(ZDNet) Google’s transparency report shows a general trend in rising requests by governments, law enforcement agencies and the courts, to takedown content that infringes rights or breaks the law.

The data, though designed as part of Google’s open government policy, and to allow developers to ‘mash up’ the released data for custom consumption, the report sheds light on the nature of privacy around the world.

But the search giant notes that the data is difficult to break down and to be made into a format for which users can understand and have simplified controls over the released data. Also, with a fragmented web after the Arab Spring uprisings earlier this year, it has led to many countries with poor human rights records losing Internet access for months at a time.