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Software giant Yahoo revealed the Union government on an average made about eight user data requests daily between January and June, mostly in connection with criminal investigations. The US-based firm in its first transparency report said the government made a total of 1,490 user data requests in connection with 2,704 user accounts.
“At Yahoo, we take user privacy seriously and appreciate our role as a global company in promoting freedom of expression wherever we do business. That’s why we’re issuing our first global transparency report, which details government data requests from January 1 through June 30. We include national security requests within the scope of our aggregate statistics,” Yahoo! said.
Of the total requests made by the government, Yahoo! rejected 500, while content was disclosed in 341 requests in January-June, it added. The firm defines data requests as a compulsory legal process to Yahoo! entities from government agencies seeking information about Yahoo! accounts and/or the activity of Yahoo! users within Yahoo! products, it said. “The government data requests reflected in the report are generally made in connection with criminal investigations,” it added.
The firm said requests in which non-content data (NCD) was disclosed to the government stood at 494.
NCD requests are “data such as basic subscriber information, including the information captured at the time of registration, such as an alternate e-mail address, name, location, and IP address, login details, billing information ad other transactional information.”
Requests in which no data was found were 155 in the first half of this year, it said.
"Yahoo produced no data in response to the government data request because no responsive data could be found (i.E., the account didn't exist or there was no data for the date range specified by the request)," it added.
The report close on the heels of technology firms coming under pressure, following revelations of a secret US government programme, which scoops up data from these Internet companies.
Tech firms, including Facebook, Twitter and Google, have been seeking to release more information on government data requests, in the belief that this would reassure their customers.
