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Yahoo becomes latest tech giant to reveal US government data requests

By Angela Haggerty, Reporter

June 18, 2013 | 3 min read

Yahoo has become the latest tech giant to reveal US data requests, following Facebook, Microsoft and Google amid alleged US surveillance practices monitoring citizens' internet and social media use.

Release: Yahoo published the information in a blog post

The blogpost statement, signed by CEO Marissa Mayer and General Counsel Ron Bell, said: "We’ve worked hard over the years to earn our users’ trust and we fight hard to preserve it. To that end, we are disclosing the total number of requests for user data that law enforcement agencies in the US made to us between December 1 2012 and May 31 2013.

"During that time period, we received between 12,000 and 13,000 requests, inclusive of criminal, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and other requests. The most common of these requests concerned fraud, homicides, kidnappings, and other criminal investigations."

The statement continued: "Like all companies, Yahoo cannot lawfully break out FISA request numbers at this time because those numbers are classified; however, we strongly urge the federal government to reconsider its stance on this issue.

"Democracy demands accountability. Recognizing the important role that Yahoo! can play in ensuring accountability, we will issue later this summer our first global law enforcement transparency report, which will cover the first half of the year. We will refresh this report with current statistics twice a year."

Facebook recently revealed between 9,000 and 10,000 data requests were received at the company by US government entities in the second half of 2012, related to between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts.

Meanwhile, from the US government since December 2012, and Microsoft revealed requests for information on around 31,000 consumer accounts in the secnd half of 2012.

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