Google has created a new politically-motivated interactive mashup that shows the quantity of takedown notices and user information requests from various world governments. This includes takedown notices for sites like Youtube, and access information for various websites and users. While still in development, it’s pretty easy to see that the US is second only to Brazil in data requests.
Like other technology and communications companies, we regularly receive requests from government agencies around the world to remove content from our services, or provide information about users of our services and products. The map shows the number of requests that we received between July 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009, with certain limitations.
We know these numbers are imperfect and may not provide a complete picture of these government requests. For example, a single request may ask for the removal of more than one URL or for the disclosure of information for multiple users. See the FAQ for more information.
