Google offered help from rival search firm Sogou in bid to crack China

Google CEO Sundar
Pichai.
Justin Sullivan/Getty
Images

• The CEO of China’s second biggest search engine, Sogou,
  has said the company could help Google with its return to
  China.
• Google left China in 2010 but is working on returning
  with a censored search engine, codenamed “Project
  Dragonfly.”
• Sogou CEO Wang Xiaochuan told
  the MIT Technology Review that the company could act
  as a middle-man between Google and the Chinese
  government.
• Google’s confirmed Project Dragonfly for the first time
  last week, but the plans remain deeply divisive. 

Google has been offered help from an unlikely source in its
controversial bid to return to China.

Chinese search company, Sogou, said it would be willing to
partner with Google to help it launch a censored search engine,
codenamed “Project Dragonfly.”

Sogou’s CEO Wang Xiaochuan
told the MIT Technology Review that the company could help
Google navigate governmental regulation.

“If Google wants to come back to China, there could be several
incentives for working together with other parties,” Wang said.
“Sogou could be the one to work with the Chinese government, and
Google could stand behind us.”

Google
left the Chinese market in 2010 after it discovered a
coordinated cyber attack targeting human rights activists. At the
time Google stated that it would no longer continue to allow
censorship on its search engine.

But The
Intercept reported in August that
CEO Sundar Pichai was angling for a return to the Chinese
market with a censored version of its search engine.

A middle-man between Google and the Chinese government

Sogou is China’s second largest search engine, behind Baidu.
Contrary to seeing Google’s return as increased competition, Wang
said Sogou could act as the middle-man between Google and the
Chinese government.

“Sogou will be the one to deal with the government, to comply
with the laws and regulations,” he said. “Then the other parts of
Google’s services will be provided in China.”

“One way would be for Sogou to operate the brand, and Google
provide the technologies. If it considers working with Sogou, it
would probably achieve better success,” Wang added.

Wang said Google may have the tech, but does not have the market
smarts. “In terms of general technology capabilities, Google is
still very strong, [but] in terms of Chinese search functions,
the quality of Google has probably fallen behind,” he said. 

Google’s China plans, which it confirmed for the first
time last week, have stirred contention both internally and
externally. A former Google scientist last week penned a letter
to US
senators saying that Google management is “clamping down” on
whistleblowers trying to lift the lid on Project Dragonfly
details.

In August, a group of major human rights organisations
sent an open letter to Pichai demanding that he kill the
project so as not to accommodate “one of the world’s most
repressive internet censorship and surveillance regimes.”

Google’s chief privacy officer
Keith Enright told senators last week that Google is not
close to launching a search product in China. He confirmed the
existence of Project Dragonfly, but avoided giving specifics,
saying he was “not clear on the contours of what is in scope or
out of the scope of that project.”

Business Insider contacted Google for comment.

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