Google Conducting ‘Performance Review’ On Censored Search For China

A new report from The Intercept claims that executives at Google are conducting a secret internet assessment of the work on a censored search engine for China. The government of the People’s Republic maintains a tight grip on the internet in its country and as such, foreign companies like Google are only allowed to operate their services if they comply with strict local laws.

The report adds that a small group of top managers at Google is carrying out a “performance review” of Dragonfly, the controversial effort to build a censored search platform for China. Such performance reviews are done annually at Google to measure employees’ output and development. They’re normally done in an open and peer review-style process. Workers are allowed to grade each other’s projects and the results are then assessed by the management.

In Dragonfly’s case, the peer review aspect has reportedly been done away with. Two Google sources cited in the report say that this procedure is highly unusual as executives have set up a separate group of closed “review committees” that have senior managers who had all been briefed about Dragonfly previously. There has been criticism within the company as employees have not been happy about the controversial project.

Google said last year that it currently had no plans to launch Dragonfly. The report mentions that work on the censored search engine is ongoing but the company maintains that there is “no work being undertaken on such a project. Team members have moved to new projects.”

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Web
Tags: Dragonfly, Google