Microsoft battles US govt over Irish servers
Back in July, a New York court ruled Microsoft was obliged to hand over emails held in Dublin - the battle continues ..
Microsoft's appeal is based on the argument that the United States would itself resist any demand by a foreign country to hand-over data held on American servers. So why should they expect anything different from another government?
Microsoft's Dublin datacentres power the majority of its European operations, including Azure cloud services. And they're resisting the pressure to act as de facto US government agents in this case.
For their part, the US govt claims these emails are in fact "business records" rather than private communictions; and as such, fair game for international warrants.
With personal data now held on public cloud-based websites, this is just the latest battleground for our personal privacy. But even if Microsoft were to lose its Manhattan appeal, this battle looks likely to run - with the EU Commissioner for Justice already remarking the initial ruling "may be in breach of intenational law".