August 31st, 2018 
 
The Honorable Marco Rubio 
United States Senate 
284 Russell Senate Office Building 
Washington, DC 20510 
 
The Honorable Mark Warner 
United States Senate 
703 Hart Senate Office Building 
Washington, DC 20510 
 
Dear Senator Rubio, Senator Warner, Senator Cotton, Senator Wyden, Senator Gardner, and 
Senator Menendez, 
 
Since its founding in 1998, Google has been committed to making the world’s information 
available to everyone. We believe that knowledge is empowering, and that a society with more 
information is better off than one with less. Providing access to information to people around 
the world is central to our mission. 
 
Motivated by that goal, several years ago we launched our Next Billion Users initiative, dedicated 
to providing people in developing countries with customized products and solutions so they can 
use the power of the internet and smartphones to better their lives. (Many of these innovations 
have also helped users in Europe and America.) We have likewise continued to look at ways to 
serve the 1.4 billion people — including 700 million internet users — who live in China. We 
suspended the google.cn search service in 2010, but did not exit the country. We have 
hundreds of Google employees in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. There are thousands of 
Chinese developers on Android and hundreds of millions of Android users in China. We recently 
released a few mobile apps in China, such as Google Translate for Chinese users. But Search 
and our other core services, such as Google Play, Google Cloud, and many more high-quality 
offerings remain generally unavailable.  
 
Since 2010, China’s technology ecosystem has not stood still. Other US tech companies have 
established significant operations in China. And China’s largest internet companies have 
become increasingly dynamic and innovative, spending billions of dollars on R&D, developing a 
wide array of novel products and businesses, and extending their reach into many other 
countries. In some cases, China’s internet users routinely use products and services that are not 
widely available to their counterparts in the United States: for example, many people now make 
daily purchases exclusively through mobile payments. We hope to stay at the forefront of 
technology developments and believe that Google's tools could help to facilitate an exchange of 
information and learning that would have broad benefits inside and outside of China. For  
 

  
 
 
example, the lack of Google Play has meant that many Chinese users are using Android phones 
that are more prone to malware, fraud, and other issues. 
 
Google has been open about our desire to increase our ability to serve users in China and other 
countries. We are thoughtfully considering a variety of options for how to offer services in China 
in a way that is consistent with our mission. We are committed to promoting access to 
information, freedom of expression, and user privacy, as well as to respecting the laws of 
jurisdictions in which we operate. We seek to strike the right balance in each context. 
 
We are approaching these issues deliberately, and w
​ hether we would or could release a search 
service in China remains unclear. ​ Accordingly, we are not in a position to be able to answer 
detailed questions. But we can confirm that our work will continue to reflect our best 
assessment of how best to serve people around the world, as set forth in our mission and our 
code of conduct. Of course, should ​we have something to announce in the future, we would be 
more than happy to brief you and your staff on those plans. 
 
Sincerely, 

 
Sundar Pichai 
Chief Executive Officer 
Google LLC 
 
cc: Senator Tom Cotton, Senator Ron Wyden, Senator Cory Gardner, Senator Robert Menendez