What Google's Transparency Report Reveals

On Monday, Google released another transparency report about how many times it has made private user data known to governments and removed content at the request of a government. The report covers the second half of 2010. Affirming its commitment to transparency, Google has said it will release such transparency reports every six months “with certain limitations.”

In a review of report, Ars Technica observes that the United States made the most requests for user information (4,601 requests), while Brazil — due to the “phenomenal popularity of Google’s Orkut social network in that country” — had the most requests for takedowns (263 requests leading to the removal of 12,363 items).

The report also reflects how Google, as a site people in most places of the world can access, has to perform something of a delicate contredanse in responding to different regimes’ requests, in keeping with their legal systems. Says Ars Technica:

The section on takedown requests provides an interesting window into the different types of censorship that occur around the world. For example, Google complied with a request from the Thai government to block access to 43 items “mocking or criticizing the king,” which is illegal in that country. It removed an Italian video that depicted the assassination of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, but refused to remove videos criticizing politicians in India.

Google also reveals how many requests for user data information it actually complies with, along with the total number of requests. Google complied with 94 percent of American requests and 80 percent of requests in Japan, Singapore and Australia. In contrast, it refused to comply with any requests from Turkey and Hungary, and complied with fewer than half of the requests in South Korea, Portugal, Argentina, and Poland.

The report further shows how Google, which hasn’t been shy about wanting to be a player in addressing political, environmental and other issues around the world, can indirectly play a part in addressing censorship and free speech, and even other areas. In teaching students about international politics, it’s become as important to teach about the cyberworld, as about political systems and government organizations.

Chris Soghoian, who has studied government surveillance in the US and is a researcher at the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University, notes that Google is far ahead of its competitors, including Facebook, in supporting transparency, with “no other company regularly releas[ing] stats like this.” Soghoian does point out that “the bulk of government surveillance likely isn’t done via Google or its competitors,” but rather by law enforcement officials who go directly to telecommunications companies like AT&T and Verizon to seek such information; those companies “receive tens of thousands of requests annually.”

Libya made 203 requests for content to be removed, 31 percent of which Google complied with. All of the total 68 requests were for content on YouTube, 8 for “privacy and security,” and the rest for some other unspecified reasons. In view of the ongoing popular revolt against Colonel Muammar el-Gaddafi that began in February, one wonders what the government preferred not to have online, available for the world’s eyes.

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Photo by Igor ™

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Tim C.

3:55PM PDT on Sep 22, 2011

send a green star

Annmari L.

11:36AM PDT on Aug 9, 2011

I never use Google! There are so many other search engines and I don't like Google's policy.

Ernie M.

11:27AM PDT on Jul 7, 2011

at leat they try to be a little open not sure that I like some of their other policies though.

Marilyn L.

3:38PM PDT on Jul 5, 2011

Thanks

Judith C.

1:58PM PDT on Jul 3, 2011

There should be other companies who have transperancy too.

Abbe A.

5:48AM PDT on Jul 2, 2011

Must be hard to balance politics with business.

Emil P.

1:52AM PDT on Jul 2, 2011

It's good that Google has some transparency. Thanks for the information.

Julia P.

11:59PM PDT on Jul 1, 2011

I don't personally Google, but I do have a YouTube account, mostly used for music. We are all monitored, especially if we have activist tendencies. At first, I was a little worried about getting placed on some watch list, but I made my decision to stand for things I believe in and want to change. If that leads to trouble, so be it. Not a big fan of "the man", since our gov't has been such a joke for yrs now. If you really think about our founding fathers and what they did (treason against England), you have to come to the conclusion they were punks. They gave old King George the finger and told him "you can't make us do it". They then fought against impossible odds to beat a massive army and start a new country, totally different from anything that existed at the time. How far we have fallen from that wonderful, rebellious start that could have made an amazing country! Now we have idiots in gov't who are there strictly for the power & prestige.

Danny W.

5:25PM PDT on Jul 1, 2011

...and we will probably never know for sure...