Google Opens Tool Showing Government Requests For Data

By Matt McGee

Published: April 20, 2010 at 4:01 pm

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.

govt-requests

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.

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About the author

Matt McGee

Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.