'Government Surveillance Is on The Rise,' Says Google

Here's Google's look at the number of government requests worldwide to turn over data it has received from 2009, when it started sharing the transparency data, to now:

"You can see the country-by-country trends for requests to hand over user data and to remove content from our services in the Transparency Report itself, but in aggregate around the world, the numbers continue to go up," Chou wrote.

An important note to all of this, Chou adds: The information shared in the report represents "only an isolated sliver showing how governments interact with the Internet, since for the most part we don't know what requests are made of other technology or telecommunications companies."

Google, she says, is "heartened that in the past year, more companies like Dropbox, LinkedIn, Sonic.net and Twitter have begun to share their statistics too. Our hope is that over time, more data will bolster public debate about how we can best keep the Internet free and open."