Yahoo fields 18,594 government requests for data in first 6 months of 2014

In a continuation of their global transparency reporting, Yahoo has revealed that they received 18,594 US government information requests for data relating to 30,551 accounts from January – June 2014.

This is the third global transparency report that Yahoo has published to make itself more accountable to its users about what data requests are received from the US government that are held in its data centers around the world.

The number of requests actually fell from 21,425 requests in the last six months of 2013 to the 18,494 requests sent to Yahoo in the first half of 2014. For the latest batch of requests, 4,727 were subsequently either rejected by Yahoo for a number of different reasons or withdrawn by the government agencies that made the initial data request in the first place.

For 1,853 of other cases, Yahoo did not need to disclose any information because there was either no data covering the specific period requested or the account did not exist at all.

User Account Request Stay Lower

There was a small decline in the number of direct user accounts that fielded requests from 32,493 the previous six months to 30,551 for the January to June 2014 period. The January to June 2013 period, a year before, saw 62,775 user accounts where data was sought by the US government so data requests fell and have stayed at new lower levels.

Content Removal Requests

Yahoo also accepted five content removal requests to pull information from their web site. Three of those originated from the US government. The company did remove the information in all cases.

Three-Point Criteria

Yahoo has their own three-point criteria for determining what to disclose when requested to do so. Their main area of focus in specificity in the request so that information is not supplied en masse unnecessarily, therefore data requests need to be specific to be actioned fully. The company also does contest information request that it believes violates the rights of the particular user.

Google, Bing and Yahoo

Of course, this disclosure needs to be taken in its larger context. Google, Bing and other online companies will also be receiving similar requests for disclosure so the amount of collectable data via official requests rather than mass, superstitious data collection globally.