Pinterest publishes its first transparency report

Pinterest has joined the ranks of Internet companies who publish a bi-annual transparency report by issuing one covering the six months from July to December 2013.

“Every company that stores information – from banks to phone companies to email providers – must respond to requests for that information from folks like law enforcement agencies, courts, and others. We think it’s important that you know about these requests,” commented Adam Barton, a project manager at Pinterest.

“From July to December 2013, we only received 7 warrants, 5 subpoenas, 1 civil subpoena, and 0 other requests about 13 user accounts,” they shared. “We only received law enforcement requests from agencies in the United States, and 11 of 12 requests were from state or local agencies.”

The company complied with 11 of the 12 requests. Also, in three of the 12 cases they were prohibited from notifying the user – when they weren’t, they did notify them. None of the requests included national security letters and orders issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The report isn’t as big as that usually published by, for example, Facebook, but its size obviously reflects the size of the site’s user base, as well as the fact that people just don’t share as much personal data on it.

Nevertheless, it is a good move by the company.