News Microsoft loses overseas data privacy case

But that's the point. Which juristiction are we taking about? The one of the country where the data is stored, or the one of the country where the company is based that offers the storage service? That is not specified, so left open to interpretation.

 

Well isn't that why it has ended up in the courts ?

On one hand some people say it should be the law that is applicable to the country that the company is based in.
On the other some people say it should be the law that is applicable in the country where the actual data is stored.

IMHO this isn't something that an individual countries courts should be deciding, it should be something for the international courts, or for each country to make arrangement with each other in the same way as some countries have extradition treaties with each other.

Data should be treated in the same way as a physical object like money, or people (imho)

 

I totally agree. The problem as I see it is that people are invited to agree to ambiguous T&C that are left open to interpretation (I suspect deliberately, to sidestep the issue that the service provider cannot actually assure its privacy). Then the US pulls this stunt, the whole thing goes to court and everybody goes: "Hey, wait a minute...".

This is indeed something that the international court was made for, IMHO. But the US doesn't sign up to it, so will always be a law unto itself.

 

Isn't that the case with all T&C's though ? That they are all bound by the current laws.
To me it seems Microsoft have been as clear as they could have been, even going as far as to setup servers in Ireland to geographically, and it was assumed jurisdictional isolate data.

I'm happy to see Microsoft fighting this in the courts, and that they immediately appealed against the decision.
I just hope for the sake of not only civil rights but also from a business and jobs point of view that the decision gets overturned.

 

"Unless required by law" does not mean "unless required by the law as it stood at the time that you agreed with the T&C". That's the tricky bit. It is all worded so loosely that it can be interpreted whichever way you want.

 

So you expect them to break a new law because it wasn't in effect when you agreed to the T&C's ? If the law changes it's up to the people that are effected to be aware of it, Ignorantia juris non excusat.

Would it be that are seeing Microsoft's T&C's as being ambiguous or vague because you are applying the law that this article talks about to them ? Not sure if the article mentions that it hasn't come into effect yet, the judge postponed it taking effect so Microsoft would have time to appeal.

 

The problem is that if this (or any other new) law does come into effect, it will change the conditions that the user agreed to. It could be argued that the user should have realised that the law is always subject to change, but arguably you are then expecting the user to agree to conditions that may change at any time in an unforeseeable manner. This raises issues of valid and informed consent.

A more informed T&C would explicitly point out that the law is subject to change and that therefore so are the conditions in the T&C, without prior consent by the user.

 

And that's why every T&C's i have ever read says the T&C's are subject to change, normally if you don't agree with those changes you have the option to terminate the service. It's one of the many reasons why i personally think the current way cloud services operate is flawed, if you rely on it to do business and the T&C's change you may find you are forced to agree with a new term or condition.

Although the Azure privacy statement doesn't explicitly say they may need to update due to changes in the law, it does say...

 

In fact, by deferring to laws that are subject to change, the T&C can change even when they themselves don't change, thus not triggering an update warning (yo, dawg, I heard you like changes...).

I wouldn't use the cloud for anything vital.

 

This. Good to see Microsoft fighting but ultimately, who's surprised. US couldn't give a **** about people or laws.