Censorship by Google is Google corporation's willful removal or lack of inclusion of certain information from its services. Such policies have resulted in controversy and have drawn accusations of ethics violations and bias.

On October 22, 2002, a study reported that approximately 113 Internet sites had been removed from the German and French versions of Google.^[1] This censorship mainly affected White Nationalistic, Nazi, anti-semitic, and radical Islamic websites. Under French and German law, hate speech and Holocaust denial are illegal. Google complies with these laws by not including sites containing such material in its search results. There is no direct way to check whether a search has been affected in this way.

Google Germany allows no links through AdWords to websites containing images of naked people, going so far as to even ban sites displaying nude male upper torsos.^[2]

Controversy has occurred over Google's decision to adhere to the Internet censorship policies of China, enforced by means of filters known colloquially known as "The Great Firewall of China". Google.cn search results are filtered so as not to bring up any results concerning the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, sites supporting the independence movements of Tibet and Taiwan or the Falun Gong movement, and other information perceived to be harmful to the People's Republic of China (PRC). This is interpreted by some activists as contrary to the "Don't be evil" corporate philosophy of Google.

The PRC, whose human rights have been criticized by people in both China and the international community, has in the past restricted citizen access to popular search engines such as Altavista, Yahoo!, and Google. The mirror search site elgooG has been used by users in mainland China to get around blocked content. This complete ban has since been lifted. However, the government remains active in filtering Internet content. In October 2005, Blogger and access to the Google Cache were made available in mainland China; however, in December 2005, some mainland Chinese users of Blogger reported that their access to the site was once again restricted.

In January 2006, Google affirmed its intent to filter certain keywords given to it by the government of the PRC. The restrictions applies to thousands of terms and websites.^[3] The censored content will appear on a website called google.cn. Google was heavily criticized for the move, yet it claims it is necessary to keep the PRC government from blocking Google entirely, as the case of the 2002 block.^[4] The company does not plan to give the government information about the users who search for blocked content, and will inform users of restricted categories.^[5] Google states on its help pages that it does not censor content, but it does block pages as demanded for in certain jurisdictions, such as DMCA requests in the United States.

Most Chinese Internet users did not express much concern about Google's choice. Also, Google offers to Chinese Internet users a choice that protects their privacy better than existing search engines available in China, since Google keeps confidential records of its users outside China, unlike domestic search engines that could be compelled by the government to hand over information at any time.^[6] The following message appears at the bottom of the Google search result page whenever results are blocked: "In accordance with local laws and policies, some of the results have not been displayed." Currently, Google is the only major China-based search engine to explicitly inform the user when search results are blocked or hidden. Chinese and Tibetan Internet users have also criticized Google for assisting the Chinese government in repressing its own citizens standing up to the said government and advocating human rights ^[7].

On the other hand, Google has been accused of hypocrisy for agreeing to China's demands and fighting the US government's requests for information concerning Google-users, by groups such as Reporters Without Borders[4]. Critics say that Google had made a great deal of its mission statement, in that it was different from other "evil" Internet corporations, to gain support when it started.

On February 14, 2006, some Internet users participated in a "mass breakup with Google" whereby users agreed to boycott Google on Valentine's Day to show their disapproval of the Google China policy.^[8][9]

Toshihiro Yoshimoto (吉本 敏洋, Yoshimoto Toshihiro), the owner of the delisted website Akutoku Shōhō Maniacs (悪徳商法マニアックス) "lit. Illegal-business-practice maniacs", claims that Google has been censoring in Japan and published Google-hachibu towa nanika (グーグル八分とは何か) "What is the censorship by Google?". Information-Technology Promotion Agency, a Japanese independent administrative agency, funds his project to develop the software to discover delisted websites in Japan.^[10]

In 2002 Google was found to have censored websites that provided information about Scientology, in compliance with the United States' DMCA legislation.[5] [6]

Google replaced the banned results with links to the DMCA complaint that caused the site to be removed. The DMCA complaint contains the site to be removed, and the organizations that requested the removal (e.g. [7]) The publicity stemming from this incident was the impetus for Google's making public of the DMCA notices on the Chilling Effects archive, which archives legal threats of all sorts made against Internet users and Internet sites.[8]

On the 21st of September, 2006 [9], it was reported that Google had 'delisted' Inquisition 21st Century [10], a website which claims to challenge moral authoritarian and sexually absolutist ideas in the United Kingdom. According to Inquisition 21 themselves, Google was acting "in support of a campaign by law enforcement agencies in the US and UK to suppress emerging information about their involvement in major malpractice", allegedly exposed by their own investigation of and legal action against those who carried out Operation Ore, a groundbreaking, far reaching and much criticized law enforcement campaign against the viewers of child pornography [11].

In early 2006 Google removed several news sites from its news search engine because complaints were received about various articles that were critical of Islam.^[11][12] These included the The New Media Journal, which contained phrasing such as in the "World of Islam ... it is common for the men to have multiple wives, and harvest many children with each of his wives to train for martyrdom." Other sites removed included MichNews and The Jawa Report.

These sites remain accessible from Google's main search page as normal, but are no longer included in Google News. Google responded by stating that "We do not allow articles and sources expressly promoting hate speech viewpoints in Google News, although referencing hate speech for commentary and analysis is acceptable".

YouTube, a video sharing website and subsidiary of Google, has a Terms of Service that prohibits the posting of videos which violate copyrights or depict pornography, illegal acts, gratuitous violence, or hate speech.^[13] User-posted videos that violate such terms may be removed and replaced with a message stating "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation."

Youtube blocked the account of an anti-torture activist who posted videos of police brutality, voting irregularities and anti-government demonstrations.^[14]

In March 2007, satellite imagery on Google Maps showing post-Hurricane Katrina damage in the U.S. state of Louisiana was replaced with images from before the storm.^[15] This imagery is still available in KML format, as Google's official blog points out, which can be viewed in Google Earth or Google Maps.^[16]

Large areas of Saudi-Arabia, Egypt and Lebanon are also replaced with fake desert ^{[citation needed]}

In addition, there are other instances where it appears that Google Maps uses satellite map images with missing or unclear data, including Vice President Dick Cheney's residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory,^[17] as seen here.

In February 2003, Google stopped showing the adverts of Oceana, a two-and-a-half-year-old non-profit organization, which was protesting the environmental effects of a major cruise ship operation's sewage treatment practices. Google claimed that their editorial policy states, "that Google does not accept advertising if the ad or site advocates against other individuals, groups, or organizations."^[18] The policy has since been changed.^[19]

In October 2007, Google banned advertisements from Maine U.S. Senator Susan Collins' reelection campaign on the basis that the ads violated Google's trademark policy. The ads contained the words "Help Susan Collins stand up to the MoveOn.org money machine."^[20] Google banned the ad because it contained a trademarked name, which Google cited as a violation of its trademark policy. However, Google routinely permits the unauthorized use of company names like Exxon and Wal-Mart, and an ad running at the time of the article read "Keep Blackwater in Iraq?" and directed to an article entitled "Bastards at Blackwater — Should Blackwater Security be held accountable for the deaths of its employees?"

On May 10, 2007, shareholders of Google voted down an anti-censorship proposal for the company. The text of the failed proposal stated that:

1. Data that can identify individual users should not be hosted in Internet-restricting countries, where political speech can be treated as a crime by the legal system.
2. The company will not engage in pro-active censorship.
3. The company will use all legal means to resist demands for censorship. The company will only comply with such demands if required to do so through legally binding procedures.
4. Users will be clearly informed when the company has acceded to legally binding government requests to filter or otherwise censor content that the user is trying to access.
5. Users should be informed about the company's data retention practices, and the ways in which their data is shared with third parties.
6. The company will document all cases where legally binding censorship requests have been complied with, and that information will be publicly available.

David Drummond, senior vice president for corporate development, said "Pulling out of China, shutting down Google.cn, is just not the right thing to do at this point....but that's exactly what this proposal would do."^[21]

CEO Eric Schmidt and founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin recommended that shareholders vote against the proposal. Together they hold 66.2 percent of Google's total shareholder voting power.^[22]

• Google Censorship - How It Works
• Localized Google search result exclusions
• Report examines a newspaper-led campaign to have a site removed from both its host and the Google search index
• Unofficial Google Censorship FAQ