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Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans To Closely Track Search Users in China: The Intercept (theintercept.com)

Google bosses have forced employees to delete a confidential memo circulating inside the company that revealed explosive details about a plan to launch a censored search engine in China, The Intercept has learned. From the report: The memo, authored by a Google engineer who was asked to work on the project, disclosed that the search system, code-named Dragonfly, would require users to log in to perform searches, track their location -- and share the resulting history with a Chinese partner who would have "unilateral access" to the data.

The memo was shared earlier this month among a group of Google employees who have been organizing internal protests over the censored search system, which has been designed to remove content that China's authoritarian Communist Party regime views as sensitive, such as information about democracy, human rights and peaceful protest.

According to three sources familiar with the incident, Google leadership discovered the memo and were furious that secret details about the China censorship were being passed between employees who were not supposed to have any knowledge about it. Subsequently, Google human resources personnel emailed employees who were believed to have accessed or saved copies of the memo and ordered them to immediately delete it from their computers. Emails demanding deletion of the memo contained âoepixel trackersâ that notified human resource managers when their messages had been read, recipients determined.

23 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Come On Google by zippo01 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Man, google is really stepping in it hard as of late. http://www.foxnews.com/tech/20... They are turning into a company, that is easy to hate. They are becoming a close minded and censorship happy group, who think they know best, trying to shape the would. This will backfire and fail, if not from government regulation then by people. This also applies to You tube. The more you tighten your grip the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

    1. Re:Come On Google by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well when "do no evil" becomes "for the greater good" or whatever it is now, it shouldn't be a surprise.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    2. Re:Come On Google by blahplusplus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Man, google is really stepping in it hard as of late

      That's because you are all unaware all states are at war with their respective publics because they fear the internets potential to politically awaken the publics of the globe. See here by former national security advisor, this is just rich capitalist oligarchs and powers that be doing everything they can to maintain control over the public minds of the planet.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    3. Re:Come On Google by zippo01 · · Score: 3

      You make a lot of incorrect assumptions.

    4. Re: Come On Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're just upset because the victimhood card used to be used exclusively by "progressives" and now right wingers have adopted their (admittedly effective) tactics.

    5. Re:Come On Google by TheCastro1689 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why would anyone be ok with censorship of any kind? Isn't the freedom of information important for everyone?

    6. Re:Come On Google by lgw · · Score: 5, Funny

      The motto wasn't "do no evil", it was "don't, be evil". The comma was sometimes overlooked - typical small print from an advertising company.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    7. Re:Come On Google by El+Cubano · · Score: 3, Funny

      Why would anyone be ok with censorship of any kind? Isn't the freedom of information important for everyone?

      You have this all wrong. This is not censorship. In fact, Google is being a role model for how to make information as free as it can possibly be. Through this partner arrangement, they are making all of the information about every search and every user accessing the tool in question fully, completely, and totally freely available to the Chinese government. The information does not get much freer than that.

      The folks at the NSA are jealous that they cannot have the same thing.

      In case anybody reading this is sarcasm impaired, this was meant to be sarcastic. Except for the part about the NSA being jealous; that is sadly true.

    8. Re:Come On Google by blahplusplus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      " vehemently defend censorship by private corporations. " - I thought you liked the free market? No? Conservatives change your tiny minds every 4 years anyway, now you're on the Trump wagon, next year it's back to deficit spending...

      If you weren't such unabridged liars the waking world might take you seriously instead of roasting marshmallows over the fire of your corpse, as we collectively do.

      You haven't made any sense, what is it that you believe? The reality is the oligarchs and the rich are at war with regular people, and if you don't understand that you don't understand politics at all.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    9. Re:Come On Google by Mashiki · · Score: 4, Informative

      They're google not the Sandford Neighbourhod Watch Alliance.

      That's funny, the company I work for has it's own code of ethics. One of the key points is they will not work with, develop, or provide services or technology to governments that repress their own citizens by use of the state(i.e. police, courts, law) or will use technologies developed to repress people. It's not a surprise either, since nearly all the board members are from former communist countries. That code of ethics is a good example of being a "good corporate citizen" vs the current state of google where ethics can be put on hold as long as it's for something that can be justified, even if it's wrong.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    10. Re: Come On Google by Mashiki · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because private property is private. Applying your dumbass theory I could show up to your house and tell your children about how their mom bleaches her asshole in great detail.

      A company may be private, but private property doesn't translate into that if said company actively promotes it as a public square. Plenty of case law on that in Canada and US for example where the courts have ruled that protections of speech must be extended to private property if it's used for such or promoted as such.

      Is that house promoted as a public square? Nope. Is twitter, facebook, and google promoting their social media services as the public square? Yep. That's the difference.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  2. Incorrect Title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The correct title should be; Google's Attempt to suppress memo fails with massive Streisand effect.

  3. Taste of their own medicine by Dunkirk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > Emails demanding deletion of the memo contained "pixel trackers" that notified human resource managers when their messages had been read, recipients determined.

    How's it feel to have the shoe on the other foot?

    --
    Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
    1. Re:Taste of their own medicine by Luckyo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That was my reaction too. They're on record tracking everything and anything they can get their hands on, regardless of user concent through their analytics platforms and such.

      "Rules for thee but not for me" is a standard litmus test of a tyrant.

  4. These days, Google is evil, plain and simple by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There really is nothing more to add.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:These days, Google is evil, plain and simple by commodore64_love · · Score: 3

      It truly is sad when I trust Microsoft Outlook.com with my emails more than I do Gmail.com. (It used to be opposite.) "Do no evil" is now "For the greater good."

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  5. Google has jumped the shark by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Google Closely Tracks Employees Reading Memo Which Demands Deletion of Memo Revealing Plans To Closely Track Search Users in China

    Do no evil. Those days are behind us, captain.

  6. And Google wonders why it's got problems by MikeRT · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Too pure to help shape the DoD drone program so that AI might have "don't be evil" coded into its framework, but not too pure to help the PRC identify, track and persecute people out of favor with the regime.

    This isn't hypocrisy on the level of "pastor caught in bed with the church secretary one time." This is hypocrisy along the lines of "pastor caught running a child sex trafficking network."

  7. Two internets - better get in now by magarity · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does anyone remember the story earlier this morning: Schmidt predicting a second internet run by China. Obviously the time to get in on the action is now, and now is a bit too late. Google is just playing catch-up.

  8. I'm Certain You Have It Wrong by tungstencoil · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm certain that you have it wrong.

    You see, if Google doesn't do this, someone will. So you have it wrong.

    You see, if Google does this, then Google can help shape future open communication and equality. So you have it wrong.

    You see, then Google gets to decide bits and pieces to influence. Google only has The Good in mind. So you have it wrong.

    You see, Google is good. They understand this, and that they - and only they - are responsible for ensuring freedom for the Chinese. If they fail, all will be lost. So you have it wrong.

    You see, Google cares. You must understand this about them, and that they are in the unique position to help. Only by censoring data access, censoring freedom, and reporting user actions, can they enforce freedom.

    So you have it wrong.

  9. Google's new motto: by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 3, Funny

    Don't be evil, be SUPER EVIL

  10. Pichai needs to go by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The company has gone from do no evil, to join the evil.
    If they continue down this path, they will become worthless.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  11. Rapidly increasing toxicity of Google's brand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Attempted suppression is evidence Google knows full well what it's doing is wrong and yet they persist because they are scum.