Yahoo reviewed emails of users to the US intelligence, according to Reuters – Expansion MX

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) –

Yahoo Inc developed in secret the past year a software to search the emails of their users to some specific information provided by intelligence officials of the united States, according to people with knowledge of the subject.

The company complied with a request secret government of the united States, where I was asked to review hundreds of millions of accounts of Yahoo Mail to name of the National Security Agency (NSA) or the FBI, said three former and one-fourth person informed about the facts.

Some security experts said this represents the first case known of a u.s. company Internet access to a request for a spy agency and check all the messages received by the users, unlike browse the emails stored, or analyze a small number of accounts in real-time.

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it is Not known what information is sought by officials of intelligence, only that they wanted Yahoo to review a group of characters or specific letters. That could mean a sentence in an e-mail or an attached file, said the sources, who asked not to be identified.

Reuters could not determine what data could be delivered to Yahoo, if they gave any, and whether the intelligence officials contacted other e-mail providers.

According to two of the former employees, the decision to abide by the order on the part of the chief executive of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer irritated some high ranking executives, and led in June of 2015 at the exit of the head of information security Alex Stamos, who now works at Facebook Inc.

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“Yahoo is a company that respects the law and complies with the laws of the united States,” said the company in a brief statement in response to questions from Reuters on the request of the authorities. Yahoo refused to make further comments.

through a spokesman, Facebook, Stamos also declined a request for an interview. The NSA referred questions to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, who refused to refer to the subject.

Google, the property of Alphabet Inc, and Microsoft Corp, two major providers of email services in the united States, did not respond neither to requests for comment.