Google has released what it is calling the Transparency Report, which shows the number of government inquiries for information about users and requests for Google to take down or censor content, as well as interactive traffic graphs that show information about traffic to Google around the world.”Like all companies, Google’s services occasionally experience traffic disruptions,” writes David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer. “Our new traffic tracking tool helps us and others track whether these interruptions are related to mechanical outages or are government-induced. Each traffic graph shows historic traffic patterns for a given country and service. Graphs are updated as data is collected, then normalized and scaled in units of 0 to 100.”

“This new tool—which is global and includes China—will replace the Mainland China service availability chart, which showed product access for China alone,” adds Drummond. “By showing outages, the traffic graphs visualize disruptions in the free flow of information, whether it’s a government blocking information or a cable being cut. For example, the graphs show that YouTube has been inaccessible in Iran since June 12, 2009, following the disputed presidential election.”

The United States, by far, has made the largest number of data requests, with Brazil coming in second. The countries were flipped in terms of removals. According to Google’s numbers, from July 2009 to June 2010, the United States made 7,867 data requests and 251 removal requests. Brazil made 6,098 data requests and 689 removal requests. After these two countries, there is a pretty big drop off in the numbers.

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