Apple, AT&T, and Verizon fall short in protecting your data

The Electronic Frontier Foundation released a report, Who Has Your Back?, which asks a probing question: What does the company do to keep customers' personal information out of the government's hands?

The examined companies could receive a gold star in each of six categories:

1. If the company requires a warrant before releasing information to the government.
2. If the company notifies customers when their information has been requested (except when prohibited by law).
3. If the company publishes a report about how many government requests it has fulfilled.
4. If the company has published formal guidelines on how it responds to information requests from governmental bodies.
5. If the company has ever fought a request for information in the courts. "[N]ot all companies will be put in the position of having to defend their users before a judge, but those who do deserve special recognition."
6. If the company belongs to the Digital Due Process Coalition, a group that is pushing the U.S. Congress to rewrite the (largely outmoded) Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986.

Of the companies surveyed, only Twitter and Sonic.net lit up the boards with six stars, and Dropbox, LinkedIn, and SpiderOak fell short only in the "fought a request" category -- quite possibly through no fault of their own.