New data from the Internet search firm Google shows online government surveillance is increasing with the U.S. government far surpassing the rest of the world in requests for information about users. More than a third of the nearly 21,000 requests for user data Google received in the first half of 2012 came from the United States. In total, during those six months, the United States submitted nearly 8,000 requests that applied to more than 16,000 users or accounts. Google complied at least partly with 90 percent of those requests. Both requests for user information and requests by countries to remove online content have increased since 2009 when Google began its reports. In a blog post about the report Tuesday, Google wrote: “This is the sixth time we’ve released this data, and one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise.”