Leaseweb supports the idea of an open and safe internet. As one of the world’s largest hosting and IT infrastructure companies, with approximately 3-4 % of all internet traffic generated by Leaseweb customers, we believe that transparency on the issues we face and how we address those issues is very important. Therefore, as the first hosting provider in the global hosting market, we are unveiling our Law Enforcement Transparency Report for 2012. We hope it will contribute to a safer and more open internet with a proper balance of rights.
Leaseweb believes that clients and other stakeholders deserve a clear articulation of Leaseweb’s obligations and responsibilities to better understand how we ensure the highest quality of service while adhering to the law. Customers are increasingly using technology to communicate and to store private and sensitive information. Like others in the technology industry, we believe it is important for the public to have transparent information about law enforcement access to customer data.
The company policy of Leaseweb on the subject of internet content is clear. We are content agnostic, meaning we host all content as long as it is legal in the jurisdiction in which it is hosted.
Law Enforcement Transparency Report 2012
With the above in mind we are now unveiling the first Leaseweb Transparency Report, for the year 2012. The goal of this report is to shed light on the following types of law enforcement requests and/or court orders we have received:
- Government requests for customer information
- Government requests for forensic images
- Government requests to remove content
- Child abuse material notices
This data covers law enforcement requests and/or court orders for the separate Leaseweb operating entities received in calendar year 2012. We only received requests related to our dedicated hosting and cloud offerings. Our shared webhosting, domain name, and IP transit offerings generated no requests.
| Netherlands | Germany | United States | |
| Customer information | 46 | 233 | 12 |
| Forensic images | 7 | 12 | – |
| Removal of content | 2 | – | – |
| Child abuse material | 175 | 8 | 6 |
Of note: In January 2012, the Dutch fiscal police impounded 60 servers owned by one client, a large cloud storage provider, under a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) request from the US government.
The figures above specify the total number of valid law enforcement requests Leaseweb received in 2012. Leaseweb rejects law enforcement requests, in total or in part, if they are invalid, incomprehensible, or otherwise have no basis under an appropriate law. Historically, Leaseweb has only recorded instances in which it produced some data in response to a valid law enforcement request. We are making changes to this practice so future disclosures will reflect total or partial rejections of law enforcement requests.
Leaseweb Community Outreach Project
Leaseweb maintains operations with a physical presence in three countries. Therefore, we only disclose data in these three countries as we have the ability to validate the lawfulness of requests for these locations. Direct requests from foreign authorities are refused. Normally we will advise requesting authorities on how they can obtain the data: For this the foreign authority needs to file a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) request with the competent authority in the jurisdiction of the operating company that holds the data. Leaseweb operating companies cannot divulge information held by other Leaseweb operating companies, as they have no access to this data.
Today’s unveiling of a Law Enforcement Transparency Report fits Leaseweb’s overall pursuit of a cleaner internet, safeguarded from unlawful material. In 2010, Leaseweb launched the Community Outreach Project in the worldwide hosting market to support organizations that monitor, identify, and combat sources of spam and cybercrime. This project provides servers and allocates network bandwidth to qualifying organizations identifying internet security threats such as spam, viruses, malware, and phishing.
One of the organizations in the Community Outreach Program, for example, is StopBadware (www.stopbadware.org), a nonprofit anti-malware organization bringing together stakeholders throughout the internet ecosystem and making the internet safer through prevention, mitigation, and remediation of malware websites.
Company background
Leaseweb is a leading Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider serving a worldwide portfolio of 15,000 customers ranging from SMBs to Enterprises. Services include Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid Hosting, Colocation, and Dedicated Hosting supported by exceptional customer service and technical support. With more than 50,000 servers under management, Leaseweb has provided infrastructure for mission-critical websites, Internet applications, email servers, security, and storage services since 1997.
The company operates six data centers in the U.S. and Europe, all of which are backed by a superior worldwide network with a total capacity of more than 3.0 Tbps. Leaseweb offers services through its various subsidiaries (operating companies), being Leaseweb B.V. (“Leaseweb Netherlands”), Leaseweb USA, Inc. (“Leaseweb USA”), and Leaseweb Deutschland GmbH (“Leaseweb Germany”). For more information, visit www.leaseweb.com.