Microsoft refuses to give US government mail stored in Europe

Microsoft has refused to hand over mail from a customer to the US government, because the mail is stored in Europe. Microsoft says it has lost customers because they are afraid that the US government will gain access to their data.

The American government believes it can request the data, because Microsoft as an American company falls under the so-called Patriot Act, a law that obliges American companies to hand over all data that the government requests, even if it concerns, for example, Europeans and the data is not available. are stored in the US.

Microsoft has several objections to this practice, according to the document in which the company objects. The main one seems to be a business objection. “Microsoft has seen growing concerns among current and potential foreign customers about US government access to information,” the document said. “In some cases, customers have refrained from purchasing services from Microsoft (…) If this trend continues, the US technology industry’s revenue model to sell cloud services to governments and educational institutions worldwide will be undermined.”

In addition, Microsoft refers to international laws and privacy to justify the objection, writes The New York Times. As far as we know, it is the first time that a large American company objects to the handing over of data on European servers. Microsoft already openly called for an end to this practice last week.