Google is eyeing a relaunch of its search engine in China, a move that would mean bowing to the censorship that prompted the company’s withdrawal from the country eight years ago.
The US technology group, which has recently ramped up investments in China, has drawn up plans to launch a local mobile search app that would strictly censor results, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
The plan, first reported by The Intercept, marks a dramatic reversal from 2010, when Google pulled out of the country citing concerns over censorship and surveillance. Company co-founder Sergey Brin, sensitive to individual liberties having spent the first six years of his life in the Soviet Union, was behind the withdrawal.