According to a Google transparency report, United States governmental agencies have asked Google to take down over 6,000 pieces of content from its Google search function, blog posts, or videos archived automatically by the site. And that’s just the last six months of 2011. As CNN reports, that’s up 718% over the six months starting 2011. Law enforcement has repeatedly requested that Google remove supposedly “defamatory” material from the website. By the same token, Google got 6,321 requests from government agencies for user data – and Google said yes 93% of the time.
Google wrote off the issue as unsurprising, since “each year we offer more products and services, and we have a larger number of users.” But it is questionable just why the number has skyrocketed, and whether that has anything to do with politics.