Google had just release data on the number of government requests it gets for both information and take-down on its services, including YouTube. Since I am naturally a concerned citizen of Malaysia (read: busybody), I decided to look at the numbers for our Malaysian government. Turns out that our government is not too concerned sending take-down nor information requests.
According to the raw data, our government did not make any requests for data at all and only made less than ten take-down requests, of which none of them were complied with by Google. It is really interesting for me to note that our government is more than willing to order a take-down of content without first doing proper investigations, which is the reason why they issued take-down notices without any corresponding request for data. So, it comes as no surprise if Google refuses to take-down the content that was identified without due-cause.
Our government really needs to buck up on this. The data presented is only for the second half of 2009. I wonder how it would look come the next general election, once campaigning starts to heat up.
We live in interesting times.
