It isn't a laughing matter. If the US DOJ wins, it means the end of cloud services with a presence in the USA.
The story is also a little misleading, the problem is that Microsoft USA is refusing to hand over data held on an Irish companies servers (Microsoft Ireland), which is a separate legal entity and beholden to Irish and EU law, which would make it illegal for them to hand over the data without an Irish or EU warrant.
The whole thing is a farce, there are decades old treaties in place for doing exactly this, the DOJ just needs to work with the Irish authorities and provide the evidence before a court in Ireland and if it has any merit, the Irish court will tell Microsoft Ireland to hand over the data.
That the DOJ hasn't done this makes it sound like they don't actually have a enough evidence to present to the court to get them to provide a warrant...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
