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Google exercised its belief in freedom of speech recently, turning down a censorship request by the Canadian government to remove a YouTube video showing a man urinating on his own Canadian passport.

"We received a request from the Passport Canada office to remove a YouTube video of a Canadian citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet," the company revealed."We did not comply with this request," Google said.

Google releases fifth "Transparency Report," claimsmore information means more choice, more freedom

1,801,024 URLs requested to be removed in total

But gov't agencies top lists: In last half of 2011, U.S. gov't. agencies asked Google to censor 6,192 items

Number is increase of 718 percent vs. previous six-month period

But Google had to comply with others: The search giant claims it increasingly fields requests from government agencies trying to use their power to suppress political opinions and other material they don't like.

The details of the Canadian case were released in Google's semi-annual "transparency report" for the last half of 2011, released on Sunday. It was the U.S.-based company's fifthsince 2009, summarizing the company's responses to requests received from governments to remove links to web content alleged to be illegal, hateful, terrorism-promoting, or offensive -- an onslaught of requests that are only increasing, the company said Sunday.

"It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect -- Western democracies not typically associated with censorship," Dorothy Chou, Google's senior policy analyst, wrote in a Sunday blog post.

That comment may have been aimed at the U.S., where police prosecutors, courts and other government agencies submitted 187 requests to remove content from July through December last year, more than doubling from 92 requests from January through June.

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Google: Uptick in Censorship

Google censorship requests: The United States has asked Google to remove more items from its services than any other government in the world, the search giant revealed Sunday, showing that, in the past six months, the United States has requested the removal of 3,851 items. In second place? Germany, with 1,304.

According to a company blog post, requests from the United States have more than doubled in the past six months for an increase of 103 percent.

Takedown requests from the United States included those for the termination or removal of five YouTube accounts, 1,400 YouTube videos, 218 search results and a blog that allegedly defamed a law enforcement official in a personal capacity.

The report indicates that Google declined to comply to take down the blog post, the videos or the majority of the search results. The company did remove four YouTube accounts, which had around 300 videos, and 25 percent of the search requests.

Facebook to pay $10 million to settle sponsored stories suit: Facebook will pay $10 million in a settlement over its Sponsored Stories feature, which had some users up in arms about their privacy.

Details about Facebooks settlement with users over the social networks use of personal photos and likes emerged Saturday. As the Associated Press reported, some users said that Facebook has used their images for commercial activity. The social network said that the plaintiffs did not show that they were hurt by the feature.

The suit was settled last month, but the terms were not made public until recently.

Microsoft tablet: Microsoft is making a major announcement on Monday suspected to be the revelation of a brand-new tablet.

What, exactly, that tablet will be remains up in the air. The companys push toward Windows 8 has led to speculation that the company will show off its Windows RT tablets. Earlier speculation that Microsoft was going after the Kindle Fire cooled when Barnes and Noble told several media outlets that it would not be participating in the event.

Speculation, then, has centered on the possibility that the technology giant will venture into producing its own tablet hardware to take on Apples market-leading iPad.

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U.S. leads Google censorship requests #thecircuit

Google said censorship requests from India rose 49 percent over the last six months of 2011, compared with January-June, as a debate rages over how to constrain hate speech and copyright violations without curbing legitimate political discourse.

On Monday, Google said that it had received 101 content removal requests from Indian authorities between July and December last year, asking it to delete 255 items from its websites, the Times of India reported. Just five of these requests were made by courts, according to the newspaper.

According to the Google data, the company was asked to remove 130 items, including 77 videos on Youtube, because they were deemed defamatory, the paper said. However, only 25 items out of the total 130 had been deemed defamatory by the court system.

Read about India's partisan debate over online censorship in "Meet the Internet Hindus" on GlobalPost.

Another 25 items, including 24 videos, were considered hate speech.

"This is the fifth data set that we've released. And just like every other time before, we've been asked to take down political speech," the TOI quoted Dorothy Chou, senior policy analyst, as writing on the official Google blog. "It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect Western democracies not typically associated with censorship."

As far as removing the content was concerned, Google said it complied with 80 percent of the requests received from Indian courts. But for requests made by police or other government agencies, it complied in only 26 percent of the cases. "For the six months of data we're releasing today, we complied with an average of 65% of court orders, as opposed to 47% of more informal requests," TOI quotes Chou as writing.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/india/india-google-censorship

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India: Google notes increase in censorship requests

Google says government requests to take down content are up compared with last year.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Western governments, including the United States, appear to be stepping up efforts to censor Internet search results and YouTube videos, according to a "transparency report" released by Google.

"It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect -- Western democracies not typically associated with censorship," Dorothy Chou, a senior policy analyst at Google, wrote in a blog post on Sunday night.

"For example, in the second half of last year, Spanish regulators asked us to remove 270 search results that linked to blogs and articles in newspapers referencing individuals and public figures, including mayors and public prosecutors. In Poland, we received a request from a public institution to remove links to a site that criticized it. We didn't comply with either of these requests."

In the last 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. That's up 718% compared with the 757 such items that U.S. agencies asked Google to remove in the six months prior.

Overall, Google received 187 requests from United States law enforcement agencies and courts to remove content from its Web properties from July to December, up 103% from the 92 requests the Mountain View, California, company received in the previous reporting period.

In one incident cited in the report, a U.S. law enforcement agency asked Google to take down a blog that "allegedly defamed a law enforcement official in a personal capacity." The company did not comply with that request.

In another, a separate law enforcement group asked Google to take down 1,400 YouTube videos (Google owns YouTube) because of "alleged harassment."

And in Canada, the passport office asked Google to delete a YouTube video "of a Canadian citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet," according to the report.

The rest is here:
Google reports 'alarming' rise in government censorship requests

Google says government requests to take down content are up compared with last year.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Western governments, including the United States, appear to be stepping up efforts to censor Internet search results and YouTube videos, according to a "transparency report" released by Google.

"It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect -- Western democracies not typically associated with censorship," Dorothy Chou, a senior policy analyst at Google, wrote in a blog post on Sunday night.

"For example, in the second half of last year, Spanish regulators asked us to remove 270 search results that linked to blogs and articles in newspapers referencing individuals and public figures, including mayors and public prosecutors. In Poland, we received a request from a public institution to remove links to a site that criticized it. We didn't comply with either of these requests."

In the last 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. That's up 718% compared with the 757 such items that U.S. agencies asked Google to remove in the six months prior.

Overall, Google received 187 requests from United States law enforcement agencies and courts to remove content from its Web properties from July to December, up 103% from the 92 requests the Mountain View, California, company received in the previous reporting period.

In one incident cited in the report, a U.S. law enforcement agency asked Google to take down a blog that "allegedly defamed a law enforcement official in a personal capacity." The company did not comply with that request.

In another, a separate law enforcement group asked Google to take down 1,400 YouTube videos (Google owns YouTube) because of "alleged harassment."

And in Canada, the passport office asked Google to delete a YouTube video "of a Canadian citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet," according to the report.

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Google sees 'alarming' rise in censorship requests