donderdag 17 november 2011

Google Transparency Report


In zijn Transparancy Report schrijft Google:
We've created Government Requests to show the number of government inquiries for information about users and requests to remove content from our services. We hope this step toward greater transparency will help in ongoing discussions about the appropriate scope and authority of government requests.
Our interactive Traffic graphs provide information about traffic to Google services around the world. Each graph shows historic traffic patterns for a geographic region and service. By illustrating outages, this tool visualizes disruptions in the free flow of information, whether it's a government blocking information or a cable being cut. We hope this raw data will help facilitate studies about service outages and disruptions.
Naast de visualisaties die Google hier zelf bij gemaakt heeft (bijvoorbeeld deze en deze) heeft het datablog van The Guardian de visualisatie hierboven gemaakt. De conclusies van The Guardian zijn:
  • The number of US government requests for data on Google users for use in criminal investigations rose 29% in the last six months. Google says it complied in whole or part with 93% of such requests
  • The US demanded private information about more than 11,000 Google users between January and June this year, almost equal to the number of requests made by 25 other developed countries, including the UK and Russia.
  • Governments around the world requested private data about 25,440 people in the first half of this year, with 11,057 of those people in the US
  • Google received 92 requests to remove data from its services, including YouTube. The requests collectively asked for 757 individual pieces of content be removed. Google says it complied fully or partially with 63% of the requests
  • US government agencies sent Google 5,950 criminal investigation requests for data on Google users and services in the first six months of 2011, an average of 31 a day
Overigens, in deze overzichten staan niet alleen "manipulaties" van Google. In de Faq staat:
Do your statistics cover all categories of content removals?
No. Our policies and systems are set up to identify and remove child pornography whenever we become aware of it, regardless of whether that request comes from the government. As a result, it's difficult to accurately track which of those removals were requested by governments, and we haven't included those statistics here. We counted requests for removal of all other types of content (e.g., alleged defamation, hate speech, impersonation). In addition, for YouTube, we generally have not included government requests for removal of copyrighted content unless there are extraordinary circumstances behind the request. The vast majority of requests for removal of copyrighted material on YouTube are received from private parties; some may come from state or foreign governments, but that number is very low. Regardless, such requests are not reflected in these statistics.
en
Do you ever remove content that violates local law without a court order or government request?
Yes. The statistics we report here do not include content removals that we regularly process every day across our products for violation of our content policies (for example, we do not permit hate speech in Blogger and other similar products) in response to user complaints. In many cases these requests result in the removal of material that violates local law, independent of any government request or court order seeking such removal.

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