India made an average of 8 user data requests daily to Yahoo!

Software giant Yahoo revealed that Indian government on an average made about eight user data requests daily between January and June 2013, most of which was in connection with criminal investigations.

The US-based firm in its first transparency report said that the Indian government made a total of 1,490 user data requests in connection with 2,704 user accounts.

"At Yahoo, we take user privacy seriously and appreciate our role as a global company in promoting freedom of expression wherever we do business.

"That's why we're issuing our first global transparency report, which details government data requests from January 1, 2013 through June 30, 2013. We include national security requests within the scope of our aggregate statistics," Yahoo said in a statement.

Of the total requests made by the India government, Yahoo rejected 500 requests, while content was disclosed in 341 requests between January-June this year, it added.

The firm defines data requests as a compulsory legal process to Yahoo entities from government agencies seeking information about Yahoo accounts and/or the activity of Yahoo users within Yahoo products, it said.

"The government data requests reflected in the report are generally made in connection with criminal investigations," it added.

The firm said that requests in which non-content data (NCD) was disclosed to the Indian government stood at 494.

NCD requests are in which "data such as basic subscriber information, including the information captured at the time of registration, such as an alternate e-mail address, name, location, and IP address, login details, billing information ad other transactional information."

Requests in which no data was found were 155 in the first half of this year, it said.
"Yahoo produced no data in response to the government data request because no responsive data could be found (i.e., the account didn't exist or there was no data for the date range specified by the request)," it added.

The report close on the heels of technology firms coming under pressure, following revelations of a secret US government programme, which scoops up data from these Internet companies.

Tech firms, including Facebook, Twitter and Google, have been seeking to release more information on government data requests, in the belief that this would reassure their customers.