers to supply data on any user the government requests.

Employees want Google to cancel the project with immediate effect, saying that many had joined the company because they thought it was ‘‘willing to place its value above its profits’’. The letter adds: ‘‘After a year of disappointments ... we no longer believe this is the case.’’

Google’s former slogan, ‘‘Don’t be evil’’, was dropped this year.

When the Dragonfly project was first revealed in August more than 1400 Google employees signed an internal petition criticising the lack of transparency around it.

However, the latest letter is being made public, with every signature published on the website Medium.

Despite the protests, China remains a key focus for Google. Last month Sundar Pichai, the company’s chief executive, said that the size of China’s user base was too large for Google to ignore.

‘‘Our mission is to provide information to everyone, and it’s 20 per cent of the world’s population,’’ he said