Google concerned about being subjected to governmental pressure for user information
Google has been complaining about pressure exerted on it by governments asking for user information when criminal investigations are involved.
Google complained about increasing pressure on part of different governments insisting it should reveal user information when criminal investigations are concerned, as revelations are made on national surveillance programs. Requests have been increasing sequentially, by 15 percent, in the first half of the year; in the last five years, the increase has totaled 150 percent, according to the company’s semi-annual transparency report released on Monday.
In the US alone, the demand for information has soared by 19 percent for the first half of 2014; since 2009, when the report started to be published, the increase has been over threefold.
In January, the US President Obama asked Congress to limit the bulk gathering and storage of records of numerous domestic phone calls, after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden made his revelations.
A host of American technological companies have also insisted for changes, having witnessed the tribulations of their international business, as foreign governments became concerned about the gathering and handing over of data to US spy agencies.
