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

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(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 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

Google has had its run-ins with China over government policies, but now it's pointing the finger of blame at the U.S. and some other Western nations. "Comparing the U.S. government to China in terms of censorship isn't the best thing to do politically," suggested tech analyst Rob Enderle, "... But Google has never been savvy in terms of politics. It just isn't one of their strengths."

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) announced Monday that it had received more than 1,000 requests from authorities to take down content from its search results and YouTube video service during the past six months. Google has characterized this as an "alarming trend."

The company also released its twice-yearly Transparency Report, noting noted that the requests were aimed at removing some 12,000 items overall. This is an increase of about 25 percent from the first half of last year.

"Unfortunately, what we've seen over the past couple years has been troubling, and today is no different," Dorothy Chou, the search engine's senior policy analyst, said in a blog post. "We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it's not."

Google's response maybe as much about holding firm as it is about addressing every request.

"There are two reasons for Google's response," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "When they give in to censorship they look weak. The second is that it is damn hard to manage. It requires a substantial number of folks who can manage the process, and moreover any law or edict is open to multiple interruptions."

The requests were not limited to countries with strict censorship policies, either. While Google refused to delete six YouTube videos that mocked Pakistani politicians and military officials, the company also refused to remove a video of a Canadian citizen urinating on his passport.

"They've been involved in this issue for a while," said Daniel Castro, senior analyst for the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. "As an organization that has been put in this situation, they've been very upfront about how they'll address the requests to have the content removed."

The discussion may move to whether the content involved is even appropriate or not, Castro told TechNewsWorld.

Content that was deemed inappropriate was removed: 100 or so YouTube videos in Thailand that allegedly insulted the monarchy, which is a crime in that country; a video that contained hate speech in Turkey; and YouTube accounts that posted threatening and harassing content in the United States, following complaints from U.S. law enforcement agencies.

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Google Sounds Censorship Alarm in Free World

Google's new Transparency Report shows a significant uptick in government censorship attempts and requests for users' private data in 2011.

Government censorship of the Web, including attempts from Western democracies to silent political speech, rose significantly during the second half of 2011, according to the most recent data released by Google. Of the 1007 requests from governments around the world to take down content, including YouTube videos and search results, Google complied with more than half of them.

Google has also seen a jump in government requests for users private data, with the U.S. government issuing more than 6,000 such requests.

News of a spike in censorship and user data requests from governments around the world comes with the release of the biannual Google Transparency Report, first launched in 2010, which Google posted online late Sunday night.

The reasons for, and nature of, the censorship request vary widely: defamation, hate speech, pornography, privacy and security, national security, impersonation, electoral law, copyright infringement, and that forever-vauge category other.

During the second half of last year (July through December), U.S. government agencies issued a total of 187 requests for the removal of 6,192 individual items. Of those, 117 were formal requests, while the remaining 70 requests came in an informal manner (such as a phone call). Google says that it complied with 40 percent of the formal take-down requests, and 44 percent of the informal ones.

Only Brazil issued more individual requests than the the U.S., but sought the take-down of a fraction of the content compared to the U.S. government.

In terms of private user data, the U.S. government issued 6,321 total requests of information from 12,243 accounts during the July through December 2011 period. That marks a 37 percent increase from the previous six months, during which U.S. government agencies asked that Google supply user data 5,950 times, which concerned 11,057 accounts. Googles senior policy analyst Dorothy Chou tells Forbes that many of the requests are for user IP addresses, which are used by local law enforcement in criminal cases.

In both the first and second parts of 2011, Google complied with user data requests from U.S. government agencies 93 percent of the time.

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Google: U.S. government censorship, private user data requests on the rise

Google on Sunday released its regular report of censorship requests it receives from governments around the world with warning words.

When we started releasing this data in 2010, we also added annotations with some of the more interesting stories behind the numbers, wrote Google Senior Policy Analyst Dorothy Chou in a company blog Sunday.

Chou wrote that she was alarmed by the number of requests to take down political speech, and the number of requests Googles had from Western democracies not typically associated with censorship.

Case in point: the United States, which reportedly increased its requests by 103 percent in the past six months.

According to Googles report, 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.

The company said, overall, it has complied with an average of 65 percent of court orders and 47 percent of more informal requests in the six months detailed in Sundays data.

The past six months also saw a 49 percent increase in requests from the Indian government, as well as first-time requests from four countries: Bolivia, the Czech Republic, Jordan and Ukraine.

Google offered detailed looks at some, though not most, of the requests. For example, the company said it did not comply with a Canadian request to remove a YouTube video of a Canadian citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet. A British request to remove 640 videos from five user accounts that allegedly support terrorism was honored after Google found that those users had violated its community guidelines. In other cases, the company removed content to comply with court orders or to abide by local laws.

As CNET noted, the list doesnt include any censorship from countries that dont bother with requests to censor Googles information, such as China or Iran. They censor the information themselves.

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Google: U.S. censorship requests doubled in last half of 2011