Microsoft won an important battle against the FBI, after the company was sent a National Security letter that says it needed basic information from one of its enterprise customers.
The customer in question was not named, all is known is that this customer is a part of Microsoft's Office 365 subscription program. Furthermore, we understand the letter had a nondisclosure request where Microsoft would agree to not telling the customer about the requests. This is what prompted Microsoft to bring the matter to Seattle's federal court.
Surprisingly enough, the FBI pulled the letter. We are not certain what the FBI was after exactly, but we feel that whatever it is, the FBI must have felt the suspect would have likely deleted it already, which makes any future push to view the contents of their account, pointless.
"In this case, the Letter included a nondisclosure provision and we moved forward to challenge it in court. We concluded that the nondisclosure provision was unlawful and violated our Constitutional right to free expression. It did so by hindering our practice of notifying enterprise customers when we receive legal orders related to their data," says General Counsel & Executive Vice President, Brad Smith.
The successful argument Microsoft used to win this battle against the FBI could be used in future government requests. The big question we have for Microsoft right now, is whether or not it plans to go to court for customers who are not from the enterprise.
As per Smith, government requests for enterprise customers are rare, which could mean Microsoft going to court for a customer could also be a rare occurrence. We would rather hear about Microsoft going to court for some guy in his basement more than anything else.
This win for Microsoft could do wonders for the company. A potential customer who learns that Microsoft is willing to protect them by going to court could be the factor that leads them to sign up.
Hopefully, other companies will learn from Microsoft and follow. The more companies coming together to fight the FBI and NSA, the safer the Internet will become.
