Google exposes government takedown and data requests
ASHER MOSES
April 21, 2010 - 12:13PM
In just six months, Google received 155 requests from the Australian government for users' personal data and 17 government requests to remove content from its services.
Of those requests, which occurred in the six months to December 31 2009, it complied with just 52.9 per cent. Fourteen of the content removal requests relate to YouTube, while there were one each for Blogger, web search and maps (except Street View).
The search giant revealed the numbers, which do not include child porn removal requests, in a new online tool breaking down how often countries around the world ask the company to hand over user data or censor information.
The move comes after recent censorship battles between Google and the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, who recently attacked the company over its strident opposition to the government's plans to censor the internet.
Google also recently baulked at Senator Conroy's request for it to apply the government's filtering policy to YouTube.
"There's been a very rigorous debate [about censorship] in Australia ... we really wanted to start a conversation with some data," Google deputy general counsel Nicole Wong said in a phone interview with this website.
Wong said some of the requests sought removal of multiple pieces of content. The company planned to release new figures every six months but acknowledged the data was less than perfect as the specific details of each content removal request are not provided.
"The issue around deciding to censor information requires some level of transparency, particularly in a democracy, for the people who are governed to be able to push back," Wong said.
Colin Jacobs, spokesman for the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, supports the move, saying it "gives a bit of insight into what can otherwise be a mysterious process".
The government has said its internet filtering policy would include transparency and accountability measures but Senator Conroy said he would stop short of releasing the blacklist of banned websites.
Brazil topped Google's list at the nascent Government Requests website, which indicated that officials there asked Google to filter content 291 times between the beginning of July and the end of December in 2009.
Germany was second with 188 requests to remove data while India and the United States ranked third and fourth respectively with 142 and 123.
China was deliberately excluded from the list for legal reasons. Wong said regimes such as China and Iran "point to examples [of censorship] in Western countries" such as Australia when justifying their own, much more extreme, censorship.
"Government censorship of the web is growing rapidly: from the outright blocking and filtering of sites, to court orders limiting access to information and legislation forcing companies to self-censor content," Google chief legal officer David Drummond said in a blog post about the new tool.
"So it's no surprise that Google, like other technology and telecommunications companies, regularly receives demands from government agencies to remove content from our services."
Brazil also made the most requests for user information, with Google logging 3,663 requests. The United States was a close second place with 3,580 requests for user data while Britain was third with 1,166.
"The vast majority of these requests are valid and the information needed is for legitimate criminal investigations," Drummond said.
"However, data about these activities historically has not been broadly available. We believe that greater transparency will lead to less censorship."
Google said it planned to update the website in six-month increments.
"We're new at this, and we're still learning the best way to collect and present this information," Google explained at the Requests website. "We'll continue to improve this tool and fine-tune the types of data we display."
The number of governments censoring the internet has grown from about four in 2002 to more than 40, according to Open Net Initiative figures cited by Google.
"Increased government censorship of the web is undoubtedly driven by the fact that record numbers of people now have access to the internet, and that they are creating more content than ever before," Google vice president of public affairs Rachel Whetstone said in a separate blog post.
"This creates big challenges for governments used to controlling traditional print and broadcast media."
The launch of the Government Requests tool came on the same day that officials from 10 nations sent a letter to Google's chief executive demanding that the California firm better defend people's privacy.
Canada's privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said a collaboration of countries representing a total of 375 million people were "speaking with a common voice" to remind internet firms to obey each nation's privacy laws.
The letter was also signed by data protection officials from Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain.
"We are increasingly concerned that, too often, the privacy rights of the world's citizens are being forgotten as Google rolls out new technological applications," the letter stated.
The letter urges Google to set a worthy privacy example for other online firms.
- with AFP
Wed 21 Apr 2010 - 15:51
