Microsoft publishes its transparency report with requests from different governments

Transparency on the Internet is one of the great demands of Internet users and for companies it is a good way to gain the trust of their users. Several of the giants of the network, such as Google or Twitter, have been promoting it for some time by regularly publishing reports on requests and petitions from different states around the world. During this week Microsoft has joined the group and has published information on the requirements that governments and law enforcement agencies have sent it during 2012 regarding its digital services.

This is the first time that Redmond has made such information public, going on to do so every six months from now. Along with the summary table, Microsoft also provides a detailed request report that sheds more light on how the process by which the authorities of different countries control the communications of their citizens works. The report covers the company's main online services: Hotmail, Outlook.com, SkyDrive, Skype and Xbox Live; and reflects the type of data you provide to law enforcement in each state.

In total, Microsoft received 75,378 requests about its services, involving more than 100,000 accounts. Although the figure seems significant, the requests affect a very small number of users. The company claims that barely 0.02% of users are potentially affected by requests from government agencies.Individual users are the main target, but not the only one. Microsoft has also received requests regarding enterprise customers. In this case the number is much less, barely 11 during the entire past year.

Another important issue is the type of information that is provided. According to the Microsoft report, 80% of the requests are answered with elements that do not include the main content of the communications. That is, things like the username, gender, email, IP address, country of residence, or dates and times when the communications took place. Only in 2.1% of the requests the company provides the content of the communication, such as the subject of an email, its text or photos hosted on its services . But Microsoft doesn't directly accept any incoming request. The company requires a court order to provide the information. Thus, during the past year it refused to provide data in 18% of cases, either because it could not find the required information or because the requests did not have sufficient legal justification.

By countries, those where the most requests are received are the United States, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Germany and France. Together they accumulate 66% of the requests for a large part of the services and 81% for Skype. VoIP service is treated separately because its headquarters is still in Luxembourg and is subject to the laws of the European Union. About him the company responded to 4,713 requests, affecting 15,409 accounts. Microsoft says that in this case it provides Skype IDs, names, emails, and billing information for those accounts to the authorities. In no case does it provide the content of the transmissions since the company does not even keep it given the way the system works.

Via | Microsoft on the Issues Learn More | Microsoft