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More than 200 engineers, designers and Google officials at Alphabet asked Tuesday in an open letter to the company to stop the development of a censored search engine for Chinese users, by stepping up earlier protests against the secret project .
Google described the search application, known as Project Dragonfly, as an experience that was not close to launch. But as details have been leaked since August, current and former employees, human rights advocates and US lawmakers have blamed Google for not opposing the Chinese government's policy more severely. aimed at blocking politically sensitive results.
The human rights group Amnesty International also on Tuesday launched a public petition calling Google to cancel Dragonfly. The organization said it would encourage Google workers to sign the petition by targeting them on LinkedIn and demonstrating in front of Google offices.
Google declined to comment on Tuesday's employee letter, as Alphabet shares fell 0.35 percent to $ 1,052.28 (about Rs 74,500).
Google has long sought to be more present in China, the largest Internet market in the world. It needs government approval to compete with the country's dominant local Internet services.
An official of the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, who was not allowed to speak in public, told Reuters on Tuesday that nothing indicated that Google had adjusted its previous plans in order to launch the search application. However, the manager described a 2019 publication as "unrealistic" without further details.
About 1,400 of the tens of thousands of Google employees have asked the company to improve the monitoring of ethically dubious companies, including Dragonfly.
The nine employees who signed for the first time in Tuesday's letter said they found little progress.
The letter expresses concern that the Chinese government is tracking dissidents with search data and suppressing the truth by limiting the content.
"We oppose technologies that help the powerful to oppress the vulnerable, wherever they are," said the employees in a letter published on the Medium blogging service.
Employees said they no longer believed Google was "a company willing to place its values above profits" and cited a series of "disappointments" this year, including the recognition of a gain for a leader accused of sexual harassment.
This incident triggered global protests at Google, which, like other major technology companies, has seen an acceleration of employee activism over the past two years as their services become integral part of the civic infrastructure.
© Thomson Reuters 2018
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