Some Alphabet Units May Return to China Ahead of Others, Brin Says

Alphabet Inc.'s Google unit is trying to get back into China, raising questions about the company's stance on censorship in the country.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin suggested Wednesday that the company's recent re-organization into a holding company may free some units to move ahead of others.

"We already do quite a lot of business in China, although it has not been an easy country for us," Mr. Brin said in a brief interview. Google sells ads to businesses in China, though its services are not available there. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Google was in talks about launching an Android app store in China.

"Each Alphabet business can make its own decisions on which countries to operate in," Mr. Brin said.

Google ceased most operations in mainland China in 2010 following cyberattacks against Gmail users and disagreements with the government over censorship of search results. At that time, Mr. Brin was among the most outspoken Google critics of China's government.

However, Mr. Brin stepped back from day-to-day Google operations in recent years, as product chief Sundar Pichai took on more responsibility and this year was named CEO of Google as part of the restructuring. Mr. Pichai is more pragmatic and business-focused and has spoken openly about Google's interest in being more active in China.

The reorganization separated the main Google businesses including advertising, Search, YouTube and Android from longer-term, speculative bets such as Nest, Life Sciences and the X research lab.

Mr. Brin is now president of Alphabet and the head of X. He spoke on Wednesday at an event for Project Loon, which is delivering Internet service from high-altitude balloons.

Mr. Brin said China is among the countries that have expressed interest in expanding Internet coverage with Loon technology.

The Alphabet restructuring has freed Loon to pursue more telecom industry partnerships, he said. Google runs Android, the world's largest mobile-operating system, and that complicated Loon negotiations in the past because its service could connect to phones running other operating systems.

Now, executives running Loon "should not be worried about what operating systems those phones are on or what other business relationships Google has," Mr. Brin said. "They don't feel entangled in a complex way, so that's been working really well for us."

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Source: Some Alphabet Units May Return to China Ahead of Others, Brin Says