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Tech giants reveal US spies' huge customer data queries

Companies received requests for billing information and locations where people made an internet connection

Major technology firms released new data on Monday showing how often they were ordered to turn over customer information to the US government for secret national security investigations.

Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, LinkedIn and Tumblr disclosed expanded details and vented criticism of the government's handling of customers' internet data in counterterrorism and other intelligence probes.

The figures from 2012 and 2013 showed that companies such as Google and Microsoft were compelled by the government to provide data on as many as 10,000 customer accounts over a six-month period.

Yahoo complied with government requests for information on more than 40,000 accounts during the same period.

Google saw the number of people affected rise from 2,000 to 2,999 users during the first half of 2009 to between 9,000 and 9,999 users during the same period of 2013.

All the companies also received requests for billing information and locations where people made an internet connection.

The firms had always published limited information about government data requests, but an agreement reached last week with the Obama administration allowed the firms to provide a broadened, though still limited, set of figures to the public.

Seeking to reassure customers alarmed by revelations about the government's massive collection of internet data, the firms stressed that only relatively small numbers of their customers were targeted by authorities.

But even those numbers showed that thousands of US citizens had been affected by government requests approved by judges of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

In a company blog, Microsoft lawyer Brad Smith scolded the US and its allies for failing to end mass interceptions of internet data.

"Despite the president's reform efforts and our ability to publish more information, there has not yet been any public commitment by either the US or other governments to renounce the attempted hacking of internet companies," Mr Smith said.

He added that Microsoft planned to press the government "for more on this point, in collaboration with others."

A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

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