Google Enumerates Government Requests

D H NG writes "In the aftermath of Google's exit from mainland China, it had sought to be more open about what it censors. Google has launched a new tool to track the number of government requests targeted at Google and YouTube. These include both requests for data and requests to take down data. A quick look at the tool shows that Brazil is the top country in both categories (largely because Orkut is popular there), and information for China cannot be disclosed because 'Chinese officials consider censorship demands as state secrets.' As part of its four-part plan, Google hopes to change the behavior of repressive governments, establish guiding principles for dealing with issues of free expression, build support online to protest repression, and better provide resources and support for developing technology designed to combat and circumvent Internet censorship."

Re:Good middle ground.

[Aladrin]

"I guess we can't have a completely free internet (Google self censors);

You're free to post anything you want on your site, within the laws of your country. Move to the right country and you're totally free to post anything.

Google is also free to -not- post things to their site that they don't want to.

Sounds like it's 'completely free' to me.

Re:Request vs Demand

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

What they DON'T show -- and I've sent feedback asking for -- is how many of these are legal demands, such as warrants or court orders, versus informal requests.

It looks to me like all the ones that are court orders have "court order" in parenthesis after the listing. So for Canada (as an example) there were 16 removal requests, two of which were court ordered.

Re:Why?

[D H NG]

Because this is what happens [abc.net.au] to people who "leak" "state secrets".

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Go Canada!

[chappers1]

Surely population and removal requests are not linked? A repressive government would want to remove more results irrespective of how many citizens it is repressing.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:No bias there ...

[vikingpower]

You are greatly exaggerating. Google explicitly states that it takes down material when, amongst other conditions, it violates local law. Google has to comply as much with local law as you and I - at home and when we are abroad.

Re:Any second now.

[cyfer2000]

Google China's top sale (Zhongjie Song) has joined Chinese yellow page website www.aibang.com [aibang.com] as president.

The top R/D person (Jin Wang) joined google's direct competitor Baidu as vice president.

I think I know what other google's employees in China are busy with recently? And I don't see why they will end up in jail.