Between July and December 2012, Google has received 160 content removal requests from the Indian government to remove 2,942 items and it has fully or partially complied with 36% of these requests, the company has revealed as a part of its Transparency report. Both removal requests and the compliance rate has increased over the six month period, as Google had received 101 requests for removal of 596 items of content between Jan-June 2012 and it had complied with 33% of theses requests. However, its worth noting that while the government requests have shot up by nearly four-fold, Google's compliance rate has seen only a minor 3% increase. Court Orders V/s Indian Authorities Of the 160 removal requests, Google informed that court orders accounted for 38 requests seeking the removal of 413 items and it had complied with 53% of these requests. On the other hand, Indian authorities which includes government executives and police among others, accounted for 122 requests seeking the removal of 2,529 items and Google had complied with 30% of these requests. Reasons For Content Removal Requests Religious Offense was the most prominent reason for content removal requests, with the company receiving 65 requests to remove a total 2,338 items, which includes 2,328 items on YouTube, 4 items each on Blogger and Google+ and 1 item each on Google Images and Web search. This was followed by 'privacy and security', for which Google received 21 requests to remove 287 items for 'privacy and security' reason, which includes 256 items on Search, 12 items on Picasa web albums, 9…
