Microsoft's Brad Smith on Why Microsoft Opposes Government Demands for Personal Information

The Wall Street Journal's Dennis Berman interviewed Microsoft's General Counsel, Brad Smith, on Wednesday. In the interview, Brad lays out the issues the industry is facing because of aggressive and intrusive governments worldwide.

Brad believes that rules, protections, and safeguards need to be developed for all people. There needs to be one law from world governments that share a commitment to a legal framework for data privacy. As part of that commitment, there needs to be a right balance between privacy and law enforcement. This is fundamental to basic liberty and clearly highlighted in the Bill of Rights in the U.S. 4^th amendment.

The computing industry is facing an uphill battle attempting to build out Cloud economies worldwide due to different laws in the various countries, and that there exists mistrust and suspicion between foreign governments.

People will use technology only if they can trust it. The business necessity of today, as Microsoft sees it, is to ensure that customer trust is protected. Microsoft is standing up and speaking out to ensure rules are in place so that customers can trust the Cloud.

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