Google has announced a new tool that makes public the government requests it receives for data and content removal. It’s called Government Requests, and it currently shows requests that Google received between July 1 and December 31, 2009.

Google admits, in a very detailed FAQ, that the data is not comprehensive. (The tool doesn’t include stats for countries that have made less than 30 requests for user data related to criminal cases in the six-month period, for example.)

Google says it will update the tool with new data in six-month increments, and that the company intends to “provide more detail about our compliance with user data requests in a useful way” in the future.

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Legal | Google: Outside US | Legal: Censorship | Top News

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