WASHINGTON — The Obama administration says it will allow Internet companies to give customers a better idea of how often the government demands their information, but will not allow companies to disclose what is being collected or how much.

The new rules — which have prompted Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook to drop their respective lawsuits before the nation’s secret surveillance court — also contain a provision that bars start-ups from revealing information about government requests for two years.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and James R. Clapper, director of national intelligence, said the new declassification rules were prompted by President Obama’s speech on intelligence reform earlier this month.

“Permitting disclosure of this aggregate data addresses an important area of concern to communications providers and the public,” Mr. Holder and Mr. Clapper said in a joint statement.