DIFFERENCES IN CHINA
Although some Western tech giants such as Facebook, Apple, Alphabet and Amazon are blocked or restricted in China, and have opposed laws proposed by governments like Australia that would require them to provide access to private encrypted data linked to suspected illegal activities, Yang says he is happy to cooperate with the Chinese government.
He has not heard about his app from authorities or WeChat's parent company, Tencent, he said. The messaging apps his service operates on can see which users use LeakZero, though users can set up multiple aliases.
"I don't believe I've done anything wrong," he said. "And second, I didn't do this for any political motives. I just think in the course of my normal life and work I have this need."
There would also not be much for authorities to find, he believes, given how little user information he keeps.
"If you give me even a little bit of info, at some point I'm obligated to tell somebody. But if I don't know then I don't have this ability," Yang said.
Still, he said, he thought there would be far more demand for such privacy, expecting his app's search engine to process millions of searches per day. In reality, it has only registered up to 140,000 searches a day since its launch.
For the future, he is looking to develop products for corporate clients.
"Before I thought this was a universal demand," he said. "But now looking at it, the people who are aware of this problem and would take some action and to protect themselves and their data, it's a pretty small group."
