Free Expression – Google’s Transparency Report
by Richard Bagnall on September 22nd, 2010.
Google’s second Transparency Report has been released this week, detailing the number of government requests for data (and data removal) by country, as well as providing data on traffic to Google services around the world. The statistics themselves are interesting, with the US government coming top with 4,287 requests between January and June 2010 and the UK coming fourth with 1,343 (following Brazil and India). Chinese statistics are notably absent. However, it’s the philosophy behind the production of the report and the presentation of the data that fascinates me most.
The Transparency Report has been devised by Google in an effort to “maximize free expression and access to information”, to quote David Drummond, Google’s Chief Legal Officer. In terms of the data on traffic globally, Google sees the Transparency Report as being part of a greater effort to raise awareness about when and where services are blocked or filtered.
The Government Requests statistics have captured the imagination of the press, with the BBC leading with a dramatic (and perhaps misleading?) headline of “Google releases censorship tools”. Google is hoping to release more detail about the nature of the requests in future reports. In a tongue-in-cheek blog from CNET, Rich Trenholm ponders how the H2 2010 data for the UK will shape up in light of our new government.
A final word on data presentation: here at Metrica, we are big fans of innovative charts. For the Government Requests, the data is linked to a Google map and you can click on the country for more info. The Traffic charts are limitable by different time intervals and Google function for each country, so you can slice the data in a variety of ways. Both methods are great examples of presenting potentially dry data in an interactive way.
It will be enlightening to see the next Transparency Report and what data will be revealed. Perhaps the report won’t initiate the kind of change Google is aspiring to make, but I’m ever hopeful for some more exciting charts.
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Written by Richard Bagnall
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