I don't think it's reasonable to expect businesses to spend money fighting court orders for customer data, especially if the orders are more or less reasonable.

They do seem to be reasonable in the case that brought about this reporting, with substantial evidence that the suspects committed fraud and that evidence is on the devices in question.

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chaps an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Heh, I subpoena'd Microsoft once in part of some FOIA litigation I did against the White House OMB back in 2017. They, in no unclear terms, denied it. We were seeking documentation.

I realize it's not a court order, but just want to add to the stack that there are examples of them being requested to provide something within the public's interest in a legal context (a FOIA lawsuit) where their counsel pushed back by saying no.

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Retric 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Never means the specifics are irrelevant, you’re making the sad argument on the worst possible case and the best one.

So why should customers entrust their data to the company? It’s a transactional relationship and the less you do the less reason someone has to pay you.

Further, our legal system is adversarial it assumes someone is going to defend you. Without that there’s effectively zero protection for individuals.

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Zak 2 hours ago | parent [-]

People shouldn't entrust highly sensitive data to third parties who aren't highly motivated to protect it. That means different things in different situations, but if you're likely to be investigated by the FBI, don't give Microsoft the encryption keys to your laptop.

	▲	chaps an hour ago \| parent [-]
		As many, many people have pointed out -- many people don't know that their drives are encrypted or know that these protections exist. You're also assuming that the FBI doesn't investigate just random people. "I'm not doing anything bad, why should I worry?" You're making a lot of assumptions about how people use their computers, their understanding of their own devices, and the banality of building argumentation around what someone should have done or should not have done in the face of how reality works.