Twitter, ISP praised for protecting customer data

Social network Twitter and Internet provider Sonic.net both scored full marks for protecting user data from government snooping in the latest annual survey by civil rights lobby group Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Would your ISP don gloves to protect your data?

The EFF scores different providers in six areas of data protection. The Foundation's criteria asks, for example, whether a warrant is required to access content, whether the organisation tells its users about data requests and whether it publishes transparency reports and law enforcement guidelines. 

Furthermore, EFF also adds points if the provider is prepared to fight for users' privacy rights in courts as well as in the lower house of the US Congress.

Only Twitter and Sonic.net take action in all six areas, the EFF notes. Others such as Apple, Yahoo! and large US telco and ISP AT&T are only active in Congress or appear in court on users' behalf and do not require warrants for government access to user content.

Myspace stands out as a provider that does nothing to fight for users' data rights, according to the EFF survey, along with Verizon.

EFF notes that Amazon, ISP Comcast and mini-blogging site Tumblr also do comparatively little to stop governments from accessing user data.

Of the eighteen providers surveyed, only seven tell users about government data requests. The same number publishes transparency reports.

While the EFF is disappointed in some ISPs' lack of action to defend user data from government access, the organisation says "readers of this year's annual privacy report should be heartened, as we are, by the improvements major online providers made over the last year." 

Full text of the EFF Who Has Your Back 2013 Report :