Amid calls for scrapping the plan to launch a censored version of Google in China, CEO of the search engine, Sundar Pichai has said that the company has "no plans" to launch the search product for the Chinese market "right now".
Pichai's statement came after the US legislators, during his testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee, raised concerns over the reports about the censored search engine for China called "Project Dragonfly".
"Right now, there are no plans for us to launch a search product in China," Pichai told Republican Pennsylvania, Tom Marino, while replying to his questions about the company's expansion plans, The Verge reported.
Pichai added that the tech giant currently has no "plans" to launch the product but it hasn't halted work completely.
When Marino asked that will Google go ahead with a censored search project if Chinese government asks the company to share information, Pichai responded saying, "Any time we look to operate in a country, we would look at what the conditions are to operate. There are times in the past we have debated the conditions to operate and we explore a wide range of possibilities. Currently, it is an effort only internally for us. We are not doing this in China."
Pichai revealed that Google has not stopped its work on the project fully and internally, adding that the efforts to launch a search product in the Asian country was "limited".
Since 2010, Google's search engine has been blocked in China after a standoff with Beijing over its online freedom and reports of alleged intrusion by hackers into the company's servers. The tech giant's decision to shift its search service to Hong Kong also left China infuriated.