Posted by Annmarie Levins Associate General Counsel
Today I am testifying before a House Judiciary Subcommittee that is contemplating reforms to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), an important but increasingly outdated law passed by Congress in 1986. Microsoft is part of a broad coalition that supports modernization of the legislation. ECPA regulates whether and how law enforcement can compel third-party telecommunications and Internet service providers to disclose user account information and customers’ stored communications. ECPA was originally designed to strike a balance between the legitimate needs of law enforcement, the burdens on service providers in responding to government demands for data and the public’s reasonable expectation of privacy.
In the nearly quarter-century since ECPA became law, the balance has shifted between the rights of users and law enforcement. Technological advancements—rather than decisions by Congress—have put more of our sensitive personal information within the reach of law enforcement.
As our General Counsel Brad Smith stated in his speech at the Brookings Institution in January, Microsoft believes that now is a critical time to address these issues. We are on the cusp of a potentially transformative age in Internet-based “cloud computing.” Cloud computing services have the potential to increase efficiencies for businesses and government, lower IT costs, create energy savings and spur innovative job-creating enterprises. They can enable small and medium-sized businesses, individual entrepreneurs and other innovators to tap into computing resources that previously had been available only to the largest companies. These capabilities can help drive innovation, make American businesses more competitive and ultimately contribute to economic growth.
But unless we are able to preserve and protect users’ privacy, the potential of cloud computing will not be fulfilled. This is one reason Microsoft has joined a broad coalition of advocacy groups, technology companies, and academics in the launch of the Digital Due Process Coalition. This Coalition is focused on updating ECPA to account for the profound changes in technology over the last two decades and to ensure that users’ legitimate expectations of privacy are respected while also fulfilling the needs of law enforcement.
Posted by Pamela Passman Corporate Vice President, Global Corporate Affairs
Last March I was privileged to announce an expansion of Microsoft’s Elevate America program to address the specific challenges that face U.S. military veterans and their spouses as they transition to civilian life. Our Elevate America Veterans Initiative will bring together a coalition of partners, through a competitive grant process, to provide veterans and their spouses with a host of services and resources, including technology skills training, job placement, career counseling, childcare, transportation and housing.
The response to this initiative has been incredible, and we’re fortunate to have support from great organizations such as The American Legion, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Paralyzed Veterans of America, United Service Organizations (USO) and Wounded Warrior Project. They’ve agreed to act as our advisors, ensuring that the programs and services offered will make a real difference in the lives of veterans.
Today we’re releasing a request for proposals to organizations across the country that want to get involved. We’re encouraging all interested organizations to review the eligibility criteria, partner with others in their local community and apply for funding if they have programs that will help veterans succeed in the civilian workforce.
Microsoft is grateful to America’s veterans for all they’ve done to protect and serve our country, and we’re excited about this initiative. We’ll be sharing more details as we move forward.
Posted by David Bowermaster Administrator, Microsoft on the Issues
For the past five years Corporate Counsel magazine has conducted an annual review to identify the country’s top in-house legal teams. This week, we were pleased to learn that Corporate Counsel has named Microsoft Legal and Corporate Affairs the Best Legal Department of 2010.
Corporate Counsel has published a lengthy story online that reviews many of the accomplishments and challenges overcome by Microsoft’s legal team in recent years, many of which will be familiar to frequent readers of this blog. The online content package includes a video interview with Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith, as well as commentary from Corporate Counsel Executive Editor Brian Zabcik on the magazine’s selection process and the editors’ reasons for naming Microsoft this year’s winner.
Folks in Redmond are feeling both honored and humbled by Corporate Counsel’s accolades and want to congratulate their fellow honorees in the legal departments at Discover Financial Services, Hewlett-Packard Company and The Williams Companies.
Posted by Tim Cranton Associate General Counsel, Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit
Online advertising fuels much of the Internet activity we enjoy today, enabling free services and unprecedented content flows. For this marketplace to continue enabling rich online experiences, it needs to be based on a trusted platform. Advertisers need to have confidence they are getting what they pay for.
Unfortunately, deceitful online activity known as ‘click fraud’ undermines the integrity of the online advertising market, skewing the platform decidedly against advertisers. For this reason, Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit has been working with Microsoft Advertising and others in the online advertising space to identify and address fraud as it evolves. Towards that end, Microsoft this week filed two federal lawsuits against perpetrators of what we believe to be a new and complex form of click fraud that we refer to as “click laundering.”
Click fraud typically occurs when a person or computer program imitates a legitimate Web surfer and clicks on an online ad for the purpose of generating a fraudulent “charge-per-click,” without having any interest in the target of the ad’s link.
Click laundering is a technically-advanced form of click fraud designed to circumvent fraud detection systems by hiding the origins of fraudulent clicks – “laundering” them through apparently legitimate intermediaries.
One form of click laundering involves computers infected with malicious software that delivers rogue search results. Without the user’s knowledge, the infected computer mimics a legitimate search engine, but returns search results adulterated with useless parked domains – i.e., Web addresses that appear to be relevant search results, but contain no meaningful content. The unwitting user opens one of the parked domains, clicks a link or two, realizes it’s not what he or she is looking for and closes the window. What seems like a harmless digital dead end is, in fact, a laundered ad click that appears legitimate to an ad platform provider such as Microsoft but offers no value to the advertiser who would be charged for it.