After the released statement from Google employees, protesting against the launching of search in China. The Google CEO Sundar Pichai has sought to reassure workers who are worried the company might jeopardize its value in other to get into China.
The CEO said in a meeting on Thursday at a town hall that, he is not in rush to launch any search engine in China. The meeting occurs as a result of the reports about Google’s effort to launch a censored search engine for the country that caused their employees to start a protest.
Pichai also said, “whether we would do so, or could do so is all very unclear”. However, the team has been in an exploration stage for a long time now and I think they are searching for many options.
The discussion was a part of a regular meeting that is open to all workers.
Earlier this month, reports show that Google was working on a search engine for China that would block sensitive websites and search terms to comply with the Chinese government censorship which results to about hundreds of workers signed a letter to protest against the plan and calling for more transparency.
Google still decline to confirm the authenticity of the letter or give a comment at the town hall meeting on Thursday.
The urge number of internet users in China and the thriving online shopping market is what makes it impossible for US tech companies to ignore them. However, moving into China presents ethical issues for Google, which has long advocated a free and open internet.
China has banned most Google services like search, YouTube, and Gmail for years. And Google has stopped offering search in China in 2010 following a political dispute between Beijing and Washington over hacking.
The company had operated a Chinese language version of its search engine before 2010. Though the search complied with China’s censorship rules, but alerted users to the fact the some of the search results were missing.
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