They don't have to take them to court. What is the court going to do other than order the UK people to do something. They are a subsidiary. The executives in the subsidiary work directly for the USA company, i.e. they are hired directly by them. They either do what they are told, probably by cooperate in some way to eliminate liability on both sides, or they get fired and replaced with people who would.
A shill posting a fake review is still committing defamation. A company whose purpose is to commit crimes is committing racketeering. This law covers fines for bad reviews from customers not negative reviews from non customers.
Go to Azure website and read the terms of service they are crystal clear that law enforcement has access. I don't know what they said in private but I do know what they've said in public. They have never claimed that the US group that administers Azure doesn't have access to everything on Azure. This is the reason they sell Azure pack: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us... . That way a company can use Azure technology and Microsoft doesn't have Azure.
The article linked seems odd since it certainly has Microsoft saying the opposite of the truth. The author is probably misunderstanding something. For example confusing Azure technology with Azure cloud service.
Microsoft is obeying the law now. Cutting out the middle man, when a user uploads data that user is exporting the data to countries without protections. Including the middle man: when application uses Azure as its backend that application is certifying that all its data is legal for export. Gmail isn't illegal in Europe.
So, your argument is that if Microsoft operates in North Korea, Iran, or any other country.. that those countries should also be able to force Microsoft to hand over any and all records on Americans if they see fit? Without showing probable cause in the the US or worrying about American laws?
Yes. This question keeps getting asked of Americans and the answer is yes. Americans don't use global cloud services for sensitive information that would be illegal to export. They use regulated private clouds.
A directive is not a law. Moreover the directive is binding on Ireland not Microsoft. It is Ireland that needs to pass laws. But even if we ignore that your interpretation is questionable. "Processing of data relating to offences, criminal convictions or security measures may be carried out only under the control of official authority, or if suitable specific safeguards are provided under national law," Which is clearly the case here. There is an official authority the USA federal government, the regulator for Azure. You may not like the particular authority but I could easily see Ireland arguing they are fully compliant with the directive.
OK good example. Given the structure of Azure and your laws it seems to me the company was violating German law when they stored emails on Azure. Azure has always been managed out of Washington and thus Americans have always had access. The question (which IMHO isn't really a question it is too clear cut) is whether a count can compel Americans to use their access not whether they had it.
The company in this hypothetical has the data electronically is refusing to turn it over electronically and instead prints it. Obviously a company that only uses paper records is free to hand those over and doesn't need to create electronic records.
I've used your analogy before. And USA law is that the USA corporation is legal obliged to instruct and take measures to get the data from the UK subsidiary. Nothing is changing here this has always been the case.
Well first off US counts can order Americans to break the laws of another country. A USA court could issue me a warrant to do something illegal in Ireland and if I failed to do so I'd go to jail. That's not even questionable. The claim on authority over US citizens is how the US government is able to arrest people in the small arms trafficking business in Africa or people abroad involved in slave trading of prostitutes or all sorts of things. US law applies to Americans whereever they are. What the European/.ers are proposing would bring back all kinds of horrors as Americans and American companies could do dreadful things as long as they did so outside our borders.
As for the practicalities. This is what you have with gmail right now and no one objects. The problem you have is you believe Azure is "in Ireland" for some reason. It isn't. Azure is in Washington State. It runs a datacenter in Ireland that is fully under the control of Washington administration. They could tomorrow copy all the data from every client to Washington and the Irish people couldn't do a thing about it. Microsoft has notified customers that uploading to Azure is exporting.
The customers who are exporting to the USA at this point by uploading to Azure are choosing to do so.
Let me just say the US postal service can open letters with a warrant. The issue for privacy of correspondence was about them doing it without one (i.e. random searches in transit). What the European/.ers are asking for is that warrants simply don't exist at all and the postal service freely, openly and deliberate act to facilitate crime. (I get that the warrants can pass between countries and so this analogy doesn't quite hold).
But in general and not in this specific, it is a real problem how the laws are being applied selectively. Far better than the courts having to guess how best to apply old laws to new technology would be for congress to create black letter law making it explicit. That's what should be happening.
There is no question in my mind which way this is going to go. The implications of courts basically having no ability to issue subpoenas or warrants anymore is more or less the complete collapse of the ability of the US government to enforce any law regarding white collar crime. The implications of the USA companies losing out contracts to European cloud services is a few billion. This is like would you rather have a mosquito bite have your leg amputated.
Exactly. That's where this is likely to go. Europe only cloud services storing European specific data and those are governed by European law. Put it on a Chinese service and it is governed by Chinese law. Then you have a simple financial model for regulating international corporations.
Exactly! (someone should mod this up he gets it). Microsoft wants this crystal clear so everyone understands the scope of US courts. If the data goes onto Azure it is subject to Washington State, Nevada State and Federal courts, period. Take it up with the US government not with Microsoft.
I'm not sure that is ever true. But we certainly aren't using military force in Europe. There are Europe only cloud companies and last I checked we didn't hit them with cruise missiles.
What law in Europe prevents a company from copying their own data?
What law in Europe makes it legal to deliberately copy data to the USA and then argue the American company that accepted the data is the one violating the law?
But where did the crime occur? No one argues that gmail is subject to these privacy laws because gmail is known to copy information to the USA. The problem here is that Europeans believed that Azure Europe wasn't part of a global system. Now Microsoft has informed that isn't true. Uploading to Azure is transferring data to the USA. It is not Microsoft doing the transfer but their customers. Their customers are now prohibited from uploading data that it is illegal to export. They are the ones breaking the law.
It is actually illegal. You can't deliberate engage in activities to make it more expensive or complex for law enforcement to search subpoenaed records. That's contempt of court.
Yes that is what I'm saying. The US government in fact has notified American companies and customers that is the rule. That Huawei answers to the Chinese government and they should not store things they wouldn't want China to make use of for its own purposes. This isn't a situation where the USA is being hypocritical this is a situation where Europeans want to apply a geographical model and the USA wants to apply a financial model. In addition to just factually asserting this is the law I think a financial model makes more sense on the internet because "where" is quite slippery when we talk about networked computers; while who is usually still able to be determined.
I get that it would be illegal in Ireland. The issue is whether it is illegal in the USA. That's where the disclosure it taking place.
Take for example a situation where a European uses Gmail. Clearly they understand that this is governed by USA law and a USA warrant would apply. The issue here is that Europeans on/. believe that this wouldn't apply to Azure because Azure is "in Ireland" which is factually untrue and Microsoft has officially notified their customers it is untrue.
No, you've got it wrong. I have no problem with open source software existing in a form worthless to end users that exists to build a base for additional software closed or open. What you fail to see is a distinction between Free Software and Open Source, or rather you think they should be the same thing
The way you are using the terms....
Free Software is a proven strategy to create a community of software sharing. Open Source is a proven strategy for getting a piece of software used by commercial vendors.
I don't see much value in Open Source. What Open non-Free software tries to accomplish is often better handled by a commercial entity selling and licensing their software to other commercial entities. That is Microsoft kernel, API and tools has been much more successful than FreeBSD's. TeX has done much less than Adobe in the last 30 years even though TeX was at least tied 30 years ago with the Postscript family. The Apache web browser which was one of the most successful browsers ever is not fundamentally much more advanced than it was in 1994 and as a result huge stacks for managing internet web services have needed to be developed separately.
Ultimately if you don't care about the four freedoms, then the Open Source just becomes a mechanism for software becoming embedded in commercial applications. Again it has a proven track record of failing at even that, that ultimately the commercial model mostly works better.
You can't however on the one hand object to GPLers asserting that Open Source doesn't stay meaningfully open and then act like it is no big deal when I explain how the X11 code wasn't open. If you don't mind being embedded in closed source applications and being a body of routines for closed source applications say that. But don't pretend that BSD licenses are equally good at keeping software open source.
I don't think Microsoft has a problem. Imagine for a moment that all customer data on European Azure was always copied back to the USA. That wouldn't be illegal. Now imagine that some European application used copy-Azure for their data storage which had personal data. That's what would be illegal.
Microsoft has already told their European customers don't store information illegal to export on European Azure. I'm not sure that Microsoft can be held responsible at this point. They've made it clear that they are structurally unable to comply with European privacy laws in Europe while fighting with the USA to change USA law.
Slashdot Mirror
They don't have to take them to court. What is the court going to do other than order the UK people to do something. They are a subsidiary. The executives in the subsidiary work directly for the USA company, i.e. they are hired directly by them. They either do what they are told, probably by cooperate in some way to eliminate liability on both sides, or they get fired and replaced with people who would.
A shill posting a fake review is still committing defamation. A company whose purpose is to commit crimes is committing racketeering. This law covers fines for bad reviews from customers not negative reviews from non customers.
Terrific to hear! Nice to see this terrible practiced blocked. It has been awful damaging to enterprise software for almost two decades now.
Not so simple if they knew Americans had the ability to copy at will. That makes the upload the criminal act.
OK. So assume I'm right that the Americans always had access. Were the German companies who uploaded the emails in the first place breaking the law?
Go to Azure website and read the terms of service they are crystal clear that law enforcement has access. I don't know what they said in private but I do know what they've said in public. They have never claimed that the US group that administers Azure doesn't have access to everything on Azure. This is the reason they sell Azure pack: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us... . That way a company can use Azure technology and Microsoft doesn't have Azure.
The article linked seems odd since it certainly has Microsoft saying the opposite of the truth. The author is probably misunderstanding something. For example confusing Azure technology with Azure cloud service.
Microsoft is obeying the law now. Cutting out the middle man, when a user uploads data that user is exporting the data to countries without protections. Including the middle man: when application uses Azure as its backend that application is certifying that all its data is legal for export. Gmail isn't illegal in Europe.
Yes. This question keeps getting asked of Americans and the answer is yes. Americans don't use global cloud services for sensitive information that would be illegal to export. They use regulated private clouds.
A directive is not a law. Moreover the directive is binding on Ireland not Microsoft. It is Ireland that needs to pass laws. But even if we ignore that your interpretation is questionable. "Processing of data relating to offences, criminal convictions or security measures may be carried out only under the control of official authority, or if suitable specific safeguards are provided under national law," Which is clearly the case here. There is an official authority the USA federal government, the regulator for Azure. You may not like the particular authority but I could easily see Ireland arguing they are fully compliant with the directive.
OK good example. Given the structure of Azure and your laws it seems to me the company was violating German law when they stored emails on Azure. Azure has always been managed out of Washington and thus Americans have always had access. The question (which IMHO isn't really a question it is too clear cut) is whether a count can compel Americans to use their access not whether they had it.
The company in this hypothetical has the data electronically is refusing to turn it over electronically and instead prints it. Obviously a company that only uses paper records is free to hand those over and doesn't need to create electronic records.
I've used your analogy before. And USA law is that the USA corporation is legal obliged to instruct and take measures to get the data from the UK subsidiary. Nothing is changing here this has always been the case.
Well first off US counts can order Americans to break the laws of another country. A USA court could issue me a warrant to do something illegal in Ireland and if I failed to do so I'd go to jail. That's not even questionable. The claim on authority over US citizens is how the US government is able to arrest people in the small arms trafficking business in Africa or people abroad involved in slave trading of prostitutes or all sorts of things. US law applies to Americans whereever they are. What the European /.ers are proposing would bring back all kinds of horrors as Americans and American companies could do dreadful things as long as they did so outside our borders.
As for the practicalities. This is what you have with gmail right now and no one objects. The problem you have is you believe Azure is "in Ireland" for some reason. It isn't. Azure is in Washington State. It runs a datacenter in Ireland that is fully under the control of Washington administration. They could tomorrow copy all the data from every client to Washington and the Irish people couldn't do a thing about it. Microsoft has notified customers that uploading to Azure is exporting.
The customers who are exporting to the USA at this point by uploading to Azure are choosing to do so.
Let me just say the US postal service can open letters with a warrant. The issue for privacy of correspondence was about them doing it without one (i.e. random searches in transit). What the European /.ers are asking for is that warrants simply don't exist at all and the postal service freely, openly and deliberate act to facilitate crime. (I get that the warrants can pass between countries and so this analogy doesn't quite hold).
But in general and not in this specific, it is a real problem how the laws are being applied selectively. Far better than the courts having to guess how best to apply old laws to new technology would be for congress to create black letter law making it explicit. That's what should be happening.
There is no question in my mind which way this is going to go. The implications of courts basically having no ability to issue subpoenas or warrants anymore is more or less the complete collapse of the ability of the US government to enforce any law regarding white collar crime. The implications of the USA companies losing out contracts to European cloud services is a few billion. This is like would you rather have a mosquito bite have your leg amputated.
Exactly. That's where this is likely to go. Europe only cloud services storing European specific data and those are governed by European law. Put it on a Chinese service and it is governed by Chinese law. Then you have a simple financial model for regulating international corporations.
Exactly! (someone should mod this up he gets it). Microsoft wants this crystal clear so everyone understands the scope of US courts. If the data goes onto Azure it is subject to Washington State, Nevada State and Federal courts, period. Take it up with the US government not with Microsoft.
I'm not sure that is ever true. But we certainly aren't using military force in Europe. There are Europe only cloud companies and last I checked we didn't hit them with cruise missiles.
What law in Europe prevents a company from copying their own data?
What law in Europe makes it legal to deliberately copy data to the USA and then argue the American company that accepted the data is the one violating the law?
But where did the crime occur? No one argues that gmail is subject to these privacy laws because gmail is known to copy information to the USA. The problem here is that Europeans believed that Azure Europe wasn't part of a global system. Now Microsoft has informed that isn't true. Uploading to Azure is transferring data to the USA. It is not Microsoft doing the transfer but their customers. Their customers are now prohibited from uploading data that it is illegal to export. They are the ones breaking the law.
It is actually illegal. You can't deliberate engage in activities to make it more expensive or complex for law enforcement to search subpoenaed records. That's contempt of court.
Yes that is what I'm saying. The US government in fact has notified American companies and customers that is the rule. That Huawei answers to the Chinese government and they should not store things they wouldn't want China to make use of for its own purposes. This isn't a situation where the USA is being hypocritical this is a situation where Europeans want to apply a geographical model and the USA wants to apply a financial model. In addition to just factually asserting this is the law I think a financial model makes more sense on the internet because "where" is quite slippery when we talk about networked computers; while who is usually still able to be determined.
I get that it would be illegal in Ireland. The issue is whether it is illegal in the USA. That's where the disclosure it taking place.
Take for example a situation where a European uses Gmail. Clearly they understand that this is governed by USA law and a USA warrant would apply. The issue here is that Europeans on /. believe that this wouldn't apply to Azure because Azure is "in Ireland" which is factually untrue and Microsoft has officially notified their customers it is untrue.
The way you are using the terms....
Free Software is a proven strategy to create a community of software sharing.
Open Source is a proven strategy for getting a piece of software used by commercial vendors.
I don't see much value in Open Source. What Open non-Free software tries to accomplish is often better handled by a commercial entity selling and licensing their software to other commercial entities. That is Microsoft kernel, API and tools has been much more successful than FreeBSD's. TeX has done much less than Adobe in the last 30 years even though TeX was at least tied 30 years ago with the Postscript family. The Apache web browser which was one of the most successful browsers ever is not fundamentally much more advanced than it was in 1994 and as a result huge stacks for managing internet web services have needed to be developed separately.
Ultimately if you don't care about the four freedoms, then the Open Source just becomes a mechanism for software becoming embedded in commercial applications. Again it has a proven track record of failing at even that, that ultimately the commercial model mostly works better.
You can't however on the one hand object to GPLers asserting that Open Source doesn't stay meaningfully open and then act like it is no big deal when I explain how the X11 code wasn't open. If you don't mind being embedded in closed source applications and being a body of routines for closed source applications say that. But don't pretend that BSD licenses are equally good at keeping software open source.
I don't think Microsoft has a problem. Imagine for a moment that all customer data on European Azure was always copied back to the USA. That wouldn't be illegal. Now imagine that some European application used copy-Azure for their data storage which had personal data. That's what would be illegal.
Microsoft has already told their European customers don't store information illegal to export on European Azure. I'm not sure that Microsoft can be held responsible at this point. They've made it clear that they are structurally unable to comply with European privacy laws in Europe while fighting with the USA to change USA law.