NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] More on Yahoo takedown demand for "Law Enforcement Compliance Guide"
One additional note on this. Without a doubt, firms like Yahoo have a legal obligation to appropriately handle law enforcement requests for information and to formalize their procedures for dealing with such requests, the latter specifically to avoid "ad hoc" responses. The problem in this case is specifically the manner in which these procedures are being treated as "trade secrets" that -- it's implied -- would if revealed somehow enable criminal or other illicit activities that would not otherwise have occurred. I saw nothing in that document that shouldn't reasonably be public information, or that represented a risk (other than possible embarrassment to Yahoo) of any kind. In fact, the doc represented the most concise and understandable summary of Yahoo data retention policies that I've ever seen. The only aspect where an argument of "proprietary data" might perhaps be tenable would be in relation to the specific price list for the various services rendered to law enforcement. This isn't to say that Yahoo doesn't have a right to keep internal documents private -- rather that the same information should be made available to the public at large in an equally useful form. --Lauren-- NNSquad Moderator