Tech giant challenges US government over overseas data

folarin okunola

September 9, 2015 4:49 AM

As far as Microsoft was concerned, that was an Irish government matter, but the g-people, weirdly, tried to hold the company's US arm accountable.

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The issue began when drug enforcement officials wanted access to messages stored on a Microsoft server in Dublin, Ireland.

As far as Microsoft was concerned, that was an Irish government matter, but the g-people, weirdly, tried to hold the company's US arm accountable.

Disturbingly, the US won the first two legal battles, and now a court in New York is about to hear to the appeal on behalf of Microsoft, with the tech giant getting some cheering on from the rest of the technology industry.

According to a report by Reuters, the court will be asked to decide if Microsoft in the US had control and access to the emails, rather than where they were housed at the time.

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The issue is that with the whole situation is regardless of what the result is, it's going to wind up to be problematic for both Microsoft and the tech industry as a whole.

If Microsoft wins, then it’ll likely be attacked by numerous law enforcement agencies probably under the assumption that Satya Nadella is personally endorsing the actions of criminals.

If the company loses, however, it's likely to anger its global customers who are rightly reluctant to see their private data handed over to the government.

There’s also the geopolitical element, since the US will basically give itself permission to look at private information on overseas citizens. It probably won't be able to complain if foreign governments similar action, since that'd reek of double standards.

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