Yahoo scanned incoming emails at US government behest: report

Yahoo Inc last year built a custom software programme for searching all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information provided by US intelligence officials, Reuters reported citing people familiar with the matter.

Complying with a classified US government demand, the company scanned millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI, according to three former employees and a fourth person apprised of the events.

According to some surveillance experts, this represented the first case of a US internet company complying with an intelligence agency's request by searching all arriving messages, as against examining stored messages or scanning a limited number of accounts in real time.

The information the intelligence officials sought was not known except that they wanted Yahoo to search for a set of characters. According to the sources who did not wish to be named, it could mean a phrase in an email or an attachment, said the sources.

Reuters said it was not able to determine what data Yahoo might have handed over, if any, and whether other email providers besides Yahoo had also been approached.

Two of the former employees said Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer's decision to obey the directive had not gone down well with senior executives and the development and led to the June 2015 departure of chief information security officer Alex Stamos, who now held the top security job at Facebook Inc.

Meanwhile, Yahoo on Wednesday in a letter to director of National Intelligence James Clapper, asked the NSA to give more details on an alleged court order it sent the company.

In the letter, Yahoo general counsel Ronald Bell asked Clapper to confirm whether it did indeed issue an order, declassify it, and provide more context around it.

"Yahoo was mentioned specifically in these reports, and we find ourselves unable to respond in detail," Bell wrote.

Yahoo described the press reports as ''misleading'', in a blog post accompanying the letter. Yahoo said, the press reports coupled with the lack of transparency on the part the government, had caused speculation about Yahoo and its "approach" to privacy.