In keeping with its rules and regulations regarding compliance of Yahoo to subpoenas, this multinational American Internet Corporation responds to court orders, subpoenas and other legal processes to establish or exercise its legal rights and defend itself against legal claims. In this respect, this global Internet provider has all discretion to share and disclose information pertaining to its members and users. Disclosure of private data is an inherent component of the company’s policy to fight illegal Internet uses.

In fact, the policy of compliance of Yahoo to subpoenas is an integrant part of the company’s investigation and actions to prevent and combat cyber criminality and illegal cyber activities such as: suspected fraud, cases involving possible threats to the physical safety of a person, breaches of Yahoo’s terms of use and other actions and deeds prohibited by the law. According to Yahoo Compliance Guide for Law Enforcement, the company has a legal department to which all subpoenas including in-person testimonies have to be personally served. It is specified that for Yahoo to comply with legal documents served including warrants, subpoenas and court orders, they have to be properly crafted and as specific as possible.        

The above-mentioned guide is a valuable source of information on compliance of Yahoo to subpoenas and on the company’s policies and practices regarding retention and disclosure of information. Being a global Internet service provider, Yahoo Inc has to deal with personal data and transactions of more than five hundred million surfers worldwide. It is the role of the compliance team to deal with all the legal requests addressed to the company as well as the subpoenas served. Since they have to deal with a voluminous amount of subpoenaed data, for the team to respond efficiently and quickly to these requests, they have to be narrowly tailored.

Usually, compliance of Yahoo to subpoenas whether administrative or criminal will depend on the extent of subpoenaed records available such as on basic information the user provided when he or she registered, his or her Yahoo ID, past and present transactional records if the latter’s account has not been deactivated, electronic storage contents for more than 180 days and communication contents on Remote Computing Services. It is noteworthy that even though a user’s account has been deleted, Yahoo maintains the logs of the IP address in an accessible format for approximately one year. Besides, according to Federal laws, Internet service providers are refunded the cost incurred for the production of subpoenaed records and other evidence requested by court orders and warrants.    

It is Yahoo’s policy to comply with administrative and criminal grand jury subpoenas to produce documents by fax from government entities. However, the company is adamant that it does not accept subpoenas by fax pertaining to in-person testimony. In addition, it seems that Yahoo needs the user’s signed consent to turn over the respective subpoenaed records to law enforcement authorities. Along with his or her signature, the user has also to provide all the information that is requested in the Yahoo Consent Search Form. For people who wish to learn more on compliance of Yahoo to subpoenas, the Yahoo Compliance Guide for Law Enforcement provides detailed information on this matter and answers to all queries.