Google received 27,762 complaints in April this year from individual users in India

Google has disclosed that it has received 27,762 complaints in April this year from individual users in India over alleged violation of local laws or personal rights. This, the tech giant, said resulted in removal of 59,350 pieces of content.

As per the maiden monthly transparency report by Google under the new intermediary guidelines, these complaints relate to third-party content that violate local laws or personal rights on Google's SSMI platforms. The data also includes individual user complaints accompanied by a court order.

Almost 96.2% complaints were related to copyrights related issues while 1.3% complaints were for trademark and 1% for defamation, legal issues (1%); counterfeit (0.4%); and circumvention (0.1%).

"We evaluate content reported to us under our community guidelines, content policies and/or legal policies. Based on this review, removal action may be taken on one of the request reasons..." the report said.

The report explained that each unique URL in a specific complaint is considered an individual "item" and that a single complaint may specify multiple items that potentially relate to the same or different pieces of content. It further stated that there will be a two-month lag for reporting in a bid to allow sufficient time for data processing and validation.

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

The new IT rules mandate platforms with over 5 million users to publish periodic compliance reports every month, mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken thereon.