Brazil tops world asking Google to remove content

Brazil tops the list of countries asking Google Inc to remove content from its services, the Internet search company disclosed in a new web tool - but it said statistics on China are secret.

The company said it was offering the summary of requests in order to shed more light on how and when it removes data, but government requests from China, where Google has ended its censorship of local search results, is a state secret that the company won't publish.

The disagreement with China has spurred popular interest in web censorship. Google announced the tool on Tuesday

In the last six months of last year, Brazil had 3,663 data requests and 291 removal requests, driven largely to alleged impersonation and defamation on its orkut social network, orkut Google said on its site, here.

Germany, which had a high number of removal requests related to Nazi paraphernalia and Holocaust denial, was second in removal requests, followed by India, where orkut also is popular, and the United States.

Google complied with between 77.5 per cent and 94.1 per cent of the requests from the top four during the period, it said.