Week 4 - 'Yahoo secretly scanned customer emails for the US government'

'Yahoo secretly scanned customer emails for the US government'
http://news.sky.com/story/yahoo-secretly-scanned-customer-emails-for-the-us-government-10605967

Yahoo searched hundreds of millions of emails to help a US intelligence agency

• the security team found a flaw with the software and thought hackers had created it; it was said that hackers could have accessed any flagged up emails 
• it isn't clear if Yahoo handed over any information to the intelligence agency 
• Google said, "We've never received such a request, but if we did, our response would be simple: 'No way'."
• A Microsoft spokesperson said, "We have never engaged in the secret scanning of email traffic like what has been reported today about Yahoo."
• it is legal for intelligence agencies to ask companies for data to prevent terror attacks or suspicious behaviour 
• details of 500 million users had been stolen 

There are positive and negative problems with companies being able to scan personal emails as this does essentially invade ones privacy and therefore the question of ethics is to be considered; however in the case of preventing terror attacks, new digital media is able to potentially protect the people and aid the government to track down any abnormal behaviour. The issue that is raised with this article is the fact that details of 500 million users have been stolen and the fact that the software used was able to be easily hacked shows the issues that new digital media has and how it can essentially affect several million users.