Google has received Government requests for removal of 358 items from its services, including YouTube and Orkut, during the January-June period, according to a report by the Internet search giant.
As many as 255 item removal requests cited the government criticism as the reason, said the Google Transparency Report.
The government had asked Google to remove 236 items from Orkut and 19 items from YouTube for the same reason, it added
Other reasons include defamation (39 requests), privacy and security (20 requests), impersonation (14 requests), hate speech (8 requests), pornography (3 requests) and national security (1 request).
As much as 51 per cent of the total requests were partially or fully complied with, the report said.
The report added that “we declined the majority of these requests and only locally restricted videos that appeared to violate local laws prohibiting speech that could incite enmity between communities”. According to the report, Orkut topped the list of products for which content/item removal requests were received with 264 requests.