Google Publishes Censorship Map

Entropy98 writes "Google has released a censorship map showing how often countries around the world request user information and censor services such as Youtube. The US government asked Google for user information 4,287 times during the first six months of 2010. Information on China is conspicuously absent."

Comments

Dupe

[Dynedain]

Where have I seen this before? Oh yeah, on slashdot almost exactly 5 months ago.

Re:Dupe

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Yes and no. This looks like a new report, of the same kind, for a different time period. Five months ago, the report covered the second half of 2009, this report covers the first half of 2010.

Re:Dupe

[vux984]

5 months ago it didn't have data for the first six months of 2010. ;)

Re:Dupe

[commodore64_love]

>>>United States
>>>4287 data requests

I'd like to see this same information broken-down State-by-State, so we can see which states are most censoring. I'm betting New York and California and Pennsylvania are near the top, given their previous activities.

As for China, I wonder how long it will be until someplace like Australia or Canada decide "Hey that's a good idea" and declare takedown request to be state secrets.

Re:Dupe

[grub]

As for China, I wonder how long it will be until someplace like Australia or Canada decide "Hey that's a good idea" and declare takedown request to be state secrets.

I checked the map, interesting Canada has less than 10 (!)

World of difference the border between the US and Canada makes.

Re:Dupe

[Abstrackt]

World of difference the border between the US and Canada makes.

Yeah, the temperature is like 50 degrees lower.

Re:Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

There are probably many more U.S. demands than are reported by this tool.

As for China, I wonder how long it will be until someplace like Australia or Canada decide "Hey that's a good idea" and declare takedown request to be state secrets.

Read about National Security Letters. Since 9/11, these have been a popular method for American government agencies to evade public and judicial scrutiny during investigations. The very existence of a particular NSL cannot be disclosed legally.

NSLs are not reported by Google. They are our very own homegrown version of China's "state secret" demands. If you are served an NSL, and you tell someone of that fact, you can face jail time (merely for discussing its existence).

Re:Dupe

[kikito]

Temperature's 50 degrees lower just like IQ is 50 points higher.

Re:Dupe

[treeves]

That's only true on occasion, when it happens to be 72.5 at the US side of the border and 22.5 right over the border in Canada.

Re:Dupe

[shutdown -p now]

At least in cases of some NSLs that we became aware of, NSL stated that even disclosing its existence is illegal. Disclosing the number of NSLs served would, quite obviously, disclose their existence.

I also recall reading that some organizations in US have taken the approach of regularly posting something like "no NSLs have been served this months". This way, if one month they don't post anything, you know what happened.

Re:Dupe

[emj]

And here it is Googles transparency report instead of a useless article with no links. Interesting that Germany and the US have the same amount of take down requests..

Really, editors?

[Anonymous Coward]

You link to an article talking about it, but not the source link? http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/

Re:Really, editors?

[KlomDark]

Weird, the pin for the US is point almost exactly to where I grew up. Almost creepy!

I wonder what they know now that I used to know then, before they erased parts of my memory back in 1989?

Yo dawg

[selven]

I heard you like censorship so I censored your censorship map...

Re:for the impatient

[The MAZZTer]

For the super-impatient, a link you can click!

Trust?

[nurb432]

Chinese officials consider censorship demands to be state secrets so we cannot disclose that information at this time," said Google.

So tell me why we should believe anything they say?

Re:Trust?

[Anonymous Coward]

Worse: it's not only China.

According to other sources, National Security Letters (NSLs) from the U.S. government are not reported by Google.

NSLs are issued with gag orders preventing their disclosure. They're essentially a method of bypassing the standard judicial process, instead using a system more closely resembling the Chinese government's secrecy. For Americans, they should be much more of a concern than the Chinese officials' "state secrets."

Source:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/google-government-requests-rise/

This doesn't make sense at all.

[d474]

When the Government asks Google for information about a user, how is that "censorship"? It may be a violation of privacy, but it's not censorship unless Google admits that the government then used that information about the user to censor their online activities. Of course, I did not RTFA. I prefer to censor myself ;P

My first thoughts

[Ishkibble]

My first thoughts are 'this is great'. Google claims "don't be evil" so it better live up to it. Money corrupts a corporation and since they have gone public that has been called into question. I have an android phone and i happily let Google track me, i let them keep my email, my photos, my digital life, the least they can do is put out something like this. This map is not for me though, its for the average Googler who doesn't fully understand how Google collects and keeps and uses personal data.

Where are the percentages?

[CannonballHead]

They give the map with actual numbers, apparently, right?

I'd be more interested in what percentage of data that Google COULD get asked about is actually asked about.

Otherwise, it's like saying that I killed 300 cows whereas my neighbor only killed 1. Well, it just so happens that my herd is 300x as big, too... a more understandable reading would be the percentage of cows killed per herd.

What happened on Feb 25 2010 ?

[equex]

Look at the Traffic chart ( http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/ ) Seems to be a huge peak and after that general activity falls quite a bit compared to before that date ?

Biggest democracies, biggest culprits

[losttoy]

United States 4287 Brazil 2435 India 1430 United Kingdom 1343 France 1017 Germany 668 Italy 651 Spain 372 Australia 200

Re:Biggest democracies, biggest culprits

[h00manist]

Not all of them
Canada ............. 10

Re:Biggest democracies, biggest culprits

[glwtta]

Canada ............. 10

Yeah, but that's like 1 for every 10 Canadians.

Re:Biggest democracies, biggest culprits

[Experiment 626]

If a democratic government doesn't like what you are looking at online, they take it down.
If a totalitarian government doesn't like what you are looking at online, they take YOU down.

Re:for the impatient

[MRe_nl]

And, to put a quick end to this thread, the answers to all (y)our questions;
http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/faq.html#governmentrequestsfaq

State Secrets

[hondo77]

"Chinese officials consider censorship demands to be state secrets so we cannot disclose that information at this time," said Google.

Somewhere in Washington, D.C. or nearby Virginia, someone in a cubicle just said, "Ooh, good idea!"

And you are correct

[wsanders]

In their FAQ, Google states "the statistics primarily cover requests in criminal matters".

However, we don't let that interfere with our paranoia, or else the Terrorists win.

Re:China goes "meta"

[Dan667]

they generally yell "think of the children" when they are taking away your rights so how can you tell?

Why China is missing

[bob8766]

Chaina is missing due to a Google bug. They coded it with an INT32, but they really needed an INT64 for China

Re:Interesting

[amRadioHed]

While it's true a government operated CCTV can be found in the homes of most Chinese people, I don't think it is what you think it is.

It's just division....

[guyminuslife]

Come on! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to derive those values. Here's a list of government requests per million people, rounded and only including the countries where the number of datums requested was shown. Argentina - - - 3.307095
Australia - - - 8.901248
Austria - - - 0.238865
Belgium - - - 6.557971
Brazil - - - 12.581119
Chile - - - 6.712585
France - - - 15.539203
Germany - - - 8.166034
Hong Kong - - - 7.11602
India - - - 1.203775
Israel - - - 3.932982
Italy - - - 10.7777
Japan - - - 0.439595
Libya - - - 22.761992
Portugal - - - 6.86291
Singapore - - - 20.879705
South Korea - - - 3.415496
Spain - - - 8.074172
Switzerland - - - 4.497038
Taiwan - - - 5.620141
Turkey - - - 0.702854
United Kingdom - - - 21.658479
United States - - - 13.815395