Google's first transparency report claims removal of 59k content

New Delhi: The global tech giant Google on Wednesday released its transparency report in compliance with the new Information Technology (IT) Rules, 2021 (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code), saying that it received a total of 27,762 complaints in April, while the number of removals stood at 59,350.

"We have a long history of providing transparency into the different types of requests we receive from around the world, and how we respond. All of these requests are tracked and included in our existing Transparency Report since 2010," a Google spokesperson said in a statement.

"This is the first time we will publish a monthly transparency report in accordance with the new IT Rules and will continue to publish more details as we refine our reporting processes for India," the spokesperson added.

The company, which is one of the first global tech companies to have published its transparency report said that to allow sufficient time for data processing and validation, there will be a two-month lag for reporting.

"We are committed to making improvements in the upcoming iterations of the report based on the feedback from all the stakeholders, including providing more granular data," Google said.

Under the new IT rules, significant digital platforms (with over 5 million users) need to publish periodic compliance reports every month.

While nearly 96 per cent of complaints received by Google deal with copyright issues (26,707), while 1.3 per cent deal with the trademark (357).