Skip to main content

Tech giants distance themselves from Yahoo-style surveillance allegations

how yahoo is mining for gold in your junk mail campus
Global PR
With Yahoo still reeling from the exposé this week that claimed it cooperated extensively with the National Security Agency (NSA), a number of its supporters have publicly come out to deny any similar activity.

In statements, both Microsoft and Google denied collaborating with the NSA to scan users’ emails, the latter taking a much more firm stance. A spokesperson for Google said, “We’ve never received such a request, but if we did, our response would be simple: ‘No way.’”

Recommended Videos

Microsoft, meanwhile, wrote via a spokesperson: “We have never engaged in the secret scanning of email traffic like what has been reported today about Yahoo.”

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Reuters reported on Tuesday that Yahoo built a bespoke system to monitor users’ email in real time — rather than stored messages — at the behest of the NSA. The incident, which is believed to be the first of its kind, allegedly led to the resignation of security chief Alex Stamos, who now heads up security at Facebook. Reuters cited sources working within Yahoo but could not determine what kind of data was handed over to the intelligence agency.

Edward Snowden tweeted that companies need to deny any such actions quickly or risk being associated with surveillance, and that’s what’s happened. Other companies have been quick off the mark with statements but not much detail.

Facebook told Vocativ that it too has never received a request like this and if it did, it would fight it. Twitter said something very similar in its own statement.

As for Apple, it referred to an old Tim Cook statement where the CEO said the company “never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor” but the company did not answer questions relating to this specific incident.

While all these companies’ statements are intended to dispel consumer fears over mass surveillance, it raises another key issue. The Department of Justice can issue gag orders along with data requests that prevent companies from disclosing any information on their correspondence with the government. Interestingly, Microsoft, with the support of several other companies, is involved in an ongoing legal action to reverse this law.

Yahoo continues to be the target of much scrutiny this week after the Reuters report first hit the wire. ACLU called Yahoo’s actions “unprecedented and unconstitutional” while Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote that the NSA may have violated its own rules, or if these rules ever changed, it failed to notify the public.

So far, Yahoo’s only response has been that it is a “law-abiding company, and complies with the laws of the United States.” It has not specifically addressed the accusations, which come after last month’s controversy where the company disclosed a massive hack attack on its network that compromised more than 500 million accounts.

Jonathan Keane
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jonathan is a freelance technology journalist living in Dublin, Ireland. He's previously written for publications and sites…
RTX 5080 vs 9070 XT — battle of the stock
Logo on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080.

The matchup between new-generation AMD and Nvidia graphics cards is heating up in early-2025, with Nvidia's RTX 50 storming out the gates, and AMD's RDNA4 GPUs waiting excitedly in the wings. With stock levels all over the place, prices skewing wildly too, questions abound about how these new cards will fair against one another in a straight head to head.

Until we have hands-on time with these cards ourselves (and the embargos lift) we can't tell you for sure, but we can make some educated estimations of how the battle might turn out.

Read more
Acer to increase laptop prices as tariffs hit U.S. market
Acer Swift X 14 2024 front angled view showing display and keyboard.

Acer's CEO, Jason Chen, has announced that the company will implement a 10% price increase on its laptops sold in the United States, starting in March 2025. This decision is a direct response to the import tariffs introduced by the Trump administration, which impose additional taxes on products manufactured in China.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Chen stated, "We will have to adjust the end user price to reflect the tariff. We think 10% probably will be the default price increase because of the import tax. It's very straightforward." This price adjustment is set to affect new stock entering U.S. channels post-February, as products shipped from China before this period remain exempt from the tariffs.

Read more
The RTX 5070 Ti may continue Nvidia’s disappointing streak
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang holding an RTX 50 GPU and a laptop.

The disappointing "paper launch" continues. Nvidia's RTX 5070 Ti is just a couple of days away from launch, but whether it'll actually be readily available is another thing entirely. Although it could rival some of the best graphics cards, the GPU is said to be hard to come by, much like the RTX 5090 and the RTX 5080.

It appears that my worries might be about to come true -- the RTX 5070 Ti will only be available on paper and not in reality, at least if this new leak is to be believed. Channel Gate shared an update on the predicted pricing and stock levels for the RTX 5070 Ti, and it's grim news all around.

Read more