Google release maps Govt censorship mapping tool

Wednesday, 21 April 2010, 22:27 IST
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San Francisco: After getting requests from regulators, courts and other government agencies, Google has released maps with details of government censorship requests worldwide. This new tool will help users to see the number of government requests that it has received from each country across the word to remove data or to get information about its users or has received court orders to remove content from YouTube or its search results, reports techradar.com. Google is making more extensive disclosures about censorship demands or other government requests to edit its search results. The company is also including demands to remove material from its other services, including the YouTube video site, although it is excluding removal requests related to allegations of copyright infringement, a recurring problem for YouTube. For an example, in the U.S., the company received 123 requests to remove material from its services during the last half of 2009 and complied with 80 percent of them. According to the sources, the reasons include violations of Google's own policies regarding extreme violence, profanity and hate speech. More than 40 of those requests included a court order, Google said. Till now, the company received 3,663 requests for user data and 291 requests to remove material from Brazil. Nearly 200 of the removal requests involved Orkut. Other countries logging at least 1,000 requests for user data were the U.S. (3,580), UK (1,166) and India (1,061).