Yahoo must have been left out because now, it has joint the wagon of Apple, Microsoft and Facebook in publishing Transparency reports. It has issued its first ever Transparency report detailing the US Government’s data requests from the 1st of January to the 30th of June, 2013. By doing so, Yahoo has fought The National Security Agency’s (NSA) worries. It has released aggregate numbers on government-made requests for customer data and reiterates need for right to publish more-specific figures involving US National Security Agency. It wants to quiet user fears.
Ron Bell, The General Counsel at Yahoo, on Friday, posted on Tumblr that according to him Democracy demands accountability and accountability requires transparency. It is believed that he wanted his users or customers per se to remain unfeared and also satisfied. He also feels that this report released by them will further encourage governments worldwide to be able to openly share the information about the requests that they make for various user content.
Yahoo first started mentioning thoughts about publishing Transparency reports in June. The company also promised to release one every six months. As of now, the Internet firm is said to have received a total number of 12,444 requests pertaining 40,322 of its user accounts. Out of these, there were 6,798 requests where the company disclosed non-content data and in other 4,604, the company gave user-created data. There were also 241 requests where the company just refused to produce any information for and around 800 requests where it reportedly, did not find any information. It has also said in its report that the company does not volunteer to produce user data to the governments and is always against certain improper requests also, turns down certain particular ones that are too broad, unlawful or unclear.