Canadians most commonly request Google to remove content related to fraud, according to a new report.
Google announces the number of content removal requests it receives in an annual Transparency Report. A VPN service company called Surfshark has analyzed the data to spot trends.
Russia is described as historically the most "prolific content removal requester," and it had over 40,000 requests related to national security alone and over 100,000 total requests. In fact, Russia sent more take-down requests over the past decade than all other countries combined.
While Turkey had the second most requests, the number is far less, with 5,543 requests for defamation removal and just over 14,000 total requests.
India followed in third, with 9,899 total requests; the United States came just after it, with 9,627 requests.
Canada ranked 14th on the list, with 448 removal requests related to fraud. In total, there were 1,171 removal requests.
Surfshark notes, however, that as an overall percentage, "Canada sent more 'fraud-related" removal requests than any other country in the world."
The second-highest removal request in Canada was for defamation, followed by privacy and security.
Report authors also note that "defamation is the most prevalent cause for requests (10 of the 25 countries cited this reason most)."
This study analyzes data from Google’s Transparency Report. Surfshark filtered the data by location, the volume of requests between 2011-2020.
