Google receives 27,762 complaints in 1st transparency report under new IT rules

Google received around 27,762 complaints from individual users in India from April 1 to April 30, shows the tech giant's first monthly transparency report after India's new IT rules came into effect on May 25. As per the company, 96 per cent or 26,707 such complaints were regarding copyright issues; followed by trademark (1.3 per cent); defamation (1 per cent); other legal issues (1 per cent); counterfeit (0.4) per cent; and circumvention (0.1 per cent).

After reviewing these complaints, Google removed 59,350 items (URLs), with 8.4 per cent related to copyright infringement, while 1.6 per cent were about trademark issues. "We publish government requests for content removals on a biannual basis in our existing Transparency Report and have done so since 2010. The last report for this was published in January 2021," Google said.

Google said the report outlines the volume of complaints it receives in India through its designated complaint channels each month and any subsequent removal action on complaints during that month relevant SSMI (Significant Social Media Intermediaries) products.

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"To allow sufficient time for data processing validation, there will be a two-month lag for reporting. In future reports, data on removals as a result of automated detection, as well as data relating to impersonation and graphic sexual content complaints received post May 25, 2021, will be included," Google added.

The company said that it is committed to making improvements in the upcoming iterations of the report based on feedback from all stakeholders, including providing more granular data.

On February 25, the Modi government announced a new code of ethics for social media channels and OTT platforms under new IT Rules, 2021. The all-new code of ethics mandated intermediaries to exercise "due caution and discretion" in relation to the general principles around online curated content.

Under the new rules, the government will ask the platform to reveal the originator of a message (or tweet). Voluntary verification of users and appointment of a compliance officer as well as grievance officer was also proposed. The government also asked to appoint a 24x7 point of contact. The new rules came into effect on May 25.  

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