According to a transparency report released by Google, western governments, including that of the United States, appear to be stepping up efforts to censor Internet search results and YouTube videos, CNN
"It's alarming not only because the right to free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests are coming from countries you might not expect this from-- Western democracies not typically associated with censorship," said Dorothy Chou, a senior policy analyst at Google.
During the second half of 2011, U.S. agencies asked Google to remove 6,192 individual pieces of content from its search results, blog posts or archives of online videos, according to the report. The tech company did comply, at least in part, with 42% of the removal requests coming from the U.S.
The company said: "We review each request to make sure that it complies with both the spirit and the letter of the law, and we may refuse to produce information or in some cases will try to narrow down the request."
(China.org.cn June 29, 2012)
