Sign in / up

back to article Call the Commish! Ireland dragged into Microsoft dispute over alleged drug traffic data

Last Friday, Apple, Oracle, IBM, HP and other cloud bigwigs (represented by DigitalEurope) begged the EU for help in preventing the US seizing emails stored by Microsoft in Ireland. Now Ireland itself has done the same. On Tuesday night, the Irish authorities formally requested that the European Commission examine whether EU …

COMMENTS

Post your comment
House rules Send corrections
Add to 'My topics' unstar *
  1. dogged

    The actions of the US Government in this case are clearly illegal.

    This action effectively says that a wholly Irish company (Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd) must hand over data to the US Government simply because it has a shareholder (Microsoft Corp) based in the USA.

    So doubtless my bank (Barclays Plc) has US-based shareholders and therefore Uncle Sam has an absolute right to look at my bank statements?

    I think not.

    17 0 Reply
    1. Seanie Ryan
      Reply Icon

      sure?

      sure MS USA is only a shareholder and not the owner of a subsidiary? its a big difference.

      1 3 Reply
    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      "So doubtless my bank (Barclays Plc) has US-based shareholders and therefore Uncle Sam has an absolute right to look at my bank statements?

      I think not."

      Uncle Sam probably thinks differently.

      14 0 Reply
    3. Velv
      Reply Icon

      owning a share, or owning it all

      The wholly Irish company is wholly owned by the American company. i.e. ALL the shares, and therefore ultimately in control.

      While there may be shareholders in Barclays who are resident in the USA, no single entity owns sufficient shares to be considered the overall owner. From a quick search, Qatar seems to be the largest shareholder these days.

      0 1 Reply
      1. dogged
        Reply Icon

        Re: owning a share, or owning it all

        > The wholly Irish company is wholly owned by the American company. i.e. ALL the shares, and therefore ultimately in control.

        Legally, and in terms of ownership of assets, there is absolutely no difference between owning one share and wholly owning - in both cases, the "owner" owns dick unless/until that asset is liquidated.

        I currently work for lawyers.

        4 0 Reply
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: owning a share, or owning it all

          In Australia at least, if you own more than 5% of a company you're entitled to more than someone with just one share. For example, you have full access to the internal financial records/books (to conduct an independent audit say).

          Wouldn't be surprised if US/EU law has similar.

          0 0 Reply
        2. Fluffy Bunny
          Reply Icon
          Paris Hilton

          Re: owning a share, or owning it all

          "I currently work for lawyers"

          You have my sympathy.

          1 0 Reply
    4. frank ly
      Reply Icon

      Reality and Reason?

      " ...a wholly Irish company (Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd) must hand over data to the US Government simply because it has a shareholder (Microsoft Corp) based in the USA."

      Does anyone believe that Microsoft Corp is 'merely' a shareholder? Did they look at Microsoft Ireland Operations one day and say, "Hey, that small startup company in Ireland would be a good investment. Let's buy a big chunk of shares in it, maybe enough to get a seat on the board." ?

      If I set up an email service and put my servers in Cambodia (as an example), housed and cared for by FrankLy Cambodian Operations, am I immune to UK court action to get access to data on those servers?

      3 2 Reply
      1. Test Man
        Reply Icon

        Re: Reality and Reason?

        Who cares if Microsoft Corporation partly or wholly own Microsoft Ireland, or the former begat the latter, or whether Microsoft Corporation controls Microsoft Ireland?

        Fact is Microsoft Ireland is in Ireland and is subject to Irish and EU laws.

        Therefore, Microsoft Corporation cannot compel Microsoft Ireland to break those laws no matter what any idiotic judge says.

        15 0 Reply
      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Reality and Reason?

        "If I set up an email service and put my servers in Cambodia (as an example), housed and cared for by FrankLy Cambodian Operations, am I immune to UK court action to get access to data on those servers?"

        Yes, you are. The same way that if you set up a retail shop in Cambodia, you can't be done by UK trading Standards.

        Tesco can set up an operation in Jersey to allow cheaper CDs to be available in the UK and ContactLensesAreUs.eu can deliver contact lenses from their European Operation to UK customers without a prescription.

        4 0 Reply

    5. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Harry the Bastard

    most of world ≠ usa

    the usa government and courts need to accept with grace that they have fuck all jurisdiction in most of the world, otherwise they're just bullying thieving scumbags

    21 0 Reply
    1. joeW
      Reply Icon

      The reality is that they do...and that they are.

      14 1 Reply
      1. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        This is pretty much a test case for whether America is the world government which has primacy and jurisdiction over all others.

        I am sure many in the west are coming to understand why others elsewhere in the world hate the US so much.

        4 0 Reply
      2. dan1980
        Reply Icon

        @joeW

        "The reality is that they do...and that they are."

        Moreover, the reality is that they do because they are (bullies).

        2 0 Reply
    2. kain preacher
      Reply Icon

      Thats like telling schizophrenic that the meds are to help him not control his brain

      0 0 Reply
  3. EddieD

    The enemy..

    ...of my enemy is my friend.

    It's interesting to see so many normally antagonistic companies are standing shoulder to shoulder over this.

    Of course, the prospect of losing a vast chunk of cloud services if action by the Feds succeeds, and then watching their share prices dropping like a stone through a wet paper bag will give anyone incentive to team up with their enem^w friends.

    10 0 Reply
    1. big_D Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: The enemy..

      If the US Government prevail here, it will pretty much kill international cloud services and it will force companies to work only nationally.

      No more Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, Office 365, Azure, AWS, Google Docs, GMail, Salesforce etc. You'll end up with disparate geographically based companies all offering similar services, but not internationally.

      9 0 Reply
      1. Kevin Johnston
        Reply Icon

        Re: The enemy..

        Taking that one step further.....

        If the US Government do win here does it then give them a lever to pry open the box holding the 'off-shored' profits from those same 'US' Companies?

        2 0 Reply
        1. dogged
          Reply Icon

          Re: The enemy..

          Probably not. Tax law is far better defined than "control of electronic assets" law.

          0 0 Reply
          1. Queasy Rider
            Reply Icon

            Re: The enemy..

            Probably not... for now. But if the U.S. attacks this matter from the opposite direction, i.e. from the tax side of it and succeeds in forcing the multi-nationals to cough up more to the U.S. taxman, then I can see that as the thin edge of the wedge that will eventually pry open many foreign servers.

            0 0 Reply
      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The enemy..

        If the US Government prevail here, it will pretty much kill international cloud services and it will force companies to work only nationally.

        I see your point, but I'm not sure that would really be the result. There would be people that don't really care, so they'll just keep doing what they would do anyway. Probably enough to continue doing business for.

        It could also provide strong incentive for client side encryption of data into those international cloud services. PGP/GPG may also finally get the focus on making-them-easier-to-use-for-laypeople they've needed forever, but never had.

        0 0 Reply
        1. big_D Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: The enemy..

          In Europe especially, if the US Government win the case, it will essentially be illegal to use a cloud service with ties to the USA, because you will be knowingly contraviening the EU data protection laws, which say that you cannot allow anyone outside the EU to see the data without a valid EU warrant or the written permission of each and every identifiable person in said data.

          5 0 Reply
  4. nematoad

    Enough already.

    " ...begged the EU for help in preventing the US seizing emails stored by Microsoft in Ireland. Now Ireland itself has done the same."

    It's about time.

    I'm glad to see that Ireland, with its close links to the US, has had enough and is trying to get the US tanks off its lawn.

    3 0 Reply
  5. jelockwood

    if [ `whoami` = "US Court" ]

    then

    world="flat"

    allyourservers="are mine"

    else

    world="round"

    allyourservers="not mine"

    fi

    1 0 Reply
  6. John Jennings
    Black Helicopters

    Good job Ireland - probably wont make any difference though.

    I am surprised that the NSA hasnt got the files already - unless they have, know the contents, but want a discoverable process by which to submit them to an open court....

    4 0 Reply
    1. James 51
      Reply Icon
      Black Helicopters

      There are crimes not prosecuted in the UK because the police and 'internal intelligence' agencies don't want details of their surveillance technologies or techniques to be exposed in a court as the the bad guys could develop counter measures or learn the identify of agents and people who have cut deals. Greater good and all that. Probably something similar here.

      0 0 Reply
  7. shrdlu

    A suggestion

    I assume that Ireland has some equivalent to the UK laws on conspiracy. The Irish government could file a European arrest warrant for judge Loretta Preska on charges of conspiracy to breach the data protection legislation. This would be largely symbolic, unless the judge is then foolish enough to book a romantic holiday in gay Paris.

    3 0 Reply
    1. James 51
      Reply Icon

      Re: A suggestion

      When dealing with the US it's obligatory to gay Paris, France/Europe as opposed to gay Paris, Texas.

      0 0 Reply
  8. MachDiamond Silver badge

    Treaty and Local laws

    The judge's poor judgment puts MS into an impossible situation. The management of the Irish subsidiary could face prosecution if they allow the data to be released and the management (or sacrificial lambs) of M$/US could be trussed up for breaching some treaty or another.

    This will be an interesting case to follow as the currency of information is still in it's infancy. It's also another instance to reinforce the concept of stored data being a liability.

    0 0 Reply

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

Forgotten password ?

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like