14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is one of the companies whose name has often been involved in spying scandals, mostly after Eduard Snowden’s revelations that were aimed at the secret campaigns launched by the United States government.
Microsoft’s officials have always denied every little involvement in such programs, saying loud and clear on every single occasion that every time it was asked to share user details and data, it only did it after receiving a court order.
Now a Microsoft representative commented on allegations that the company installed backdoors in its software, explaining that such a move would have destroyed its business all over the world.
Speaking in a panel discussion at The Aspen Institute last week, Scott Charney, corporate vice president of Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft, explained that Microsoft was never asked by the United States government or any other agency to install backdoor in its software.
Asked whether Skype was one of the possible targets of a government backdoor, Charney points out that authorities do not have access to its products and user details can only be accessed when the court says so.
“One, they have never done that, and two, we would fight it tooth and nail in the courts,” Charney said. “Under the wiretapping statutes and FISA you can be compelled to provide technical assistance. If they said, put in a backdoor or something like that, we would fight it all the way to the Supreme Court.”
Charney went on to explain that installing such a backdoor in its software without a government order would be a very risky decision for Microsoft, especially because news on this kind of move would basically affect its business to such an extent that no one would ever use its software again.
“If the government did that, and I really don’t think they would, it would be at the complete expense of American competitiveness,” he continued. “Because if we put in a backdoor for the U.S. government, we couldn’t sell anywhere in the world, not even in America.”
Microsoft is one of the companies that actually fought an FBI order to access user details in court, winning the lawsuit after the agency decided to drop its request. At the same time, the Redmond-based tech giant asked the United States government for more transparency, pointing out to the US Constitution for its right to share more information on the data share requests it received from local authorities.