Google’s latest Transparency Report shows that the Canadian government is increasingly requesting that Google remove content from its websites, primarily for reasons of defamation.
The Canadian government requested the removal of 405 pieces of content between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2012. Of these, 325 were because the content was deemed defamatory. The Google service most targeted by these removal requests was Blogger, followed by YouTube.
The number of requests that Canada makes has been increasing. It made 207 requests in the first half of 2012, up from 162 requests during the preceding six-month period.
Most Canadian requests for removal of content came from the “executive,” which includes police or the government directly. The remaining 44 per cent of requests come from court orders.
Google complied with 58 per cent of Canadian requests for removal during the last reporting period, a number that isn’t unusual historically. But, there were some notable times when Google decided not to remove content.
Between July and December 2011, Google received a request from Passport Canada to remove a YouTube video showing a Canadian citizen “urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet.” Google did not remove the video.
In another case, between July and December 2009, Google received a request from a Canadian politician to remove a blog “criticizing his policies.” They did not remove the blog.
And more recently, Google received a falsified court order for the removal of defamatory content, citing a case in Moncton, New Brunswick.
Although Google described a rise in government requests for personal information worldwide in its report, it seems Canada did not follow this trend.
Only 50 requests for user information held by Google were made by the Canadian government between January 1 and June 30, 2012. This pales in comparison to the nearly 8,000 requests made by the U.S. government over the same period. What’s more, Google only complied with 12 of Canada’s requests.
Other interesting tidbits from the Transparency Report:
1. Music, software and pornography rights holders are very interested in protecting their copyright. In the past month, the Recording Industry Association of America and its member companies requested that 1.33 million URLs be removed from Google search, because of copyright issues. The second-highest requester was pornography company Froytal Services Ltd at 1.29 million URLs. BPI, Microsoft and Fox round out the top five.
2. Torrenting files remains popular. Copyright holders are requesting millions of URLs at torrent domains be removed from search.
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