Google have released a ‘transparency’ report which shows that they denied the request to remove certain articles, which could be damaging, for an ANC mayor’s wife.
Google’s latest transparency report reveals that the company received takedown requests for over 1 million websites due to copyright infringements.
According to the report, Google removed 2.14 billion URLs from its search results which linked to copyright-protected material.
“Google regularly receives requests to remove content that may infringe copyright. This report provides data on requests to remove Search results that link to such material. Our goal is to help everyone understand the impact that copyright has on available content through transparency.”
Google also regularly receives requests from courts and government agencies around the world to remove information from Google products.
“Sometimes we receive court orders that don’t compel Google to take any action. Instead, they are submitted by an individual as support for a removal request,” said Google.
“We closely review these requests to determine if content should be removed because it violates a law or our product policies.”
Google listed one request from South Africa, which was received between July and December 2015, from the wife of a former mayor of Johannesburg.
Request: The wife of the mayor of Johannesburg requested we delist articles from Google Search suggesting that her husband used his position to advance her economic interests.
Outcome: We did not delist any URLs.
Google did not delist any articles from Google Search as requested by the wife of the former mayor.
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