New Yahoo transparency report details how it tallies government data requests

The second transparency report released by Yahoo! on Thursday revealed that the company has changed its way how it fulfills its promise to protect user data, CNET reported. Yahoo general counsel Ron Bell said the second report is more user-first, separating US government National Security Requests as oppose to how it detailed government requests in its first one. Bell, along with associate general counsel Aaron Altschuler, earlier had said in a blog post that the company intend to provide a more detailed report of National Security Requests from the US government.

The change in reporting reflected a drop of US government requests for user account data between the first and second half of last year at first glance, CNET said. According to the latest report, Yahoo! received 6,587 US government requests for user data, which affected 11,795 user accounts. 8% of the accounts were rejected for technical reasons, like jurisdiction scope of law enforcement for one or a user has successfully contested the scrutiny of an account. Meanwhile, 9% of the data were rejected for the reason that there was no data to be reviewed at.

A Yahoo! spokesperson have said that the company informs the user about a government request ahead before agreeing to the request. The spokesperson added, "When Yahoo Inc. receives a request for user data from a law enforcement agency, we inform the agency that we reach out to our users to let them know of the government request. We've noted that law enforcement agencies frequently choose to withdraw their request once we inform them of our user notification policy."

The notification policy of Yahoo, the spokesperson noted, had led users to find legitimate reasons to not comply with government demand in multiple cases.

CNET detailed that Yahoo! also breaks down user dat to ensure that specific information as requested by the government is only given. For example, Yahoo! could just turn over non-content data, or user information like e-mail address, name, location, and IP address, login details and transaction information. 64% of requests reported resulted in non-content data disclosures, while 19% are disclosures that include content.

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Yahoo second transparency report, US government National Security Requests

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