Yahoo has announced that it is shaking up its European operations, providing all services to the continent from a "single European entity" based in Ireland.

The shift will take place from 21 March 2014 and will incite changes in Yahoo's Terms and Privacy Policy. The most notable change comes in the fact that all user contracts in Europe will be transferred from Yahoo! UK Limited to Yahoo! EMEA Limited. Being based in Ireland, the company and all the services it provides to the rest of Europe will be based upon Irish law.

The changes will apply to all Yahoo services previously run by Yahoo! UK Limited or one of the web giant's other European companies. These include Mail, Flickr and Answers, as well as Messenger, Toolbar and Maps.

So why is Yahoo making these changes? When contacted for comment, a Yahoo spokesperson told ITProPortal: "As we have stated in the past, the structure of our business is driven by business needs and we believe it is in the best interest of our users to have Yahoo EMEA provide all services for all users in the region. There are a number of factors which influence such business decisions from our perspective.

"Ireland has an extensive data center infrastructure that helps us serve our EMEA users in the most efficient way. In respect of Ireland in particular, Dublin is already the European home to many of the world's leading global technology brands and has been a home for Yahoo for over a decade."

Yahoo stressed in a blog post that whilst the look and feel of your favourite services won't change, it recommends you read the new Privacy Policy to understand what data is being transferred to Yahoo EMEA. If you continue to use Yahoo services after 21 March, it means that you accept the changes to the Terms and Privacy Policy. If you disagree with them, says Yahoo, then you should close your account before the moving date.

Yesterday, news surfaced that details about the number of secret data requests issued by the US government have released by Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, as part of a transparency deal reached last month.