Google Maps Government Requests

Google has been on a anti-censorship tear since getting highly pissed at China over an alleged hacking incident. The latest salvo is a map showing the details of government requests for either data takedowns or for information about users.

As a US citizen, we don’t exactly come out smelling of roses. We are #2 for data requests and #4 for content removal requests. Over the course of 6 months the US made 3580 data requests. I can see why countries accuse us of not eating our own dog food when it comes to Internet freedoms.

Interestingly, no information for China is reported, as censorship in China is considered state secrets. I guess in China even what they censor is censored.

There’s no mention of DMCA and other nonsense related to copyright holders or imaginary property patents in the FAQ, so those are likely not considered government requests and are not included (the great Adolf Hitler Furious at ESRI Software recently fell victim to DMCA idiocy). For good information on those kinds of requests, check out Chilling Effects.