Yahoo complied with a far greater percentage of U.S. government requests for users’ data than it did other countries’ requests, according to the company’s biannual transparency report.
During the last six months of 2014, the U.S. government made 4,865 requests for data on more than 9,700 users. Yahoo requested 5 percent of the requests for which it had data; disclosed non-content data, such as name, location or IP address, for 59 percent of requests; and dislosed user content for 24 percent.
Most data requests are made during a criminal investigation, the company said. The requests seek Yahoo users’ e-mails, instant messages, Flickr photos, calendar entries, thoughts recorded on Yahoo Notepad and other data.
Of the other countries where government agencies sought data on thousands of users, Yahoo’s response varied. Yahoo’s rejections of requests broke down as follows: 76 percent of German; 68 percent of French; 40 percent of Indian; and only 6 percent of Taiwanese.
Yahoo also revealed about eight requests by governments that asked Yahoo to remove some of its content. Yahoo said it denied requests by a Malaysian government agency to remove Yahoo News comments deemed to be religiously offensive, but it complied with a handful of requests from Brazil, India and the U.S.
Such reports — this is Yahoo’s fourth since 2013 — have become a common way for tech firms to show that they’re keeping user privacy in mind amid revelations that government bodies such as the U.S. National Security Agency are increasingly seeking Internet data with or without a company’s cooperation.
“We evaluate each government request with a focus on minimizing disclosure of user data and we publish a transparency report to promote accountability and transparency,” said a blog post Thursday from Ron Bell, Yahoo’s general counsel.
Bell also noted that the company recently introduced an end-to-end encryption extension for Yahoo Mail and intends to roll out encryption for all e-mail users by the end of the year.
