Pichai says Google still mulling a censored search engine in China

Google is still considering whether to launch a censored version of its search engine in China, CEO Sundar Pichai has said, in rare public comments about the controversial and secret project.

Google's possible return to China - a market it abandoned over censorship concerns in 2010 - was first leaked in August by 'The Intercept' which reported that the US tech giant was secretly developing "Dragonfly", a custom-made search engine for the huge Chinese market.

On Monday, the Indian-American CEO said the plan was in the "very early" stages and may not progress.

"It's very early. We don't know whether we could or would do this in China, but we felt it was important for us to explore," Pichai said at the Wired25 conference in San Francisco.

"I think it's important for us given how important the market is and how many users there are," he said.

Through internal tests, he said Google found it would be able serve "well over 99 per cent of queries".

The prospect of Google returning to China has fuelled criticism from human rights groups that the company, which has long advocated a free and open internet, would be doing the bidding of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, which runs a vast censorship apparatus that stifles dissent.

Since news of the "Dragonfly" project first leaked, hundreds of Google employees signed a letter saying that it raised "urgent moral and ethical issues," CNBC reported.

Pichai described the "Dragonfly" as an exploratory internal project.

He said Google's absence in China a country with 20 per cent of the world's population weighed heavily on the company, which has a mission to bring information "to everyone."
"We wanted to learn what it would look like if Google were in China," Pichai said. "So that's what we built internally. If Google were to operate in China, what would it look like?"