Government Removal Requests

Like other technology and communications companies, Yahoo receives requests from governments around the world to either remove or otherwise modify content from our services based on allegations that it violates local laws, or to review content to determine if it should be removed for inconsistency with a product’s Community Guidelines or our Terms of Service. Whatever the allegation or assertion, we carefully review each request and respond in accordance with our Global Principles for Responding to Government Requests.

Government removal requests by country

For each country listed below, we report the number of Government Removal Requests received during the specified reporting period, the number of items specified in the requests, and the percentage of requests in response to which some content was removed. While we endeavor to make this data as complete as possible, we only include in our numbers requests that we identify as being from a government agency. If a government agency used a Report Abuse link, for example, we wouldn’t be able to identify the party making the request to remove content and would not include that request in our statistics. We continue to work to track these requests.

Country Total requests Total items specified Compliance rate
Australia 1 2 100%
Canada 2 3 100%
Denmark 1 2 100%
France 9 9 56%
Germany 73 251 81%
India 4 36 50%
Japan 14 14 100%
Korea 166 1464 93%
Malaysia 17 220 47%
Pakistan 9 290 11%
Russia 2 2 50%
United Kingdom 10 12 100%
United States 10 19 90%
Global Total 318 2,324

Illustrative examples

France - We received a request from a French law enforcement authority to remove a specific comment on a Yahoo News story on the basis that the comment contained content which violated French law against defaming an individual due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.  After reviewing the content, we removed the comment because it violated Yahoo’s Community Guidelines.

India - We received a request from an Indian law enforcement authority asking to remove content on a Yahoo Answers post relating to prostitution. The request asserted that the post contained the personal information and was defaming the character of the person.  After reviewing the request, we removed the Yahoo Answers post for violating Yahoo’s Community Guidelines.

France - We received a request from a French law enforcement authority to remove content visible at a Yahoo News URL on the basis that the page contained content which violated French law against inciting hatred or violence because of origin, ethnicity, nation, race, or religion.  After reviewing the request, we rejected the request because it failed to specify the content or comment which was the basis of the request.

Russia - We received a request from a Russian government authority to remove a Tumblr blog post on the basis that the post contained information prohibited from public distribution in the Russian Federation. We reviewed the post content, which appeared to contain information regarding historical events, and did not take any action because the post did not violate Tumblr’s Community Guidelines.

Germany - We received a request from a German government authority to remove three posts on two different Tumblr blogs because the posts contained images depicting violence.  After reviewing the contents of the posts, we removed the posts and terminated one of the blogs for violating Tumblr’s Community Guidelines.

Download Data for this Reporting Period: XLS