Google continues to witness a rise in the number of user complaints after receiving 33,995 complaints in January 2022, according to a transparency report published by the company. It received 31,497 complaints in December 2021 which means that there was an eight percent increase (2,498) in January. The company revealed that these complaints concern third-party content that is believed to violate local laws or personal rights on Google's significant social media intermediary platforms. The complaints consist of various categories as is evident in the chart below. Most of the requests revolve around the infringement of intellectual property rights, while others highlight the violation of local laws on grounds such as defamation, Google said in its report. [caption id="attachment_157161" align="aligncenter" width="246"] Source: Google[/caption] The month of January follows the trend of the past few months where complaints are concentrated around copyright issues. The report does not include requests made by the government. The details are part of monthly transparency reports mandated under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. These reports outline the volume of complaints Google receives in India through its designated complaint channels during a month-long reporting period. The reports are an indicator of how major social media companies deal with user complaints. They shed light on action taken by the platform to address these complaints. Google's removal action continues to see a rise Google took action against 1,04,285 items based on the complaints received. The company explained that each unique URL in a single complaint is…
