Boston, MA 09/12/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) was threatened with a daily fine of $250,000 over its refusal to hand over user data to the government. However, the company said that as much as public safety is important, it is also keen to protect the privacy of its users. Yahoo’s stance on government surveillance may be one reason some users might want to continue sticking with it or joining its platform.
The company’s general counsel, Ron Bell, revealed that the government sought user data as part of the broad surveillance scheme by the National Security Agency. Documents of about 1,500 pages were made public by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, stemming from the 2007 battle between Yahoo and the government over access to user data held by $42 billion Internet Company.
More disclosure
It was when Yahoo failed to comply with the surveillance request that the $250,000 daily fine was uttered, but the company did not bulge. As a matter of fact, Bell said they seek to have the court release more of the documents relating to the government’s spying pressure against Yahoo.
In its refusal and continued stance that its users deserve privacy, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) appears to be presenting itself as a better platform for the people who hate government spying. An increasing number of Internet users are getting concerned about their privacy, and a number of tech companies have been trying to provide assurance to users on that front.
Playing on privacy to tap users
In fact, privacy has become a key competition platform among tech companies. For example, Yahoo and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) recently announced plans to tighten security around emails shared on their platform by giving their users more content encryption tools. Such moves are aimed at attracting users, perhaps away from platforms where they are not getting better privacy tools.
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) maintains that government access to user data that it holds is unconstitutional. It was also reported that the government was harvesting user data from the other Internet companies including Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Google.
