14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is one of the companies that have been involved in government spying on users scandals, with Redmond often accused with several occasions that it's handing over user data to intelligence agencies with a judge order.
However, Redmond always denied these claims and said that it was only sharing user data based on court orders, so no intelligence agency received unlimited access to its servers to collect information about its customers.
At the same time, it also asked the government for more transparency and even pointed to the US Constitution for the right to share more details about the requests it received from the court to provide information on user accounts.
As a result, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) offered Microsoft the top rating on privacy approach in these issues involving the government, pointing out that the software giant “met ever one of the six factors that companies were rated against, including the stringency of the legal demands companies require before providing data, their efforts to notify customers about government demands, transparency in reporting the volume and type of demands received and company efforts to fight for customers’ privacy rights in court and in Congress.”
“EFF’s award of six out of six stars to Microsoft is a reflection of the guiding principles, practices and policies that Microsoft employs on behalf of all customers. We encourage you to review the report for additional details and trends impacting data privacy,” Jeff Meisner, editor, Microsoft on the Issues, wrote today.
EFF says that Microsoft is one of the companies that are really protecting users' privacy, adding that Redmond is asking for a warrant every time US authorities are asking for access to user data.
“We are pleased to see Microsoft requiring a warrant before handing user data to the government and publicly opposing mass surveillance. Microsoft is also updating its policies to notify users about government requests for their data. We’re pleased to give Microsoft credit for challenging a government data demand in court. And finally, we are particularly impressed by Microsoft’s transparency report, which includes a special report about National Security Letters and FISA court orders,” the report reads.
Recent document leaks revealed that Microsoft has at least discussed with the US government on a potential collaboration that could provide access to details of Skype, Outlook.com, SkyDrive, and other services, but it's not yet clear whether the two sides indeed reached an agreement or the software giant refused to comply with the requirements.