2.5 Cloud Changing Treatment of User Data: Providers’ Protection of User Data and Transparency of Surveillance In the aftermath of revelations, cloud providers are now showing signs of Snowden’s standing up to government requests for user data and providing greater transparency of government requests. For example, Twitter is now being praised for its challenging government requests for user identities, in particular the identity of an Occupy Wall Street protester. In addition, Twitter notifies users of governmental requests for their information in a more transparent fashion than other public platforms. In another move for greater transparency, in June 14, 2013, Yahoo filed to have court papers from NSA’s 2008 PRISM gathering of Yahoo data, unsealed and open to the public. Prior to users’ the last unsealing of governmental requested records was ordered over a Yahoo’s request, decade earlier, in a Patriot Act case in 2002. Encryption of telephone, texts, email, and video chat is now being proactively marketed to consumers wary of government interception, especially on cloud computing mediums. Yet, despite these baby steps, most cloud companies lack both resources and initiative to protect our individual rights, leaving us to navigate the murky waters against these titanic forces on our own. A more organized effort is necessary to create a safety net policy to protect individual privacies.
2.5 Cloud Providers’ Changing Treatment of User Data: Protection of User Data and Transparency of Surveillance In the aftermath of Snowden’s revelations, cloud providers are now showing signs of standing up to government requests for user data and providing greater transparency of government requests. For example, Twitter is now being praised for its challenging government requests for user identities, in particular the identity of an Occupy Wall Street protester. In addition, Twitter notifies users of governmental requests for their information in a more transparent fashion than other public platforms. In another move for greater transparency, in June 14, 2013, Yahoo filed to have court papers from NSA’s 2008 PRISM gathering of Yahoo users’ data, unsealed and open to the public. Prior to Yahoo’s request, the last unsealing of governmental requested records was ordered over a decade earlier, in a Patriot Act case in 2002. Encryption of telephone, texts, email, and video chat is now being proactively marketed to consumers wary of government interception, especially on cloud computing mediums. Yet, despite these baby steps, most cloud companies lack both resources and initiative to protect our individual rights, leaving us to navigate the murky waters against these titanic forces on our own. A more organized effort is necessary to create a safety net policy to protect individual privacies.