NEW DELHI: India is snooping on users of Google search engine, a pattern that shows an increase of requests made for information about clients in recent months, Press Trust of India said on Wednesday.

It said the country was now at second place after the United States in terms of government requests for user data from Google.

In a growing trend of government surveillance of internet activities of people and organisations, India sought confidential web user details in as many as 2,319 cases from Google in the first six months of 2012.

Besides, the number of items sought to be removed from Google’s various internet platforms such as YouTube videos, search results, images and web pages, more than doubled to 596 in the six-month period to June 2012, PTI quoted Google as saying.

The number of requests for web user details rose by five per cent from those made in the preceding six-month period (July-December 2011), and placed India at the second place after the US in terms of government requests for user data from Google.

However, Google has declined the Indian authorities’ request in about one-third cases. The company said in its half-yearly Transparency Report that it complied with 64 per cent of the total 2,319 requests made by the Indian authorities between January-June 2012.

In July-December 2011, Google had received 2,207 such requests from Indian authorities and had complied within 66 per cent cases.

About the Indian requests, the report said, “In response to a court order, we removed 360 search results.’’