Microsoft's privacy in question: payments to the FBI and access to the account of a blogger suspected of leaks
Today is not a good day for Microsoft's image as a company that respects privacy. The first news has been a leak through The Daily Dot of the SEA (Syrian Electronic Army), in which they reveal the prices that Microsoft charges the FBI for access to dataof Microsoft users.
Sounds bad, right? Well it's actually not that bad Those 50 or 200 dollars for each transaction are compensation given to those in Redmond for the costs associated with that access.It is a usual rate, as our Xataka colleagues tell us, and that corresponds to access by court orders. In other words, there is nothing strange about this part.
What is stranger is the number of requests that have been made. For example, in November 2013, Microsoft received $281,000 for this concept. We are talking about more than a thousand accesses: are there really that many suspects in a single month? Even if several accesses were for a single user, the number is still high. Are the courts allowing these searches too easily? Or is it Microsoft who is lax in acceding to those requests?
On the other hand, it has also been known that Microsoft accessed the Hotmail account of a French blogger to identify the employee responsible for several leaks with the source code of the Windows RT activation system. According to the explanation given by John Frank, vice president of the legal department, they have done so with justification and extraordinary
The terms of service for services like Hotmail or OneDrive explain that Microsoft may access user accounts if there are suspicions that they are being used to damage property or security of Redmond It's certainly not a surprise that Microsoft has such capabilities, but that doesn't make it reassuring.
Microsoft has announced several actions it will take in response to this action. The account of a Hotmail user suspected of harming Microsoft will only be accessed if there is sufficient evidence, the same as would be needed if they had to obtain a court orderIn addition, these accesses will be included in the biannual transparency report.
While the response has been quick and justifies the access well (if you believe what Microsoft says about the case, of course), it still doesn't come at a good time. Redmond has been heavily focused in recent months on the Scroogled campaign, criticizing Google for its privacy concerns.Coupled with the NSA leaks, does not leave Microsoft in a good place - although it cannot be said that the rest of the companies are better-.
