Internet resources: Google to track censorship down

On September 21 2010 Google unveiled its new tool Transparency Report, aimed to struggle censorship on Internet.

Transparency Report helps to learn about the freedom of speech on the Internet worldwide. The service includes two tools: Government Requests and Traffic.

Google’s Government Requests tool is an interactive map that shows every time a government has asked Google to take down of hand over information about a user.

As an example, between January 2010 and June 2010 the US government made 4287 requests for user data, whereas Brazil became a leader requesting the removal of the content (398). As for Russia, it submitted less than 10 requests.

Traffic tool displays which countries block traffic of Google websites — like YouTube, Google Maps or Gmail.