Google reveals which countries are demanding censorship and data

In an effort towards greater transparency, Google has released an online tool that will show just who around the world is asking for internet content to be removed or censored.

The thing is, they haven’t included any figures for China because apparently that information is regarded as a state secret. Still, the rest of it is quite enlightening.

Top of the list for data requests was Brazil, who in the period from 1st July to 31st December 2009 made 3,663 data requests.

Next in line was the United States with 3,580 data requests. The United Kingdom followed the US to take up third place with 1,166 data requests.

Brazil was also top for internet content removal requests with 291 in the same six month period. Second for removal requests was Germany with 188, followed by India with 142 and the US with 123.

The online tool which can be viewed at Google dot com forward slash governmentrequests features a map showing each country where it has had government requests for information.

The information doesn’t include any requests from individuals or companies, only government requests and this can be requests for information about users, or court orders to remove content either from the search results or from YouTube. If you click on the country you can see a summary of the information.

“Google, like other technology and telecommunications companies, regularly receives demands from government agencies to remove content from our services” wrote David Drummond, Google’s legal officer on the company blog.

“Of course many of these requests are entirely legitimate, such as requests for the removal of child pornography.

“We also regularly receive requests from law enforcement agencies to hand over private user data. Again, the vast majority of these requests are valid and the information needed is for legitimate criminal investigations.

“However, data about these activities historically has not been broadly available. We believe that greater transparency will lead to less censorship” said Drummond.

Google has been getting a lot of flack recently regarding it’s Street View product and also Buzz, but according to Google the timing of the release of the online tool showing data requests has nothing to do with the privacy complaint in a joint letter from data protection authorities in ten different countries.

Google said they had been working on the online tool for months.