Government censorship of the Internet is growing. And as one of the top Internet companies, Google receives lots of requests from government agencies to remove content from their services. Now to give people information about the government censorship requests, Google has launched Government Requests tool.
Government Requests Tool lets users see the number of government requests that it has received to remove content from their services, or provide information about users of their services and products. This tiny tool provides the information on a world map. Just click on a country to know more about the number of government censorship requests from that country.
Right now, Brazil is on top of the list, with 3,663 data requests and 291 removal requests. The United States is in second position with 3580 data and 123 removal requests. China is excluded from the tool, as it is state secret! The Government Requests tool is using data from July 1, 2009 to December 31, 2009. Google is planning to update the data in 6-month increments.
Google receives removal requests for Google search results and for other Google products, including YouTube, Gmail and Orkut. On the other hand, in some cases, governments also asks for information about Google user accounts or products. Google do fulfills legitimate requests. You can view all the details on the Government Requests tool. Take a look.
More Info: http://www.google.com/governmentrequests/