You may think your data on Google is safe and the internet is a free democratic space to share whatever you want to. Think again.
Google regularly gets content removal and user data requests from the Government of India. A most surprising fact thrown up by the Google Transparency report for the period July to December 2010 is that majority of content removal requests from GoI to Google were on the grounds of 'defamation'. (Click here for the Transparency Report)
'Government criticism' and 'national security' came a close second. A total of 67 requests were made by the Govt for removal of content from Google services in the period under survey. Google, on its part, complied with 22 per cent of those requests. The Govt also requested for the disclosure of 1,699 user data records from Google data or services of which Google complied with 79 per cent of requests. Youtube, blogger, google images and google search were some of the internet spaces scrutinised by the Govt.