Google Dragonfly censored search engine said to link searches to phone numbers in China ; faces backslash from employees

It is a known fact that Google is said to be working on a censored search engine in China. Now according to a new report, the company has built a prototype of a censored search engine for China linking users’ searches to their personal phone numbers, making it easier for the Chinese government to monitor people’s queries. The search engine is codenamed Dragonfly. It is designed for Android devices and would remove content deemed sensitive by China’s ruling Communist Party regime, such as information about political dissidents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest. Google compiled a censorship blacklist that included terms such as “human rights,” “student protest,” and “Nobel Prize” in Mandarin. Concerns from groups say that beyond the censorship, user data stored by Google on the Chinese mainland could be accessible to Chinese authorities, who routinely target political activists and journalists. The search engine would be operated as part of a “joint venture” partnership with a company based in mainland China. Furthermore, the venture would have the ability to update the search term blacklists. This raises new questions about whether Google executives in the U.S. would be able to maintain effective control and oversight over the censorship. That doesn't end here, a list of seven employees said to have quit ...