Yahoo Issues Takedown Notice for Spying Price List; Wired, 12/4/09

Kim Zetter, Wired; Yahoo Issues Takedown Notice for Spying Price List:

"Yahoo isn’t happy that a detailed menu of the spying services it provides law enforcement agencies has leaked onto the web.

Shortly after Threat Level reported this week that Yahoo had blocked the FOIA release of its law enforcement and intelligence price list, someone provided a copy of the company’s spying guide to the whistleblower site Cryptome.

The 17-page guide describes Yahoo’s data retention policies and the surveillance capabilities it can provide law enforcement, with a pricing list for these services. Cryptome also published lawful data-interception guides for Cox Communications, SBC, Cingular, Nextel, GTE and other telecoms and service providers.

But of all those companies, it appears to be Yahoo’s lawyers alone who have issued a DMCA takedown notice to Cryptome demanding the document be removed. Yahoo claims that publication of the document is a copyright violation, and gave Cryptome owner John Young a Thursday deadline for removing the document. So far, Young has refused.

Yahoo’s letter was sent on Wednesday, within hours of the posting of Yahoo’s Compliance Guide for Law Enforcement at Cryptome. In addition to copyright infringement, the letter accuses the site of revealing Yahoo’s trade secrets and engaging in “business interference.” According to the letter, disclosure of its surveillance services (.pdf) would help criminals evade surveillance."

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/yahoo-spy-prices