Feds Asked Yahoo For Data 12,444 Times In First Half Of Year

29,470 requests from governments around the world for user data in the first six months of 2013.

Of that total, 12,744 — 42 percent — came from the U.S. government, Yahoo says.

In its “transparency report,” Yahoo adds that it:

“[h]as joined no program to volunteer user data to governments. Our legal department demands that government data requests be made through lawful means and for lawful purposes. We regularly push back against improper requests for user data, including fighting requests that are unclear, improper, overbroad or unlawful. In addition, we mounted a two-year legal challenge to the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and recently won a motion requiring the U.S. Government to consider further declassifying court documents from that case.”

It also says “we have not included the statistics associated with Yahoo entities that received fewer than nine government data requests during the reporting period. For this report, that includes Yahoo! Colombia and Yahoo! Hispanic Americas. We have also not included statistics for Yahoo! Japan, which is a joint venture operating independently from Yahoo! Inc., in which Yahoo! Inc. has a minority ownership interest.”

Here are Yahoo’s results, ranked from most-to-least:

United States, 12,444Germany, 4,295Italy, 2,637Taiwan, 1,942France, 1,855United Kingdom, 1,709India, 1,490Hong Kong, 839Spain, 718Australia, 704Brazil, 308Argentina, 186Mexico, 150Singapore, 138Canada, 29Ireland, 17 New Zealand, 9

And alphabetically:

Argentina, 186Australia, 704Brazil, 308Canada, 29France, 1,855Germany, 4,295Hong Kong, 839India, 1,490Ireland, 17Italy, 2,637Mexico, 150New Zealand, 9Singapore, 138Spain, 718Taiwan, 1,942United Kingdom, 1,709United States, 12,444