71–80 of 120 posts
So I guess the US government is not logging everything yet... so this is 2 good news.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That said, I don't think this has much to do with protecting MS's customers, or for that matter standing up for them as it is presented. I'm pretty sure it's more about MS operations being able to continue to run in Ireland and the rest of the EU. If MS hands this data over, you can be assured that MS would face stiff penalties and restrictions to even be able to operate in the EU, and would likely have their Azure f…
My work is very much involving this, and it does have to do with protecting customers, because those customers won't exist unless Microsoft stands up to this. It's very much an issue with all companies that are non-US. That's why my company is putting datacenters everywhere. Chinese demand a Chinese data center for Cloud computing. This happens all over the world, and our strategy is all about that. This is a very re…
It's not as if Microsoft is selling access to the highest bidder, or considering a request from another company or a charity. Turning over specific data in the face of a court order is not going to drive every customer away, many will see that as acceptable, low risk, reasonable behaviour.
Not that I don't respect the decision, but something tells me that we would be less happy, in other instances, to see giant companies like MS decide when the law should apply to them.
Not only that, but the idea that a US person or company can dodge a court order just by transferring the data in question (or a physical object such as a server, or an item of disputed ownership) to another country seems totally unsupportable. I don't see how the judge has erred by issuing this order and expecting it to be followed. As I see it, the judge had no choice but to issue the order, and Microsoft has no rat…
I don't think intelligence agencies are involved here at all. In fact, them "running amok" would be easier in this case: they would have those emails already, process be damned.
In truth, this particular process would have happened at one point or another regardless of intelligence services, it's just a function of global internet services existing and laws having emerged to deal with them. Back before EU privacy laws were introduced, Microsoft would have just handed out anything they had to the FBI without really a second thought. Now they have to comply with two conflicting sets of laws.
It's not just a problem with the US Congress: it's a transatlantic (or rather global) conflict between incompatible laws.
It's like France had a law prohibiting a company from selling widgets at price X worldwide, and the US had a law forcing them to sell the same widgets at price X worldwide: you just couldn't obey both laws, since they both claim the same jurisdiction while mandating conflicting behaviour. You would need an international treaty to harmonize this, or one country to drop their law.
What if the data is striped among all the countries where Microsoft has datacenters? Do you get the union of all possible data protections? Or the intersection?
There are actual legal questions here and Microsoft's position is not neutrally good.
Maybe I've missed it, but is data requested belonging to a US or non-US resident?
This is interesting but let's give the cheer leading a break. What were really talking about here is corporations testing the size of their stick versus the government's. The feds are pursuing a USA case against and american entity and the data in question is held by another american entity, which happens to have moved it to Ireland. Well why did they do that and when? Was is always there and will it always be there?…
Are they? Where did you read that? As far as I know, the nationality of the Microsoft customer hasn't been released.
Microsoft will eventually roll over.
The casualness with which the U.S. Government asks a private company to violate EU and Irish law is truly disturbing. The U.S. Gov has gone mad with power. And for perhaps the first time ever: bravo Microsoft! I don't even care if you did if for the PR, it's still a brave stand.
Indeed. And I'm surprised the European governments are just taking it.
In this case, EU data-privacy laws emerged as a way to harmonize EU trade and law enforcement practices. They were then made compatible with US laws through various international agreements and treaties. Things were working, more or less.
Then the US Congress passed the PATRIOT Act in haste, and broke everything. It took years to sketch out a way to make these incompatible laws work together, sort of. Grey areas were swept under the carpet, in hope that particular circumstances they covered "would never happen". Now they are happening, due to a combination of factors (the emergence of cloud computing, NSA revelations, differences in foreign policy stances, etc).
Until Microsoft keeps this stance and the US legal landscape allows them to, EU governments simply don't have to do anything - the Data Protection Directive holds, US law enforcement yields. If MS is actually forced to hand over the data, then a response will be required from our side of the pond.
The casualness with which the U.S. Government asks a private company to violate EU and Irish law is truly disturbing. The U.S. Gov has gone mad with power. And for perhaps the first time ever: bravo Microsoft! I don't even care if you did if for the PR, it's still a brave stand.
Indeed. And I'm surprised the European governments are just taking it.