Google bows to Aussie take-down requests

Google has dramatically increased its compliance in requests for take downs from the Australian Government in the past six months, it said in its biannual transparency report released yesterday.

(Screenshot by Josh Taylor/ZDNet Australia)

The report revealed that the internet giant complied with 92.9 per cent of the 200 data and 14 removal requests made to Google from the Federal Government between January and June 2010, compared to just 52.9 per cent of 155 data requests in the July to December 2009 period.

The vast majority of these requests were for content to be removed from Google Groups and web searches, with 314 and 317 items respectively requested to be removed.

However, the report claims that the Australia Government's data removal requests are much lower than the thousands requested by the United States, the United Kingdom, India or Brazil.

The report specifically omits removal requests relating to its controversial Street View application. Google's Street View cars came under fire earlier this year when it was revealed that the cars had inadvertently captured Wi-Fi payload data.