Amazon’s Bi-Annual Transparency Report Sheds Light On Government Data Requests

In a move that some will call long overdue, Amazon has just released its first-ever transparency report. While it'd be easy to think that Amazon wouldn't receive nearly as much legal pressure as social media companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, it actually does deal with it on a near daily basis.

From the short period between January 1 and May 31, 2015, Amazon received a total of 813 subpoenas. Of those, 542 warranted a full response, 126 received a partial response, and the other 145 received no response at all. Amazon was even hit with 25 search warrants, with 21 of those resulting in either a full or partial response.

Flickr: Scottish Government

Other numbers are a little more challenging to interpret. 13 court orders were received, while "between 0 - 249" were received that revolve around national security. Finishing things off, there were a total of 132 "non-US" requests received, as well as a single takedown notice.

Before this report, I would have never had believed that Amazon would receive so many requests, but now that the numbers are out there, it's hard to find them too surprising.

Amazon promises to deliver one of these reports every six months, and I think a "kudos" is in order for the company finally deciding to release these hard numbers.