Google has released its annual data requests report, showing the raw numbers on government requests to remove search results.

This year, Google has received 700 less requests than 2013, surprisingly. The search engine received a total of 3,105 requests, for the removal of 14,637 items from search results.

Like Us on Facebook

The new UI Google has provided offers an in-detail look at the reasons for the removal and what apps were targeted, including Blogger, Search and YouTube.

Blogger continues to be the largest target for governments, followed by web search.

Court orders were higher than 2013, at 1443 to 1335 last year. However, authority data requests went down heavily in 2014, from 2511 to 1662, mostly due to Turkey's authority clashing down on search results in 2013.

If it wasn't for Turkey's large amount of data requests last year, Google might be showing even higher numbers this year.

Google has given reasons for governments requesting content to be removed, alongside a page on how it works with governments. There are still laws stopping Google from completely disclosing all information on the data requests.

Google has offered some examples of reasons and outcomes, but these are quite vague, and Google cannot disclose names or organisations.

Twitter is currently fighting in court to have all data requests from the U.S. government and any other foreign government disclosed to the users.

Currently, if a government finds content disturbing and wants to get it removed, they will seek a private court order and make sure both parties cannot speak on it.

The content will be reviewed and if agreed, will be removed. Google does not contact the owner of the blog or site about the data request, in most cases.

Tagsdata requests, surveillance, censorship