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In the spirit of shining more light on how government actions could affect users, Google Inc. in early 2010, began periodically sharing number of government requests received in what it calls the "Transparency Report." Today Google released its sixth update to Transparency Report with data about government requests from January to June 2012.

From the report: "Government surveillance is on the rise. ... [G]overnment demands for user data have increased steadily since we first launched the Transparency Report. In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 34,614 accounts."

Related topics: Censorship, Internet Governance, Web