Google kills off its censored Chinese search engine, Project Dragonfly

Google has decided to close down its controversial Project Dragonfly which would have seen the company launching a censored version of its search engine in China.

The company's vice president of public policy, Karan Bhatia, made the revelation speaking at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday. She said simply: "We have terminated Project Dragonfly".

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Google has never said anything publicly about Project Dragonfly, the company hadn't even confirmed that it existed. The project is thought to have been running since 2017, and a launch date had been rumored for this year. China, however, always denied that it was working with Google on a country-specific search tool.

Asked whether it still had plans to launch a censored search engine or app in China, Google said: "We have no plans to launch Search in China and there is no work being undertaken on such a project".

Google has faced a great deal of criticism for Project Dragonfly, with critics unhappy that the company seemed willing to bow to the censorship demands of the Chinese government in a bid to break into the market.

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