Achoo22 :
Math Geek :
if you take your gun with you and it is illegal there, then yes you would be arrested. the lawyer is saying that any data the visitor has on his/her person would fall under the law of the country he is in and not the country he is from. this is how the rest of law works and he is stating that he wants data to follow similar logic.
One of us either misread or misunderstood the article, because I took from it the exact opposite. Microsoft wants the US government to lobby foreign governments before seizing data stored locally. Of course, Microsoft evidently believes that privacy is a fundamental right that should only be enjoyed by citizens of the EU. If you have offices in Mumbai, Karachi, or Dubai then you're probably some terror organization and Microsoft will continue assisting the US government in spying on you in every way they can. At least until your native governments threaten costly import bans on Microsoft software.
re-reading the article shows that we are both almost right, but in different ways. i was thinking of the 3rd point when i posted which states "Therefore, if an EU citizen travels to the U.S., Microsoft's legal officer believes that the U.S. law should apply when dealing with his data." however i do see where this seems to also be implying data of the eu citizen that might be in the eu at the time as well should still fall under us law despite being out of us territory. so i do see your point.
but the first point is pretty clear as well about your point "if the data is stored on U.S. servers but belongs to an EU national, then the U.S. government should only be able to get access to that data in a manner that conforms to EU laws" this does clearly say that no matter where the data is, the laws of the home country should apply.
either way, the gun analogy does not work at all. all of this seems to be speaking of cloud data and not data on a person which i'm pretty sure local law takes precedent over no matter what. i don't see how a "cloud" gun even remotely fits into the argument MS is making. i know in the US, the "OMG THERE TRYING TO TAKE OUR GUNS!!!!" argument is the ultimate distraction from whatever discussion is being had but not even through a huge stretch of the imagination does it work here.