Google Loses Privacy Battle, Ordered To Release Email Details Stored In Ireland

The tech industry recently had cause to celebrate what privacy advocates consider a major victory when the Justice Department’s similar request to retrieve information from Microsoft’s servers in Ireland was denied by a Federal Appeals Court. It would seem that Google didn’t fare as well as the Windows OS maker did since a judge recently ordered Google to turn over emails that were stored in servers located overseas.

The new ruling was made by Thomas Rueter, a U.S. Magistrate in Philadelphia, Reuters reports. According to the judge, getting the emails from servers in another country in order to be reviewed by the agency would not constitute a seizure, which is walking a very fine line. Buzz words like “possessory interest" were also thrown around in order to get around.

With regards to the matter of privacy issues, Rueter defended the ruling by saying that there was no actual invasion of privacy going on. It’s really just a matter of information retrieval from one place to another, even if that place is another country.

"Though the retrieval of the electronic data by Google from its multiple data centers abroad has the potential for an invasion of privacy, the actual infringement of privacy occurs at the time of disclosure in the United States," Rueter said.

This is a major problem for Google and the tech industry as a whole, Gizmodo reports since these rulings are being made via laws that have been obsolete for decades. Both the cases of Microsoft and now Google are being fought based on the Stored Communications Act that dates back to 1986.

What these two companies and others in the tech industry want most of all is for US laws to keep up with the times. Worst of all, the ruling made by Judge Rueter could put a strain on global relations by violating several international treatises.