Email Privacy

Brad Smith, general counsel and executive VP at Microsoft, wrote a piece in the WSJ yesterday about Microsoft’s evident attempt to preserve the privacy of its users’ emails.  His point, in brief is:

Microsoft believes you own emails stored in the cloud, and that they have the same privacy protection as paper letters sent by mail. This means, in our view, that the U.S. government can obtain emails only subject to the full legal protections of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment. It means, in this case, that the U.S. government must have a warrant. But under well-established case law, a search warrant cannot reach beyond U.S. shores.

But emails can’t have the same privacy as paper letters.  Whereas email providers harvest the contents of emails for their own use (mostly in selling targeted advertising), letter carriers do not.  If I sent a letter about, hmm, the price of corn, by UPS to a friend, and the following day I received a telemarketing call from a company trying to sell me a cornfield in Illinois, I would have concerns that my privacy was violated.  I don’t, on the other hand, bat an eye when I see StubHub ads in my email trying to sell me tickets to Notre Dame football games.  (I occasionally email about Notre Dame football.)

I am in favor of protecting users’ privacy.  I’d prefer the government not to have access to the contents of my email.  But that privacy should start with the email providers.  Otherwise, arguments like these are disingenuous.

Update: U.S. Judge Rules Microsoft Must Produce Emails Held Abroad (http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-judge-rules-microsoft-must-produce-emails-held-abroad-1406826302?KEYWORDS=microsoft)