The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently announced its first Gold Star recipients in its Who Has Your Back promotion for companies who have been fighting for their users’ privacy in court. Yahoo! received one for its fight against the government’s unlawful attempt to get email content with a 2703(d) order rather than demonstrating probable cause for a search warrant. After Yahoo! (with Marc Zwillinger on the brief) and EFF (with our own Jennifer Granick on the brief – then with EFF) filed briefs demonstrating that a probable cause finding is necessary, the government withdrew its request. See here for links to the briefs and other coverage.
Google also received a Gold Star, both for its support of the above amici brief and for its past fight to resist a government subpoena for search logs. Amazon received one for its consistent position of resisting state and federal government demands for users’ book purchases. And Twitter, got a nod for convincing the government to agree to unseal a demand for information about Twitter users.
While it’s unclear whether the Gold Stars will further the EFF’s goal of influencing other companies’ decision-making on privacy, who doesn’t like a Gold Star?
