Google receives 37,282 complaints from Indian users in August

New Delhi: Google received 37,282 complaints from Indian users in the month of August in compliance with the new IT Rules, 2021. The tech giant also removed a total of 551,659 pieces of bad content, as a result of user complaints in the country. The complaints Google received in India consisted of various categories including […]

New Delhi: Google received 37,282 complaints from Indian users in the month of August in compliance with the new IT Rules, 2021. The tech giant also removed a total of 551,659 pieces of bad content, as a result of user complaints in the country.

The complaints Google received in India consisted of various categories including infringement of intellectual property rights and violation of local laws prohibiting types of content on grounds such as defamation.

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Most of the complaints it received from Indian users were related to copyright violations (35,649), while other categories included trademark, court order, graphic sexual content, circumvention, and others.

“In addition to reports from our users, we invest heavily in fighting harmful content online and use technology to detect and remove it from our platforms,” it said in its monthly compliance report.

The company said that as part of its automated detection processes, it removed 551,659 accounts in the country.

“We invest heavily in fighting harmful content online and use technology to detect and remove it from our platforms. This includes using automated detection processes for some of our products to prevent the dissemination of harmful content such as child sexual abuse material and violent extremist content,” said Google.

In accordance with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (IT Rules), Google, along with other social media platforms, is mandated to publish monthly transparency reports with details of complaints received from users in India and the actions taken, as well as removal actions taken as a result of automated detection.

Under the new IT rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms — with more than 5 million users — have to publish monthly compliance reports.