US achieves 98 percent success rate in Yahoo user data snooping while UK faces resistance

Internet giant Yahoo has published its first ever transparency report, revealing the extent of user data requests made by governments around the world. The firm has joined companies such as Twitter, Facebook and Google in revealing this data in a bid to explain to users how their data is handled.
Yahoo had already revealed in June that the US government had made between 12,000 and 13,000 data requests between 31 December 2012 and 31 May 2013. The official figure was revealed in this latest report as 12,444, with the requests covering 40,322 different accounts. The UK government, meanwhile, made 1,709 requests relating to 2,832 individual accounts.
The data showed how many requests resulted in the release of user content data, including emails, chat messages, address books and Flickr photos. In the UK, the majority of data requests resulted in "non-content" data being released, which includes IP addresses, login details and billing information.
Twenty-seven percent of requests made by the UK government were rejected, which Yahoo explained can be due to the requests being made outside the jurisdiction of the agency concerned, or if the information required could "not be lawfully obtained with the legal process provided". By comparison, just two percent of requests made by the US government were rejected by Yahoo.
Ron Bell, Yahoo's general counsel, explained the company's reasoning on the Yahoo Tumblr blog. "At Yahoo, we take the privacy of our users seriously," he said. "We also recognise our role as a global company in promoting freedom of expression wherever we do business."
Bell also insisted that Yahoo does not take government data requests lightly. "We regularly push back against improper requests for user data, including requests that are unclear, improper, overbroad or unlawful," Bell explained. He also affirmed that the accounts affected made up less than 0.01 percent of Yahoo's total user base.
In light of the revelations surrounding the PRISM scandal, many large tech companies have in recent months been coming forward with similar transparency reports. Firms including Microsoft and Google have gone further, instigating legal action against the US government in a bid to further increase transparency.