By MIS Asia writer
MIS Asia
April 23, 2010

SINGAPORE - Governments in Asia seem less likely to petition Google to hand over user data or to censor information, according to statistics revealed by the search giant in a new online tool.

Google has implemented the new tool and map to provide the numbers of government requests directed to Google and Youtube, but it stops short of providing any precise details on the nature of the requests.

Google said the “vast majority of these requests are valid and the information needed is for legitimate criminal investigations”.

Google chief legal officer David Drummond said in a blog post: “However, data about these activities historically has not been broadly available. We believe that greater transparency will lead to less censorship.”

China excluded

China is specifically excluded because, as the Google website states: “Chinese officials consider censorship demands as state secrets, so we cannot disclose that information at this time”.

Google’s new tool highlights that between 1 July 2009 and 31 December 2009 (with certain limitations), the Singapore government made 62 data requests and less than 10 removal requests. Fifty per cent of the removal requests were fully or partially complied with.

The Malaysian government, says Google, made less than 10 removal requests and none were complied with.

Governments in Indonesia ad Thailand made less than 10 removal requests and all were fully or partially complied with.

Brazil topped Google’s list at the nascent Government Requests website, which indicated that officials there asked Google to filter content 291 times between the beginning of July and the end of December in 2009.

Germany number two

Germany was second with 188 requests to remove data while India and the United States ranked third and fourth respectively with 142 and 123.

Google deputy general counsel Nicole Wong said some of the overall government requests sought removal of multiple pieces of content. The company planned to release new figures every six months but acknowledged the data was less than perfect as the specific details of each content removal request are not provided.

“The issue around deciding to censor information requires some level of transparency, particularly in a democracy, for the people who are governed to be able to push back,” Wong said.

She said regimes such as China and Iran “point to examples [of censorship] in Western countries” such as Australia when justifying their own, much more extreme, censorship.

Government censorship growing rapidly

“Government censorship of the Web is growing rapidly: from the outright blocking and filtering of sites, to court orders limiting access to information and legislation forcing companies to self-censor content,” said Drummond.

“So it’s no surprise that Google, like other technology and telecommunications companies, regularly receives demands from government agencies to remove content from our services.”

In a separate blog post, Google vice president of public affairs, Rachel Whetstone, said: “Increased government censorship of the Web is undoubtedly driven by the fact that record numbers of people now have access to the Internet, and that they are creating more content than ever before.

“This creates big challenges for governments used to controlling traditional print and broadcast media.”

10 nation letter

The launch of the Government Requests tool came on the same day that officials from 10 nations sent a letter to Google’s chief executive demanding that the California firm better defend people’s privacy.

Canada’s privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said a collaboration of countries representing a total of 375 million people were “speaking with a common voice” to remind Internet firms to obey each nation’s privacy laws.

The letter was also signed by data protection officials from Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain.

“We are increasingly concerned that, too often, the privacy rights of the world’s citizens are being forgotten as Google rolls out new technological applications,” the letter stated.

The letter urges Google to set a worthy privacy example for other online firms.

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