Microsoft received just over 11,000 requests from the U.S. government for user data in 2012, and more than 70,000 from governments and law enforcement agencies worldwide. In nearly 80% of total cases, the software giant complied by delivering limited data such as an account holder's name, gender or email address. Redmond provided more substantive content, such as email subject headings, in response to just over 2% of requests. Smith wrote that less than 0.02% of Microsoft customers "were potentially affected by law enforcement requests."

Google announced in a report released earlier this month it received 31,000 inquiries from the U.S. government in 2012, and around 42,000 overall. Google responded to requests with some sort of disclosure in almost 90% of cases.