i wonder what the guardian will do now. they have to release documents where it's clearly stated that microsoft did more as what they said now or they pretty much have nothing to prove it which could be a problem for them.

you do understand they don't have a choice..... if tomorrow they come to your door step with a court order and ask you to let them put there spying material in your living room to spy on your neigbhor..... you know what ???? you do and STFU..... otherwise it's called obstruction to justice and you go straight to a cell....

cause if Sony america is asked the same they do the same.... and those practice existe in most countries in the world.... Japanese, French, UK, German governement are no different they have exactly the same powers and use them in the same way to collect information on persons of interest.... this is not a US only issue.... this is a reality of the world....

and I still wonder why people are so worried.... even if the US NSA was being very large on their definition of suspicious individuals, it would still not be of concern for most people anyway.... and to get a court order against you or be in the national security files, you must not be that clean to begin with, either through your action or through actions of your relatives.... it's not like the US or any western countries has millions upon millions of political prisoners or even suspected terrorists.... Guantanamo has had what a 1000 prisoners so far and I'm rounding up....

Proves that the free market don't really exist. I know this don't affect trade, but libertarians wouldn't like this as they see state manipulation of private companies. I still don't know how any government would get away with this sort of intrusion of privacy though.

I would expect some kind of link if these companies were state run but they are not. But while they are at it, why not collect the avoided taxes from these companies instead

Yes, I do get the point that is being made but the amount of personal data that goes through MS services like Live (Hotmail, Outlook.com) etc., is significantly more than Sony or Samsung. Hotmail alone must have about half a billion accounts at least.

Hence MS is singled out, it is by far the biggest software company on the planet.

did you read the part about a fraction of a percent.... ???

They can get the Bolivian presidential plane diverted to Austria and searched for no legal reason at all.

I hope you realize the NSA don't ask data about people that ran over the neighbors dog and didn't tell????
the kind of people targeted for those have either ties with known terrorist organisation or dangerous political groups or are engaged in criminal activities.....

why do gov have that power.... ???? well because without it you would have a talyon world... and a much less safe life.... how do you suggest they arrest people that are potential threat to the nations and its people.... wait until they act and catch them then ???

so if they could have obtained info through data collection on the authors of the bus attacks in the UK.... you would have rather let it happen than break their privacy rights ???
I'm sorry while I'm a big libertarian when it comes to trades, I have no death wish and would rather leave the security of the state to the gov and if it means bending some rules on special occasion I'm fine.... it is better than an entire population at risk and becoming warry of everything resulting in a suspicious nation and ending by big witch hunts and lynching parties from their people.....

I know that but there's nothing suggesting the NSA won't get more powerful in the future and possibly start rounding up political opponents like some "Security agencies" have in the past. I don't really trust any countrie's governments as they could really do anything. They decide who's dangerous and who's not regardless of whether we agree. Like in America in the cold war, apparently communists were a massive "threat" but all it was paranoia in the US government. 

And this countries may collect this data but they don't use well very often. Like George Bush was warned of a terrorist attack in 2001 but he did nothing and so 9/11 happened, probably as an excuse to start 2 unnecessary wars. I know we humans aren't prefect but come on!

Also, why should we all lose our rights especially privacy just because of some pissed off people we choose to not listen too. They are terrorists for some reason or another and yet we don't find out why, instead we discriminate against a whole group of people (currently the muslims) and have a frenzy of paranoia while losing many of our human rights. Why have a constitution if it is not respected? 

Also, the term terrorist is extremely flawed. Depending on your prespectives. Like we see the Taliban as terrorists but they see themselves as freedom fighters of the Muslim world. It's get hard to tell who the terrorist really is after a while. 

But anyway, i see spying as unnecessary and what does it make us all look like if we get to that point? State security is certainly overdone and exaggerated. 

You'd think this would clear it all up......but some people are dead set in their paranoid ways. 

And some trolls will keep the doubt going just for the bad community PR.