Today, Google has released new data reports from their Transparency Report  and according to this update, Google has received over 1000 requests from governments from certain countries in the world, requesting to remove search results, that links to blog posts and videos on the Internet, which Google sees as an “alarming” rise of online censorship over the years.

“This is the fifth data set that we’ve released. And just like every other time before, we’ve been asked to take down political speech. It’s alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect—Western democracies not typically associated with censorship.” Google’s Senior Policy Analyst, Dorothy Chou explained.

According to the data from Google, most of the countries with these requests are not Western democracies. Google says that these requests actually come from countries you might not suspect. Most of these requests even includes removal of hundreds of search results, which just points to blog posts that referred to public figures in those countries.

This actually poses a huge threat to our rights of free-speech, but sadly most of these requests comes from court orders. So, Google has no choice but to obey them and contribute to the public debate on this subject. 

Hit the source link for the full story.

[Image Credit: Flickr User Robert Scoble] 

[Via: More transparency into government requests Google Blog]
(All The Images, Trademarks, Logo’s Shown on this Post are the property of their respective owners)

Roshan Jerad Perera