Dal Guardian del 20 aprile:
Google has hit out at state attempts to clamp down on the internet by revealing governments’ requests to remove data from the web and get information about users.
Tonight it released a web page with a map showing country by country where it has had government requests or court orders to remove content from the YouTube video service or its search results, or to provide details about users of its services.
The release of the tool, announced on its official blog, comes as it has had to counter complaints from data protection authorities in 10 countries, including the UK, that its Street View product, which provides pictures of public streets, and its ad-hoc social networking service Buzz “were launched without due consideration of privacy and data protection laws” and that Buzz in particular “betrayed a disappointing disregard for fundamental privacy norms”.
Details provided by Google cover requests between 1 July and 31 December 2009, and show that in the UK there were 1,166 requests for data about users and 59 requests to remove web pages in Google’s services such as YouTube, or from its search results for the web. It complied with 45, or 76%, of the 59 requests, of which 43 were about YouTube videos. It does not specify which government agency – such as the police or others – made the request.
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(L’Italia nella graduatoria è presente con 57 richieste, in testa il Brasile con 291 seguiti dalla Germania con 188 e dall’India con 142. La Cina battecomunque tutti perché ha una censura globale).
