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Google Shut Out Privacy, Security Teams From Secret China Project (theintercept.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept about Google's secretive plans to build a censor version of its search engine for China: The objective, code-named Dragonfly, was to build a search engine for China that would censor broad categories of information about human rights, democracy, and peaceful protest. Yonatan Zunger, then a 14-year veteran of Google and one of the leading engineers at the company, was among a small group who had been asked to work on Dragonfly. He was present at some of the early meetings and said he pointed out to executives managing the project that Chinese people could be at risk of interrogation or detention if they were found to have used Google to seek out information banned by the government.
Scott Beaumont, Google's head of operations in China and one of the key architects of Dragonfly, did not view Zunger's concerns as significant enough to merit a change of course, according to four people who worked on the project. Beaumont and other executives then shut out members of the company's security and privacy team from key meetings about the search engine, the four people said, and tried to sideline a privacy review of the plan that sought to address potential human rights abuses. Google's leadership considered Dragonfly so sensitive that they would often communicate only verbally about it and would not take written notes during high-level meetings to reduce the paper trail, two sources said. Only a few hundred of Google's 88,000 workforce were briefed about the censorship plan. Some engineers and other staff who were informed about the project were told that they risked losing their jobs if they dared to discuss it with colleagues who were themselves not working on Dragonfly.
Scott Beaumont, Google's head of operations in China and one of the key architects of Dragonfly, did not view Zunger's concerns as significant enough to merit a change of course, according to four people who worked on the project. Beaumont and other executives then shut out members of the company's security and privacy team from key meetings about the search engine, the four people said, and tried to sideline a privacy review of the plan that sought to address potential human rights abuses. Google's leadership considered Dragonfly so sensitive that they would often communicate only verbally about it and would not take written notes during high-level meetings to reduce the paper trail, two sources said. Only a few hundred of Google's 88,000 workforce were briefed about the censorship plan. Some engineers and other staff who were informed about the project were told that they risked losing their jobs if they dared to discuss it with colleagues who were themselves not working on Dragonfly.
Professional ethics are taught in many schools, but seldom practiced. Enough money will entice people willing to take it.
Many professional agencies and unions protect workers who leave jobs over ethics like that. Imagine if every Google engineer refused to work on the thing.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
bad tweets by popular people are more important than this.
We know who to make an example of from TFS: Scott Beaumont, Google's head of operations in China and one of the key architects of Dragonfly. Nothing a good public hanging couldn't fix. Get a couple of people above and below him too for good measure.
Apple and others have made similar concessions. Where's the outrage?
When Google pulled its search engine from mainland China in 2010, the company says it was due to censorship concerns, so if this is true, it would mark a major turnaround.
But it also wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen American companies caving in to China’s demands to gain access to the world’s largest internet market.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
"Google's leadership considered Dragonfly so sensitive that they would often communicate only verbally about it and would not take written notes during high-level meetings to reduce the paper trail"
Google knows all too well how evil it is. They know what happens when you write something electronically: Google archives it, forever. It can be used against you later. This is a weapon, no less.
It's sad, Google used to be the best company on the internet. I remember their "clean home page" and getting search results that weren't spam. I remember emailing them and getting a response from a human! They even tried to avoid this with the "Don't be evil" corporate mantra. Well, it lasted over a decade, I suppose I should be happy. But I'm not.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Clearly not.
> is money all that matters in the end
Yes, gotta drive shareholder value somehow.
...if you can be worst!
Not for a non-Chinese company to mine their data.
The Chinese know that Google is full of people that will leak overly evil things. That is how we know about Grasshopper in the first place. At the very least, all development would need to be done by Chinese in China.
There will be a small profit, lots of technology transfer to Google's competitors, and that is about it.
The good news for Google is that Baidu etc. will never be popular in the west for similar reasons. No one would trust them.
Just stop. Even Crowder has a video on youtube of his videos being demonetized by google within seconds of being uploaded via so called manual review.
It's impressively blatant and you make yourself look like an anti-vaccination clown for ignoring evidence.
I recall Zuck was also eager to kiss comrade Xi's behind. Learned Chinese, asked him to name his child (Xi refused, because WTF: https://www.independent.co.uk/...). Didn't go anywhere. Comrade Xi ain't giving the control over the Chinese propaganda machine to some lizard humanoid hybrid. Apparently Mr. Pichai was more successful.
Dude, have some standards, no matter how desperate you are to get laid!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Before we get to the detail, I need to caveat this with the acknowledgement that we're not dealing with an extreme case here.
Consider a scenario where a US company were contracted by a foreign government to develop something which could so no other purpose than be used as a means of breaching the human rights of the citizens of that foreign country. In this scenario, the Federal Government would be able to look at the product or offering of a US company and observe that, in this specific case, the only possible purpose for which this product could be used would be to oppress, harm, or otherwise abuse the citizens of that foreign country.
I'm interested to know whether the Federal government has any obligation to monitor the actions of US companies when those businesses are interacting with foreign governments.
Put it at the most extreme: if a US company was participating in a scheme that could only serve the purpose of, say, mass murder in another country, what obligations does the US government have to step in and stop that sort of practice?
Hopefully the reason for the question is obvious. If the US believes in democracy, free speech, basic human freedoms and so on, should the US government allow a US company to offer this sort of service to another government? Is it profits before principles?