More and more governments around the world are either asking Google to remove content - or tell them who its users are.
Google's transparency report is the guide to how the governments of the world are interacting with the web giant in 2012. And it's an alarming picture.
The report covers two types of requests:
• Government requests to remove content from Google
• Government requests from around the world to hand over user data
The latest report, which covers up to the end of last year, shows that in 2012 there were 21,389 inquiries from governments around the world. Those requests were for information about 33,634 accounts - these are users' accounts. The number of government requests to remove content from Google's services was largely flat from 2009 to 2011. But the latest data shows that the huge spike witnessed in the first half of 2012 (when the number of government requests were up by 72%), continued in the 6 months that followed, albeit slightly slower (requests were up 26%). There were 2,285 requests from government officials around the world to remove 24,179 pieces of content.
31% of governments claimed that their request was motivated by a belief that the content resulted in 'defamation', while 5% cited 'privacy and security'. A few controversial items on Google attracted a significant amount of government concern in the last half of 2012. For example, the movie "Innocence of Muslims" resulted in inquiries from 20 countries and removal requests from 17. The film was restricted in a further 8 countries and temporarily restricted in 2 due to 'difficult circumstances'.
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