Google has been largely absent from China for several years now, but last month news came out that it was working on censored versions of Search and News for the country. The revelation sparked outrage, both inside and outside of Google, and at least a few employees left the company as a result. According to The Intercept, some of the plans include a way to track users by phone number and modify meteorological data to under-represent pollution levels.

A prototype search engine linked each search to the user's phone number, making it easy to find what an individual was looking for – no doubt an appealing feature for the Chinese government. The report also states that Google has created a blacklist of words including Mandarin phrases for "student protest," "human rights" and "Nobel prizes".

Another disturbing detail revealed by The Intercept comes from the way the search service will communicate meteorological data. Google Search currently collects meteorological information from external services, such as The Weather Channel. In China, this data would be replaced by information from an "anonymous source in Beijing". China has a reputation for underreporting pollution levels in major cities. It is therefore possible that the Chinese search engine provides false data on pollution.

It is unclear if any of these plans has changed since the initial prototype of the search engine. We have contacted Google for feedback and we will update this article if they respond.