A U.S. judge has ordered Microsoft to turn over a customer's emails stored in a data center in Ireland, despite European Union laws saying that only the court local to that jurisdiction can order such a thing.
According to the judge, since Microsoft is headquartered in the U.S. and simply stores data overseas, foreign subsidiary companies of Microsoft are applicable to U.S. law as well.
"It is a question of control, not a question of the location of that information," U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska said in the ruling.
The situation puts Microsoft in an extremely difficult position. While the U.S. judge has ordered that the emails be turned over, doing so would be breaking European law. Whatever Microsoft does, it will be in breach of either U.S. or E.U. law.
The ruling raises concerns for other U.S. based technology companies such as Google, Yahoo, Apple and Facebook, who are also not immune from being ordered to hand data over to the U.S. government.
The judge said that the ruling would be temporarily suspended to allow Microsoft to appeal to the second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. This is the first case in which a company challenges a U.S. search warrant for data being held overseas.
"The only issue that was certain this morning was that the District Court's decision would not represent the final step in this process. We will appeal promptly and continue to advocate that people's email deserves strong privacy protection in the U.S. and around the world," said Microsoft's general counsel Brad Smith following the ruling.
While this particular ruling may seem like a narrow issue, Microsoft argued that the issue was a slippery slope for privacy concerns.
"Over the course of the past year, Microsoft and other U.S. technology companies have faced growing mistrust and concern about their ability to protect the privacy of personal information located outside the United States. The Government's position in this case further erodes that trust, and will ultimately erode the leadership of U.S. technology companies in the global market," Microsoft said in a court filing in June.
A Microsoft lawyer argued that if a foreign court ruled that Microsoft provide them with emails of U.S. customers, it would be considered an infringement of sovereignty, and said that Chinese officials this week demanded passwords to find email information located within the U.S.
The legal battle is expected to continue on for some time, with Microsoft saying that "the only issue that was certain this morning was that the District Court's decision would not represent the final step in this process."
