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Google's first audience The attempt to explain his interest in entering the Chinese market failed to appease critical members of Congress at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.
The hearing, attended by Google, as well as Amazon, Apple, AT & T and Charter Communications, began with a broad debate on privacy laws. But he concluded as a sharp conviction of Google on recent reports that the company is building a censored search engine for China. According to The Intercept, plans, internally baptized Project Dragonfly, would require Chinese users to log in to research and transmit crucial data to a Chinese company.
Google's privacy officer, Keith Enright, came to the hearing ready to give a carefully worded explanation of these reports, remarks that would neither confirm nor deny their accuracy. "I understand that we are not about to launch a research product in China and that we could not or could not do so in the future," Enright told Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire. . If Google chose to pursue interests in China, he added, "my team would be actively engaged. Our privacy and security controls would be followed. "
Enright repeated the term "not about to launch" several times during the hearing, before Senator Ted Cruz of Texas finally arrested him. "You say you're not ready to launch. I ask […] East [Project Dragonfly] a project of development of a search engine in China? I did not ask for the launch time. I asked what that is, "said the Republican.
Enright only went so far as to confirm that Project Dragonfly exists. But he declined to explain on his goal, insisting that he "was not clear on the outlines of what is in range or out of reach for this project."
This is of course the problem. It's not just that Enright went out of order. The most important problem is that its claims regarding privacy and lack of project knowledge can not coexist peacefully. If the Google privacy officer does not actively participate in these conversations, it weakens the idea that Google is carefully studying the ramifications of this work.
It's not like Google does not know the issues. The company has seen first-hand the requirements imposed by the Chinese government on foreign technology companies. In 2010, Google decided to stop censoring searches in the country after a phishing attack by Gmail against Chinese human rights activists. The question of whether to censor research in China and give data to Chinese entities is primarily a question of confidentiality.
Yet, in his testimony, Enright attempted to define the issues separately. "I do not think it was necessary for the privacy conversation to speculate on what we might consider in terms of product launches in some parts of the world," Enright told Cruz in response to questions. on Project Dragonfly.
Google was hardly the only audience to face questions about China. Senator Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican, asked Apple's vice president of software if the company respected its human rights and privacy standards. He also monopolized Amazon in his work with a Chinese subsidiary. The members of the committee probably should have put pressure on these companies. But Google, whose alleged projects in China dominated the latest news, was the hardest hit.
Before Wednesday's hearing, a former Google researcher, Jack Poulson, sent a letter to the committee chairman and his member, encouraging them to focus on the Dragonfly project. In the letter, reported for the first time by The Intercept, Poulson calls on the committee to ask what he calls "a catastrophic failure of the internal privacy review process, that one of the reviewers described as subverted.
If Google actually plans to create such a research tool for China – and, to be clear, Enright has never denied it once – the idea that the privacy team of the society would not be intimately involved seems at best be improvident. at worst. This is also a bad optics given the frustration of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle with Google at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing earlier this month. The company refused to send its testimony to Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO, or Larry Page, CEO of Google's parent company. Instead, Senators, including Marco Rubio of Florida and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, looked at an empty chair with a Google nameplate in front of them as they attacked Google to pursue business in China. (This week, Pichai goes to Capitol Hill to meet with Congressmen, including Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who recently accused the Liberal research giant of bias.)
The vague answers from Enright echo Pichai's responses in a letter to the Intelligence Committee before the last hearing. The letter was a response to a bipartisan group of senators' questions about Google's work in China. But Pichai offered some details. "Google is open about our desire to increase our ability to serve users in China and other countries. We are seriously considering a variety of options on how to deliver services in China in a way that is compatible with our mission, "he wrote. "We are committed to promoting access to information, the freedom of expression and confidentiality of users, as well as compliance with the laws of the jurisdictions in which we operate." We seek to find the right balance in each context. "
Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and Deputy Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told WIRED that he was "disappointed" by Pichai's responses in August. "Any attempt to return to China could allow the Chinese government to repress and manipulate its citizens," Warner said at the time. "Google needs answers from the public about its reported projects."
These are answers that Enright has not been able to provide.
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