Why do we have to classify it under a law that is nearly 20 years old? Is no one in the FCC competent enough to amend, or scrap and remake, the Telecommunications Act of 1996? It's 2014. It's time for a Digital Telecommunications Act that tackles these issues and potential issues for the next 15-20 years, like VoIP, TV over IP, etc..
The FCC cannot make law, they can only work with the laws that Congress passes. Good luck getting the Oligarchs in Congress to do anything, the big telecoms spread their money around to both parties...
And upgrades? I don't know what they did with all that money they received, but they certainly never upgraded a thing.
Didn't you read the letter? They've spent all their money writing "apps":
Today’s regulatory framework helps support nearly 11 million jobs annually in the U.S. and has unleashed over $1.2 trillion dollars of investment in advanced wired and wireless broadband networks, as well as an entirely new apps economy.
They're throwing in with "apps" developers, Microsoft, Apple, and Google, by claiming those content provider investments are part of their "investment". Every single place they try to mention a statistic about money invested or innovation, they include stuff the content providers have been doing, because if they kept it to infrastructure exclusively it would be clear they've done bumpkiss.
America’s economic future,... critically depends on continued investment and innovation in our broadband infrastructure and app economy to drive improvements in health care, education and energy.
They aren't even claiming they actually have plans to do anything, except build "apps".
An era of differentiation, innovation, and experimentation would be replaced with a series of Government may I? requests from American entrepreneurs.
Well that's what every other industry is dealing with these days, why do these bullies think they deserve special treatment?
Ever hear of "the exception that proves the rule"? Congratulations, you found it. One single incident of one single customer claiming to get a refund for one single incident.
You're a gullible fool to think this unconfirmed anecdote from an anonymous person that Amazon would not confirm actually proves anything.
When you do manage to crawl out from your dank basement sanctuary, you should immediately find one of those "convenience stores" and buy all the scratch-off lottery tickets you can afford. There's a $100,000 prize out there waiting for you!
Congress did nothing but authorize the FCC, and delegate authority for regulating interstate communications to the executive.
That would be Obama. He can have the FCC re-classify broadband as a common carrier at any time, but won't do it. He's doing what he's told, and pretending that it's somebody else's fault. It's a classic trait of everyone that suffers from NP disorder.
Your reading comprehension failures are back again, did you even read the links you've posted? In the link you posted as "good luck with that [gamechup.com]", the line in the chat explicitly states that Amazon users have gotten refunds:
HaHa... Hey, pot...
Nobody got a refund from Amazon, you idiot. Didn't you read the policy link? That guy may have tried to make such a case with EA, but notice in the article comments that NOBODY got any such refund. Idiot.
If this law of merchantability exists
Where are you from Somalia, or something? What a fucking moron you are. Get out of your mom's basement and try interacting with the real world a bit.
Or, I'll just assume you're a shill for EA. It's the only explanation that makes sense. Dumbass.
Should I write to my congressman about this? Oh, wait, Amazon is helping them promote national sales tax, and I didn't contribute to his campaign last year. I guess I'll have to "take action" using my own policy.
A crappy game is a crappy game, buyer beware. But if the game is so DRM'd and requires an active service that goes belly-up so the game isn't even playable - why does everybody think the distributor gets to keep the money just because you "broke the seal" to find out you can't play the game?
Let's say I buy a car, and I drive it until it needs gas, but I find out that it takes a special patented fuel that has been discontinued by dealer's filling stations. You're saying I can't demand a refund because I've already driven the car, and you're FURTHER stating that I can't manufacture my own fuel for the car because that violates the manufacture's "intellectual property rights."
That may be legal, but it's unconscionable and immoral.
I'm not sure why people think games and software are special in this regard.
Unlike physical goods, copies of works of authorship in digital form must be copied into a computer's memory before being used, and copyright law gives a work's author the exclusive right to authorize the making of such copies. Besides, warranties expire after several years.
That's irrelevant. A crappy game is a crappy game, buyer beware. But if the game is so DRM'd and requires an active service that goes belly-up so the game isn't even playable - why does everybody think the distributor gets to keep the money just because you "broke the seal" to find out you can't play the game?
Let's say I buy a car, and I drive it until it needs gas, but I find out that it takes a special patented fuel that has been discontinued by dealer's filling stations. You're saying I can't demand a refund because I've already driven the car, and you're FURTHER stating that I can't manufacture my own fuel for the car because that violates the manufacture's "intellectual property rights."
That may be legal, but it's unconscionable and immoral.
They paid for the game, though, and there is the common law (and in some places, explicit law) known as "implied merchantability". For a game, that means I've paid for a game, and expect to be able to play it. If the game cannot be played because the merchant's servers failed, then they have violated the rights of the consumer. That's what the law says.
Right, but you then take action against the merchant. It's not a case of 'You violated my rights so I'll violate yours' because now you've both broken the law, this 'oh but he did it first' is just childish nonsense.
What the hell is that supposed to mean? I should "turn the other cheek"? I've been defrauded, but I get no recourse because that would just be "childish nonsense". I should just "take it like a man" and quit complaining about being fucked over by a lying shitbag with millions of dollars obtained by lying to their customers? Yea, I don't think so.
They paid for the game, though, and there is the common law (and in some places, explicit law) known as "implied merchantability". For a game, that means I've paid for a game, and expect to be able to play it. If the game cannot be played because the merchant's servers failed, then they have violated the rights of the consumer. That's what the law says.
I'm not sure why people think games and software are special in this regard.
Voting is a right, and they're still people, even if they did make some dumb mistake when they were young.
That's how the rule of law works: You have rights, they are guaranteed by law. But when you violate others' rights (felonious crimes), your rights are taken away.
Actually, the day after netflix paid, their customers on comcast had better communication with netflix.
There wasn't even enough time for remote hands in a co location to physically move in a new box and switch some wires, let alone getting the telecom operator connect new lines.
Right. Which they accomplished by degrading everybody else's traffic. Great for people watching Netflix, not so good for Comcast's customers that were using the Internet for anything else, because now they are waiting even longer because those connections are now waiting in line behind all those Netflix packets.
This is proof positive that Internet services exist outside of any free market. In a free market, consumers are in charge, and they decide what is produced by aggregate demand. Now, instead, the producers are in charge, and decide what consumers will get, disregarding any consumer demands. That's a Communist model.
Gee, sure are a lot of problems with the IMPLEMENTATION of these standards. I wonder why, if the standards are so fine, there are so many implementation problems.
Kind of like Communism, then, right? It's a perfect standard, and all of the murders, starvation, suffering and oppression are just implementation issues, right? Or, you know, like "spreading freedom in the Middle East" - the standard is just fine, but the IMPLEMENTATION was bad...
I heard that is required in the banking industry... to ensure someone isn't doing some cooking of the books. I like the idea for both reason. You force the department to handle a "hit by truck" incident once a year and you get to see all the dirty laundry.
When I worked in banking, the requirement was actually 2 consecutive weeks...
You also need to live somewhere with access to those ingredients, have a high enough income that you can afford the ingredients, and a high enough income that you can afford to be not-working long enough to cook and eat them. There are thousands upon thousands of people too poor for all three.
Anyone in the US that is that poor has access to food stamps (EBT cards). There are 46 million people now in the US that use them. They are supposed to be used to buy... food. You're not even supposed to buy prepared food - it's better and cheaper to prepare meals yourself, and as pointed out, it's really not much of a time issue.
The food industry has far more say over what you eat than scientific/medical establishment, and industry is far better at and spend much more money on influencing your individual behaviour (those 'choices' that you think you are making) than governments or public bodies can.
That's actually not true. To influence people, they need to trust you. No one these days trusts the government or corporations - but they do trust NGOs. In fact NGOs are the most trusted sources of information all over the world. That's why government bureaucracies (and the US State Department) provide so much funding for NGOs - they use them to get their message out to people.
In this case, it's garbage. i live in the UK, and I had five different options for providers for my Internet connection. If one was throttling my connection, I'd go elsewhere. The only reason Verizon and Comcast get away with this is because they have a cosy little cartel, and together hold Netflix to ransom.
And how's the competition in broadcast television providers working out for you?
What is wrong with saying a 2nd grader should know x before moving on to the 3rd grade, and a 3rd grader should know y, before moving to the 4th grade, and so on?
That's not really a good description of common core - it doesn't really do that. States can impose certain testing requirements on top of it, optionally, like Virginia's Standards of Learning (SOL), but you won't find any kind of requirement for "knowing" any objective facts in the Common Core.
But I wont, ill just ask you, what is wrong with the STANDARDS THEMSELVES? And please do not come up with the usual list of proven incorrect statements, such as teachers not being involved in the standards themselves.
That's a pretty big topic. The Common Core advocates seem to do a lot of marketing around their process for creating the standards, which includes taking a lot of existing standards (really bad ones), and pretending they're worthy of expanding upon.
I'll bring up a few of the basic issues and let you research more yourself.
Seventy-two CEOs hailing from corporations that usually like to stay out of the political fray, including Harley-Davidson, General Mills and Xerox, placed a full-page ad in the New York Times claiming that the curriculum will meet the “business community’s expectations.” That should tell you something right there: Are these companies interested in educating Americans to pursue their highest potential, or in creating a workforce beholden to the Corporate ladder?
The fundamental theme of Common Core’s English language arts (ELA) standards is a focus on non-fiction “informational texts.” The ELA standards were fashioned so that elementary students read no more than 50 percent classic literature and high school students may read only 30 percent classic literature. The other 70 percent is comprised of informational texts. The curriculum advocates a “close reading” of a text in which students are asked to analyze what they’ve read strictly from the available text without a whiff of historical context. This method teaches students to accept the information that they are given without question. It's an indoctrination technique writ large, through years of barraging students with lesson plans produced by government bureaucracies.
You can also check out some of the writing by Carol Burris, an award-winning educator that was a big proponent of Common Core until she started seeing the ugly details. Very enlightening.
Have you seen how they are teaching math under the Common Core now? The premise is that students should learn "estimating" instead of math or number theory. I guess that makes sense if you're a bureaucrat dealing with multi-million dollar budgets - as long as you're within 1 or 2% you're good. But that's not really good enough if you're trying to really learn the core principles. You should see if this makes any sense to you as a way to teach 5th graders math. I don't think it does.
You'll probably dismiss these issues as "growing pains" and issues that can be fixed over time. But we should not be experimenting on our children this way. Or they won't be able to contribute anything to the next generation of learners.
Too bad Seattle is such an Republican enclave - you should try to get more Democrats to move there if you prefer their tax policies.
Not that the article doesn't use some pretty skewed statistics. It compares the tax burden with 4 exemptions to that of 1. Hey, guess what, if you're supporting 1 person on 6 figures you pay more taxes than if you're supporting 4. That's what progressive taxes are supposed to do.
Deflation is no poison, you are a tool of government propaganda, brainwashed to the core, completely without any sense or understanding. Deflation was the reality of 19th century USA economy, the period of time, when the standard of living of an average American has gone up by orders of magnitude faster than at any point in time. In fact during the 'scary deflationary' period the standard of living for Americans has gone up, but during the government induced inflation the standard of living was and is falling.
You are absolutely correct, but your opinion seems very unpopular here on/.
Deflation is only bad for those with money, and especially for entities like the Federal Reserve and the stock markets, that rely on ever-decreasing value of the dollar to demonstrate an ever-increasing value of assets by comparison. It's bad for the US Federal government, too, that relies on the sale of bonds to finance its deficit spending, and of course inflation produces increasing tax revenue, necessary for the increasing budgets and unchecked increases in demand for promised entitlements like Social Security and Medicare.
Inflation, in fact, is a massive and unfair tax that falls disproportionately on the poor. That's because inflation least affects the people that get to use the inflated money first, the poor that are at the bottom of food chain don't see money until inflation has devalued it the most. It's the way new money enters the economy: Federal Reserve -> Large Banks -> smaller banks and businesses -> small businesses -> home owners and middle class -> Check cashers and payday lenders. The interest payments required go up at each level.
tl;dr: Inflation helps the rich, deflation helps the poor.
The question is: who does have legal jurisdiction on data stored in a given country? The courts of that country, or the courts of the nationality of the company who manages the data storage?
There are myriad of such questions. But the answer is always the same, "whatever is in the best interests of the richer guy".
You are wrong. The richer guy is Microsoft in this case and the richer guy is being told to hand over his overseas data.
Nope. Microsoft may have a lot of money, but the guy they're up against here is the US Federal government, an entity with nearly $3 TRILLION per year in revenues (and $4 TRILLION per year in expenditure), clearly by far the "richer guy".
Slashdot Mirror
Why do we have to classify it under a law that is nearly 20 years old? Is no one in the FCC competent enough to amend, or scrap and remake, the Telecommunications Act of 1996? It's 2014. It's time for a Digital Telecommunications Act that tackles these issues and potential issues for the next 15-20 years, like VoIP, TV over IP, etc..
The FCC cannot make law, they can only work with the laws that Congress passes. Good luck getting the Oligarchs in Congress to do anything, the big telecoms spread their money around to both parties...
What innovations have the major ISPs come up with lately?
Read the letter. They claim to have created a whole new "app economy".
And upgrades? I don't know what they did with all that money they received, but they certainly never upgraded a thing.
Didn't you read the letter? They've spent all their money writing "apps":
They're throwing in with "apps" developers, Microsoft, Apple, and Google, by claiming those content provider investments are part of their "investment". Every single place they try to mention a statistic about money invested or innovation, they include stuff the content providers have been doing, because if they kept it to infrastructure exclusively it would be clear they've done bumpkiss.
They aren't even claiming they actually have plans to do anything, except build "apps".
Well that's what every other industry is dealing with these days, why do these bullies think they deserve special treatment?
Ever hear of "the exception that proves the rule"? Congratulations, you found it. One single incident of one single customer claiming to get a refund for one single incident.
You're a gullible fool to think this unconfirmed anecdote from an anonymous person that Amazon would not confirm actually proves anything.
When you do manage to crawl out from your dank basement sanctuary, you should immediately find one of those "convenience stores" and buy all the scratch-off lottery tickets you can afford. There's a $100,000 prize out there waiting for you!
stop blaming a president for what congress does.
Congress did nothing but authorize the FCC, and delegate authority for regulating interstate communications to the executive.
That would be Obama. He can have the FCC re-classify broadband as a common carrier at any time, but won't do it. He's doing what he's told, and pretending that it's somebody else's fault. It's a classic trait of everyone that suffers from NP disorder.
Your reading comprehension failures are back again, did you even read the links you've posted? In the link you posted as "good luck with that [gamechup.com]", the line in the chat explicitly states that Amazon users have gotten refunds:
HaHa... Hey, pot ...
Nobody got a refund from Amazon, you idiot. Didn't you read the policy link? That guy may have tried to make such a case with EA, but notice in the article comments that NOBODY got any such refund. Idiot.
If this law of merchantability exists
Where are you from Somalia, or something? What a fucking moron you are. Get out of your mom's basement and try interacting with the real world a bit.
Or, I'll just assume you're a shill for EA. It's the only explanation that makes sense. Dumbass.
I explicitly stated that you should take action against the merchant
Uh-huh. good luck with that.
so I even restated it for you that you take action against the merchant
Sure. Because that always always works so well.
Should I write to my congressman about this? Oh, wait, Amazon is helping them promote national sales tax, and I didn't contribute to his campaign last year. I guess I'll have to "take action" using my own policy.
A crappy game is a crappy game, buyer beware. But if the game is so DRM'd and requires an active service that goes belly-up so the game isn't even playable - why does everybody think the distributor gets to keep the money just because you "broke the seal" to find out you can't play the game?
Let's say I buy a car, and I drive it until it needs gas, but I find out that it takes a special patented fuel that has been discontinued by dealer's filling stations. You're saying I can't demand a refund because I've already driven the car, and you're FURTHER stating that I can't manufacture my own fuel for the car because that violates the manufacture's "intellectual property rights."
That may be legal, but it's unconscionable and immoral.
I'm not sure why people think games and software are special in this regard.
Unlike physical goods, copies of works of authorship in digital form must be copied into a computer's memory before being used, and copyright law gives a work's author the exclusive right to authorize the making of such copies. Besides, warranties expire after several years.
That's irrelevant. A crappy game is a crappy game, buyer beware. But if the game is so DRM'd and requires an active service that goes belly-up so the game isn't even playable - why does everybody think the distributor gets to keep the money just because you "broke the seal" to find out you can't play the game?
Let's say I buy a car, and I drive it until it needs gas, but I find out that it takes a special patented fuel that has been discontinued by dealer's filling stations. You're saying I can't demand a refund because I've already driven the car, and you're FURTHER stating that I can't manufacture my own fuel for the car because that violates the manufacture's "intellectual property rights."
That may be legal, but it's unconscionable and immoral.
They paid for the game, though, and there is the common law (and in some places, explicit law) known as "implied merchantability". For a game, that means I've paid for a game, and expect to be able to play it. If the game cannot be played because the merchant's servers failed, then they have violated the rights of the consumer. That's what the law says.
Right, but you then take action against the merchant. It's not a case of 'You violated my rights so I'll violate yours' because now you've both broken the law, this 'oh but he did it first' is just childish nonsense.
What the hell is that supposed to mean? I should "turn the other cheek"? I've been defrauded, but I get no recourse because that would just be "childish nonsense". I should just "take it like a man" and quit complaining about being fucked over by a lying shitbag with millions of dollars obtained by lying to their customers? Yea, I don't think so.
They didn't pay for the right to host the game
They paid for the game, though, and there is the common law (and in some places, explicit law) known as "implied merchantability". For a game, that means I've paid for a game, and expect to be able to play it. If the game cannot be played because the merchant's servers failed, then they have violated the rights of the consumer. That's what the law says.
I'm not sure why people think games and software are special in this regard.
Voting is a right, and they're still people, even if they did make some dumb mistake when they were young.
That's how the rule of law works: You have rights, they are guaranteed by law. But when you violate others' rights (felonious crimes), your rights are taken away.
Actually, the day after netflix paid, their customers on comcast had better communication with netflix. There wasn't even enough time for remote hands in a co location to physically move in a new box and switch some wires, let alone getting the telecom operator connect new lines.
Right. Which they accomplished by degrading everybody else's traffic. Great for people watching Netflix, not so good for Comcast's customers that were using the Internet for anything else, because now they are waiting even longer because those connections are now waiting in line behind all those Netflix packets.
This is proof positive that Internet services exist outside of any free market. In a free market, consumers are in charge, and they decide what is produced by aggregate demand. Now, instead, the producers are in charge, and decide what consumers will get, disregarding any consumer demands. That's a Communist model.
Gee, sure are a lot of problems with the IMPLEMENTATION of these standards. I wonder why, if the standards are so fine, there are so many implementation problems.
Kind of like Communism, then, right? It's a perfect standard, and all of the murders, starvation, suffering and oppression are just implementation issues, right? Or, you know, like "spreading freedom in the Middle East" - the standard is just fine, but the IMPLEMENTATION was bad ...
Semantic arguments are just semantics.
I heard that is required in the banking industry... to ensure someone isn't doing some cooking of the books. I like the idea for both reason. You force the department to handle a "hit by truck" incident once a year and you get to see all the dirty laundry.
When I worked in banking, the requirement was actually 2 consecutive weeks...
You also need to live somewhere with access to those ingredients, have a high enough income that you can afford the ingredients, and a high enough income that you can afford to be not-working long enough to cook and eat them. There are thousands upon thousands of people too poor for all three.
Anyone in the US that is that poor has access to food stamps (EBT cards). There are 46 million people now in the US that use them. They are supposed to be used to buy ... food. You're not even supposed to buy prepared food - it's better and cheaper to prepare meals yourself, and as pointed out, it's really not much of a time issue.
The food industry has far more say over what you eat than scientific/medical establishment, and industry is far better at and spend much more money on influencing your individual behaviour (those 'choices' that you think you are making) than governments or public bodies can.
That's actually not true. To influence people, they need to trust you. No one these days trusts the government or corporations - but they do trust NGOs. In fact NGOs are the most trusted sources of information all over the world. That's why government bureaucracies (and the US State Department) provide so much funding for NGOs - they use them to get their message out to people.
What's that I smell?
In this case, it's garbage. i live in the UK, and I had five different options for providers for my Internet connection. If one was throttling my connection, I'd go elsewhere. The only reason Verizon and Comcast get away with this is because they have a cosy little cartel, and together hold Netflix to ransom.
And how's the competition in broadcast television providers working out for you?
What is wrong with saying a 2nd grader should know x before moving on to the 3rd grade, and a 3rd grader should know y, before moving to the 4th grade, and so on?
That's not really a good description of common core - it doesn't really do that. States can impose certain testing requirements on top of it, optionally, like Virginia's Standards of Learning (SOL), but you won't find any kind of requirement for "knowing" any objective facts in the Common Core.
But I wont, ill just ask you, what is wrong with the STANDARDS THEMSELVES? And please do not come up with the usual list of proven incorrect statements, such as teachers not being involved in the standards themselves.
That's a pretty big topic. The Common Core advocates seem to do a lot of marketing around their process for creating the standards, which includes taking a lot of existing standards (really bad ones), and pretending they're worthy of expanding upon.
I'll bring up a few of the basic issues and let you research more yourself.
Seventy-two CEOs hailing from corporations that usually like to stay out of the political fray, including Harley-Davidson, General Mills and Xerox, placed a full-page ad in the New York Times claiming that the curriculum will meet the “business community’s expectations.” That should tell you something right there: Are these companies interested in educating Americans to pursue their highest potential, or in creating a workforce beholden to the Corporate ladder?
The fundamental theme of Common Core’s English language arts (ELA) standards is a focus on non-fiction “informational texts.” The ELA standards were fashioned so that elementary students read no more than 50 percent classic literature and high school students may read only 30 percent classic literature. The other 70 percent is comprised of informational texts. The curriculum advocates a “close reading” of a text in which students are asked to analyze what they’ve read strictly from the available text without a whiff of historical context. This method teaches students to accept the information that they are given without question. It's an indoctrination technique writ large, through years of barraging students with lesson plans produced by government bureaucracies.
You can also check out some of the writing by Carol Burris, an award-winning educator that was a big proponent of Common Core until she started seeing the ugly details. Very enlightening.
Have you seen how they are teaching math under the Common Core now? The premise is that students should learn "estimating" instead of math or number theory. I guess that makes sense if you're a bureaucrat dealing with multi-million dollar budgets - as long as you're within 1 or 2% you're good. But that's not really good enough if you're trying to really learn the core principles. You should see if this makes any sense to you as a way to teach 5th graders math. I don't think it does.
You'll probably dismiss these issues as "growing pains" and issues that can be fixed over time. But we should not be experimenting on our children this way. Or they won't be able to contribute anything to the next generation of learners.
I am not a republican myself. But, waas this court decision really decided by the republican party?
Can't see how that connection could be made. The presiding chief judge in the 10th circuit decision was a Clinton appointee.
The Republicans are why the software industry was destroyed here in Seattle. http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/2...
Too bad Seattle is such an Republican enclave - you should try to get more Democrats to move there if you prefer their tax policies.
Not that the article doesn't use some pretty skewed statistics. It compares the tax burden with 4 exemptions to that of 1. Hey, guess what, if you're supporting 1 person on 6 figures you pay more taxes than if you're supporting 4. That's what progressive taxes are supposed to do.
There is no problem with common core itself, just with some of the implementation of it in some areas.
Yea, yea, sure, Melinda. Your corporate-robot-factory standards are just fine, then, but some bureaucrat messed it up for you?
Deflation is no poison, you are a tool of government propaganda, brainwashed to the core, completely without any sense or understanding. Deflation was the reality of 19th century USA economy, the period of time, when the standard of living of an average American has gone up by orders of magnitude faster than at any point in time. In fact during the 'scary deflationary' period the standard of living for Americans has gone up, but during the government induced inflation the standard of living was and is falling.
You are absolutely correct, but your opinion seems very unpopular here on /.
Deflation is only bad for those with money, and especially for entities like the Federal Reserve and the stock markets, that rely on ever-decreasing value of the dollar to demonstrate an ever-increasing value of assets by comparison. It's bad for the US Federal government, too, that relies on the sale of bonds to finance its deficit spending, and of course inflation produces increasing tax revenue, necessary for the increasing budgets and unchecked increases in demand for promised entitlements like Social Security and Medicare.
Inflation, in fact, is a massive and unfair tax that falls disproportionately on the poor. That's because inflation least affects the people that get to use the inflated money first, the poor that are at the bottom of food chain don't see money until inflation has devalued it the most. It's the way new money enters the economy: Federal Reserve -> Large Banks -> smaller banks and businesses -> small businesses -> home owners and middle class -> Check cashers and payday lenders. The interest payments required go up at each level.
tl;dr: Inflation helps the rich, deflation helps the poor.
I'm guessing you're being sarcastic, but democracy will be kind of racist if the voters are racist. It does seem like a problem.
True. Witness Marian Barry and Ray Nagin.
The question is: who does have legal jurisdiction on data stored in a given country? The courts of that country, or the courts of the nationality of the company who manages the data storage?
There are myriad of such questions. But the answer is always the same, "whatever is in the best interests of the richer guy".
You are wrong. The richer guy is Microsoft in this case and the richer guy is being told to hand over his overseas data.
Nope. Microsoft may have a lot of money, but the guy they're up against here is the US Federal government, an entity with nearly $3 TRILLION per year in revenues (and $4 TRILLION per year in expenditure), clearly by far the "richer guy".