Last month there were rumors that Google could be working on trying to get back into the Chinese market by launching a revamped search engine that would comply with local censorship laws and regulations. The project was given the codename Dragonfly in which Google has recently confirmed its existence.However that was pretty much it, where Google’s confirmation was merely confirmation that a project called Dragonfly exists. This was confirmed by Google’s chief privacy officer Keith Enright during a Senate hearing in which he said that Google does have a project by that name, although he did not go into details as he claimed to be unclear on what the project is about. Enright was quoted as saying, “I am not clear on the contours of what is in scope or out of scope for that project.”
Google has since issued a response to VentureBeat about Enright’s statements during the hearing which reads, “We’ve been investing for many years to help Chinese users, from developing Android, through mobile apps such as Google Translate and Files Go, and our developer tools. But our work on search has been exploratory.”
Google has yet to officially come right out and confirm their plans on returning to China. However the speculation that they might has not stopped US lawmakers from wanting to know more. Companies such as Apple have in the past been questioned for caving in to China’s demands, and it also seems that Google’s employees aren’t too thrilled about the idea of a censored search engine and have protested the project internally.