An interesting report and analysis. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it
seems to me that all the requests are for the removal of posts or articles on their sites, not about the individuals who are making them. Is this true?
If this is so, or all but so, then it means this isn't about Big Brother watching what we're doing, but looking at what is available. With the bulk of the requests coming from court orders, which will often be coming from individuals and not government bodies, per se. Protection of name and legal rights being the basis for over 80% of the requests, and about 60% being court ordered, and probably from companies or people and not gov't agencies - if I'm reading the graph right.
Also, my own experience is this is not of much concern re gov't spying on us. I write stories and in order to make them seem more realistic I research them as best as I can. I know from contacts I have in my local intelligence community that the past research for some of those stories have triggered checks by the US intelligence community due to my visits to certain web sites and particular parts of the web sites. And none of that would have resulted from Google searches or sites. Which just shows the gov't does have better ways to check up on what people do in some parts of the Internet.
