Citing three sources, The Intercept reports Google forced employees to delete a memo that revealed a plan to launch a censored search engine in China that would track users.

A Google engineer who was asked to work on the project authored the memo, The Intercept said, disclosing a search system codenamed Dragonfly that would track users locations and share the information with a Chinese partner who would have “unilateral access” to the data.

Google employees opposed to the censored search system — which would allow China’s communist government to remove content — shared the memo among themselves earlier this month.

The Intercept said Google leadership was furious when it discovered the memo and learned that secret details had been distributed, according to three sources familiar with the incident.

Emails demanding deletion of the memo contained “pixel trackers,” The Intercept said, that notified human resource managers when their messages had been read.

The Dragonfly memo accuses developers working on the project of creating “spying tools” for the Chinese government to monitor its citizens.

The search engine will “blacklist sensitive queries” in Mandarin such as “human rights,” “student protest” and “Nobel Prize,” Intercept sources said.

The memo, the publication says, casts doubt on Google CEO

Sundar Pichai’s claim that the China search engine was in its “early stages” and “exploratory.”

Employees working on the censored search engine were instructed in late July that they should prepare to get it into a “launch-ready state,” pending approval from officials in Beijing, The Intercept said.

WND reported Friday recently discovered internal emails show Google employees sought to manipulate search results to combat President Trump’s controversial travel ban by muting conservative viewpoints.

Two days after the Jan. 27, 2017, ban was signed, the employees suggested ways to “leverage search,” or manipulate the algorithm, arguing “this country and Google, would not exist without immigration.”

WND reported earlier this month a newly unearthed video shows Google executives at their first weekly meeting after the election of Donald Trump in 2016 exhibited panic and dismay while expressing their determination to thwart the new administration’s agenda as well as the emerging global populist movement.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions plans to meet with state attorney generals this month regarding Google and other tech giants, and the Justice Department has indicated that antitrust action is under consideration.

WND reported last month the recent wave of censorship of conservative voices on the internet by tech giants mirrors a plan concocted by a coalition of George Soros-funded, progressive groups to take back power in Washington from President Trump’s administration.

Trump recently accused Google of rigging its news searches against him. And as WND reported, a new film contends Google has crossed its executive chairman’s self-described “creepy line,” not only invading the privacy of millions of users but using its monopolistic stature to suppress conservative views and influence elections.

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URL to article: http://www.wnd.com/2018/09/report-google-hid-plan-to-track-users-in-china/