--- description: Yahoo tried to fight the government's requests for user information title: U.S. Threatened Yahoo With Massive Fines Over User Data image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt14b982245407b067/6986a2ef361760ce1890dd02/yahoo-fine.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Business](/section/business/) ## Business Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Tech](/tag/time-section-tech/) ## Tech Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # U.S. Threatened Yahoo With Massive Fines Over User Data  by [Nolan Feeney](/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Sep 11, 2014 9:27 PM CUT  A sign is posted in front of the Yahoo! headquarters on May 23, 2014 in Sunnyvale, Calif. A sign is posted in front of the Yahoo! headquarters on May 23, 2014 in Sunnyvale, Calif.Justin Sullivan—Getty Images  by [Nolan Feeney](/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Sep 11, 2014 9:27 PM CUT The U.S. government threatened Yahoo with a [$250,000-a-day fine](http://yahoopolicy.tumblr.com/post/97238899258/shedding-light-on-the-foreign-intelligence-surveillance "undefined") in 2008 if the tech company did not comply with requests for user information, according to roughly 1,500 pages of newly released legal documents. “We refused to comply with what we viewed as unconstitutional and overbroad surveillance and challenged the U.S. Government’s authority,” Yahoo’s General Counsel Ron Bell [wrote in a Tumblr post](http://yahoopolicy.tumblr.com/post/97238899258/shedding-light-on-the-foreign-intelligence-surveillance "undefined") published on Thursday. “The released documents underscore how we had to fight every step of the way to challenge the U.S. Government’s surveillance efforts.” Yahoo’s multiple challenges against the government were unsuccessful however, and the company started providing user data to PRISM, the controversial National Security Agency program that was shut down in 2011 and revealed to the public by Edward Snowden in 2013, [the Washington _Post_ reports](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/us-threatened-massive-fine-to-force-yahoo-to-release-data/2014/09/11/38a7f69e-39e8-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e%5Fstory.html "undefined"). Yahoo felt these government requests, which asked for data about whom and when users outside of the U.S. emailed (though not email content itself), bypassed required court reviews of each surveillance target. Federal Judge William C. Bryson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review ordered the unsealing of the documents as part of a move to declassify cases and documents that established the legal basis for the PRISM program. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3329581/yahoo-government-fines-prism/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3329581/yahoo-government-fines-prism/"},"headline":"U.S. Threatened Yahoo With Massive Fines Over User Data","datePublished":"2014-09-11T21:27:02.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:03:09.582Z","description":"Yahoo tried to fight the government's requests for user information","url":"https://time.com/3329581/yahoo-government-fines-prism/","keywords":["Tech","NSA","Prism","Surveillance","yahoo","privacy","National Security"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt14b982245407b067/6986a2ef361760ce1890dd02/yahoo-fine.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nolan Feeney","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt14b982245407b067/6986a2ef361760ce1890dd02/yahoo-fine.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Yahoo's Headquarters In Sunnyvale, California","caption":"Yahoo's Headquarters In Sunnyvale, California","creditText":"Justin Sullivan—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3329581/yahoo-government-fines-prism/","name":"U.S. Threatened Yahoo With Massive Fines Over User Data"}}]}] ```