According to reports Microsoft has lost a law suit in Belgium which required the Redmond Giant to provide access to Skype user data to provide law enforcement in a criminal investigation case.
The court had ordered Microsoft to share its Skype user data including messages and calls as per Belgium law in a criminal investigation case. The Redmond Giant has claimed that as per Belgium Law it is not binding on the company nor has a legal obligation to share the data since it is not a telecom operator.
As per Belgium Law the telecom operators are required to provide access to the data belonging to its users who are suspected to be involved in criminal investigation cases. The Appeals court judge gave the verdict against the Software Giant, considering it to be a telecom operator and will need to share logs and access to all stored messages to help in the investigation.
Microsoft however has denied and said that the Home country of Skype belongs to Luxembourg and does not come under Belgium law. The request was rejected by the court stating the division is located in Belgium and as per law the company is binded to share the user data.
Microsoft has also been fined an amount of $36,000 as fine and has been asked to comply as soon as possible. The Software giant has dismissed the verdict and is considering legal options and is ready to fight the ruling in higher courts.
This comes as a jolt to the Redmond Giant which is already involved in a similar legal dispute in United States with regards to the government asking to provide access to user data which is stored in overseas servers.
The company is already fighting it in the US Supreme Court on the grounds that the search order can only cover servers located in each country and should or cannot be applied to servers located overseas. The company is currently in denial mode to share access to user data both in the Belgium and U.S. courts.
