Yahoo’s general counsel Ron Bell has a post on the company’s Tumblr page pointing to Yahoo’s first ever transparency report. The report “details governments requests for user data from January 1, 2013, through June 30, 2013.”
The report is broken down into 17 areas around the world: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, the U.K. and the U.S.
Each includes the number of requests made by the corresponding governments alongside how many of the requests resulted in disclosures of no data and how many requests resulted in the disclosure of some data.
Here’s a screengrab from Yahoo’s PDF:
As for countries and regions that aren’t represented, Yahoo’s report says, “The countries listed are those in which Yahoo has a legal entity, and therefore, government agencies in those countries could potentially seek and obtain user data through compulsory legal process.”
As for the process behind how Yahoo handles government requests for user data, Bell writes:
Our legal department demands that government data requests be made through lawful means and for lawful purposes. We regularly push back against improper requests for user data, including fighting requests that are unclear, improper, overbroad or unlawful. In addition, we mounted a two-year legal challenge to the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and recently won a motion requiring the U.S. Government to consider further declassifying court documents from that case.
Though this is Yahoo’s first report, Bell writes that it will be updated every six months.
Yahoo! Transparency Report [Yahoo.com]