Google/Youtube released a map that geographically pin-points the amount of government issued removal and data requests from July 1 2009 to December 31 2009. Even though Google clearly states that the data represented is not 100% accurate and comprehensive, there is still quite a bit of interesting information to be found on this map.

TOP 5 Removal Requests (take-down or removal of content) :
1) Brazil
2) Germany
3) India
4) United States
5) South Korea

TOP 5 Data Requests (information regarding content) :
1) Brazil
2) United States
3) United Kingdom
4) India
5) France

Seeing the Brazilian government at the top of both lists lead me to do some research. A popular, Google-owned, social networking website known as “Orkut” is apparently where all the government issued requests are coming from. At first, this still seemed strange to me. I have yet to ever witness much illegal activity (around copyright or not). However, fraud and impersonation have become a large problem on Orkut in Brazil, as well as India. Another portion of the take-down requests come from political issues, fairly often regarding censorship. Many German removal requests stem from the illegality of posting or supporting pro-Nazi content. Surprisingly though, nothing regarding copyright infringement is ever mentioned. Now that most Internet copyright infringement is no longer a civil matter, but a federal crime, you would imagine it’s something governments would be more involved in. Not that I am supportive of any group of people tracking me down for Internet copyright, but I feel like it would make more sense to be chased down by the government than a huge privately owned corporation (which is clearly still the case for Google/Youtube.) Either way, it’s nice to see Google releasing this information in a time when internet ‘freedom’ is being increasingly controlled by governments across the globe.