Transparency Report

Government requests to remove content

Courts and government agencies around the world regularly request that we remove information from Google products. We review these requests closely to determine if content should be removed because it violates a law or our product policies. In this report, we disclose the number of requests we receive in six-month periods.

Government removal requests by the numbers: All countries / regions

Governments contact Google with content removal requests for a number of reasons. Government bodies may claim that content violates a local law, and include court orders that are often not directed at Google with their requests. Both types of requests are counted in this report. We also include government requests to review content to determine if it violates our own product community guidelines and content policies.

Total removal requests received since 2011
489,007
Total items named for removal since 2011
5,605,014

* 2009 - 2010 data is available in the CSV download file

Requests: All countries / regions

Total requestsJan 01, 2012Jan 01, 2014Jan 01, 2016Jan 01, 2018Jan 01, 2020Jan 01, 2022Jan 01, 2024020000400006000080000
PeriodTotal requests
Jun 30, 2011950
Dec 31, 20111,054
Jun 30, 20121,811
Dec 31, 20122,289
Jun 30, 20133,846
Dec 31, 20133,105
Jun 30, 20143,322
Dec 31, 20143,523
Jun 30, 20153,464
Dec 31, 20154,931
Jun 30, 20166,554
Dec 31, 201615,960
Jun 30, 201719,176
Dec 31, 201716,617
Jun 30, 201825,534
Dec 31, 201817,422
Jun 30, 201916,947
Dec 31, 201913,332
Jun 30, 202018,041
Dec 31, 202026,025
Jun 30, 202126,591
Dec 31, 202128,934
Jun 30, 202235,220
Dec 31, 202250,407
Jun 30, 202360,159
Dec 31, 202343,554
Jun 30, 202440,239

Data in this chart dates back to 2011, when we began recording and reporting this information.

We did not begin providing branch or reason data until the December 2010 reporting period.

Items: All countries / regions

Total itemsJan 01, 2012Jan 01, 2014Jan 01, 2016Jan 01, 2018Jan 01, 2020Jan 01, 2022Jan 01, 20240200000400000600000800000
PeriodTotal items
Jun 30, 20118,351
Dec 31, 201112,071
Jun 30, 201218,070
Dec 31, 201224,191
Jun 30, 201324,737
Dec 31, 201314,637
Jun 30, 201420,175
Dec 31, 201426,130
Jun 30, 201534,276
Dec 31, 201526,762
Jun 30, 2016108,358
Dec 31, 201659,195
Jun 30, 201776,714
Dec 31, 2017221,521
Jun 30, 2018271,127
Dec 31, 2018159,749
Jun 30, 2019270,229
Dec 31, 2019335,190
Jun 30, 2020277,519
Dec 31, 2020277,984
Jun 30, 2021546,598
Dec 31, 2021385,417
Jun 30, 2022387,251
Dec 31, 2022350,387
Jun 30, 2023551,280
Dec 31, 2023512,354
Jun 30, 2024604,741

Total items requested for removal from each Google product or service.

We did not begin providing item counts until the June 2010 reporting period.

Why governments request content removals

Governments ask us to remove or review content for many reasons. Some requests allege defamation, while others claim that content violates local laws prohibiting hate speech or adult content. The laws surrounding these issues vary by country/region. Our teams assign each request a category, such as hate speech, obscenity, and defamation. Note that we did not begin providing reason data about the reason for the request until the December 2010 reporting period.

Often times, government requests target political content and government criticism. Governments cite defamation, privacy, and even copyright laws in their attempts to remove political speech from our services. Our teams evaluate each request and review the content in context in order to determine whether or not content should be removed due to violation of local law or our content policies.

Reasons cited for content removal

National securityCopyrightPrivacy and securityDefamationRegulated goods and ser…1/2Jan 01, 2012Jan 01, 2014Jan 01, 2016Jan 01, 2018Jan 01, 2020Jan 01, 2022Jan 01, 2024010,00020,00030,00040,00050,00060,00070,000
PeriodNational securityCopyrightPrivacy and securityDefamationRegulated goods and servicesAll others
Jun 30, 20118132653150349
Dec 31, 20116192503870392
Jun 30, 201269542297220737
Dec 31, 2012256926688901,040
Jun 30, 2013411103761,06602,253
Dec 31, 201327363531,17701,512
Jun 30, 201455533471,25101,616
Dec 31, 2014176474881,14501,667
Jun 30, 2015263545061,06001,581
Dec 31, 2015719898541,39701,872
Jun 30, 20161,4361691,1671,73702,045
Dec 31, 20169,9941321,2371,70202,895
Jun 30, 201712,2632471,0291,7999882,850
Dec 31, 20175,7368661,4712,4552,2583,831
Jun 30, 20182,8083,5441,1202,65711,1394,266
Dec 31, 20182,5395,2681,0461,8801,8394,850
Jun 30, 20192,9233,8571,3801,7832,1504,854
Dec 31, 20192,0654,2201,0781,6761,1533,140
Jun 30, 20202,6565,8021,1121,6712,1804,620
Dec 31, 20203,9949,8421,6791,9372,8115,762
Jun 30, 20214,2049,9971,8031,8392,1786,570
Dec 31, 20214,2056,6945,9892,3232,2437,480
Jun 30, 202212,9195,6285,3982,1121,5497,614
Dec 31, 202223,4108,9924,6922,0292,8378,447
Jun 30, 202321,9007,2354,6512,1922,26321,918
Dec 31, 202311,2617,9886,1682,6541,81213,671
Jun 30, 202411,8868,7405,5352,0722,7429,264

Products affected

YouTube, Web Search, and Blogger are the products with the most frequent government requests to remove content, but dozens of other products are also affected.

Products

YouTubeWeb SearchBloggerAll others13.2%29.6%53%
ProductTotal requests
YouTube259,297
Web Search144,673
Blogger20,679
All others64,358

This chart shows the top three products and services cited in government requests during the selected reporting period.

Explore requests

Each reporting period, we highlight requests that may be of public interest. These requests provide a glimpse at the wide range of content removal requests that we receive, but they are not comprehensive.

Australia

Request

We received 3 requests containing link deletion notices from the Office of the eSafety Commissioner under the Online Safety Act 2021 to remove 9 URLs from Google Search. The notices informed us that content at the URLs concerned material depicting crime, cruelty and violence, and would have been classified as Class 1 Material by the Classification Board as defined under the Online Safety Act.

Outcome

We delisted 9 URLs from Google Search in Australia in response to the link deletion notices from the Office of the eSafety Commissioner.

Australia

Request

We received 8 requests from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s National Anti-Scam Center to investigate 3 Google Ads, 3 Gmail accounts, and 2 Sites URLs for scam and fraud-related offences under the Crimes Act 1958 (VIC) s82(1).

Outcome

We suspended a Google Ads account and removed the related ads from Google Ads for violation of Google Ads Policies, suspended 3 Gmail accounts for violation of Gmail Terms of Service, and removed 1 site for violation of Google Sites Policies. We asked the submitter for more information about the remaining 2 Google Ads (including requesting Ads URLs to help identify the content of concern) and 1 Google Site URL.

Australia

Request

We received a request from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency to remove 1 blog post from Blogger on the basis of a Court Order determining that claims made on the blog were in contravention of s116(1)(b) of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (Queensland).

Outcome

We removed 1 blog post from Blogger for violation of Blogger Content Policy.

Australia

Request

We received 15 requests from a law firm requesting for removal of 104 URLs from Google Search in Australia on the basis of 15 court orders issued concerning copyright infringement.

Outcome

We delisted 79 URLs from Google Search in Australia in accordance with Google's practices concerning court orders directed at third parties. We asked the submitter for more information about the remaining URLs.

France

Request

We received three court orders that required us to delist a total of 115 URLs from Google Search and to block 157 domains on PublicDNS. The issuing court ruled that the websites at hand were in breach of the plaintiffs' broadcasting rights to sports matches.

Outcome

We complied with the orders and delisted 78 URLs from Google Search in France. The remaining 37 URLs had already been delisted locally. We also blocked all 157 domains from PublicDNS for users in France.

Government requests to remove content

We share this information to shed light on the scale and scope of government requests for content removals. We hope to draw attention to the laws and legal processes around the world that affect access to information online. Share this page on social media to bring more attention to these laws.

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Learn more about how government requests impact the flow of information online
Regulated goods and services