Yahoo, the multinational Internet giant, said on Friday that it received 12,444 data requests from the United States government this year that covers a total of 40,322 accounts.
After releasing its initial government transparency report, the internet company only refused two percent of the requests from the federal government. The Internet giant said that this report will share information about the information the government commonly request from Yahoo relating to its subscribers' accounts during the first six months of 2013.
Similar with other technology firms, the web company reported statistics of requests sent through NSL or National Security Letters, requests made under the Foreign Intelligence Service Act, and other such requests made by law enforcement.
The firm also disclosed the numerical quantity of received requests from 16 other governments. These statistical data however did not include properties of Yahoo which also received less than nine requests during the period, not including Yahoo in Columbia and Hispanic America. It also doesn't cover information from Yahoo Japan, which Yahoo has interests through its minority shares. The report also did not include data requests made to Tumblr. The Yahoo-owned blogging firm is said to be also sending its report in the future.
In Yahoo's blog post, the company highlighted its efforts to combat against requests that they deem unlawful. Ron Bell, Yahoo's attorney, wrote that the company's legal department officially request that data requests from the government be sent only through lawful channels and only for lawful purposes. Normally they hold off against inappropriate requests for subscriber data, which includes refusing unclear, unsuitable, unlawful, and overboard.
Back in 2008, Yahoo petitioned against amendments to the FISA or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, saying that they were not in compliance to the constitution. A court judge of FISA in July decided that the internet company had a right to request the government to share more data on the court case.
The report on Friday states that Yahoo do not concur with the federal government's current practice and policy regarding divulgence of NSLs or national security letters. Although the government allows companies to disclose the range of NSLs received to the public, it only exposes a range of every 1000. This means that a firm can only say that it received 0-1000 requests should the company receive just one NSL request.
Technology firms including Yahoo are combining their efforts to further petition an exact release of statistics for these kinds of requests. Yahoo also stressed that the company disagrees with the position of the government and continuously promote improved transparency on requests through NSLs. The Web giant further said that the company will provide a more detailed report regarding requests made under national security should the government allow heightened transparency.
