U.S. Judge Rules Microsoft Must Produce Emails Held Abroad Judge Rules Company Must Comply With a U.S. Warrant for Email Stored at Data Center in Ireland Microsoft must comply with a U.S. warrant for customer email stored in a company data center in Ireland, a federal judge ruled Thursday. The search warrant was issued as part of a criminal investigation whose details remain secret. It is unclear whether the customer targeted by the Justice Department is located in the U.S. The company's lawyers had argued that the Justice Department needed to obtain the emails through a legal treaty with Ireland, and that forcing Microsoft to retrieve them without the country's consent violated Irish sovereignty and international law. But Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan federal court ruled that the location of the email was irrelevant, because Microsoft controlled it from the U.S. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said Thursday, "The only issue that was certain this morning was that the District Court's decision would not represent the final step in this process. "We will appeal promptly and continue to advocate that people's email deserves strong privacy protection in the U.S. and around the world," he added. continua qui: http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-judge-rules-microsoft-must-produce-emails... -- Avv. Alessandro Mantelero, PhD Aggregate Professor, Politecnico di Torino Director of Privacy and Faculty Fellow, Nexa Center for Internet and Society Visiting Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute Research Consultant, Sino-Italian Research Center for Internet Torts at Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology Programme Coordinator, Double Degree program in Management and IP Law, Politecnico di Torino–Tongji University of Shanghai http://staff.polito.it/alessandro.mantelero Politecnico di Torino Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 10129 Torino - Italy in libertate fortitudo