U.S. government requests for Google user data jump\r\n<\/p>
\r\nOctober 25, 2011 | 11:20 am\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe U.S. government wants your information.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt's flooding Google with requests for personal information about\r\nusers for criminal investigations, according to a so-called\r\ntransparency report the Internet search giant released Tuesday.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe number of such requests jumped 29% in six months, Google reported.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nU.S. government agencies sent Google 5,950 criminal investigation\r\nrequests during the first half of 2011 compared with 4,601 requests\r\nduring the last six months of 2010. Google complied in part or\r\ncompletely with 93% of those requests which can include court orders\r\nand subpoenas.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe number of users and accounts affected: 11,057.\r\n<\/p>
\r\n\"For the first time, we're not only disclosing the number of requests\r\nfor user data, but we're showing the number of users or accounts that\r\nare specified in those requests too. We also recently released the raw\r\ndata behind the requests. Interested developers and researchers can\r\nnow take this data and revisualize it in different ways, or mash it up\r\nwith information from other organizations to test and draw up new\r\nhypotheses about government behaviors online,\" Dorothy Chou, a Google\r\nsenior policy analyst, wrote in a blog post.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nGoogle said it also received 92 requests to remove 757 pieces of\r\ncontent from its services including YouTube. Google complied in part\r\nor completely with 63% of those requests.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nGoogle has an agenda here. It wants to spread this kind of information\r\n-- albeit incomplete as it does not include certain terrorism-related\r\nrequests -- to push for reform of federal laws that give law\r\nenforcement unfettered access to online communications without a\r\njudge's order.\r\n<\/p>
\r\n\"We believe that providing this level of detail highlights the need to\r\nmodernize laws like the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which\r\nregulates government access to user information and was written 25\r\nyears ago -- long before the average person had ever heard of email,\"\r\nChou wrote.<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":" http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/technology\/2011\/10\/us-government-requests-for-google-user-data-jump.html","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":""U.S. government agencies sent Google 5,950 criminal investigation\r\nrequests during the first half of 2011 compared with 4,601 requests\r\nduring the last six months of 2010. Google complied in part or\r\ncompletely with 93% of those requests"","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2011\/10\/249152.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}