The case had been highlighted as a potential landmark for cloud computing and data privacy, however the muted end to the four-year courtroom saga has possibly raised more questions than answers. It has also led Microsoft president Brad Smith to post a lengthy blog defending Microsoft's role in the court case and its welcoming of the controversial Cloud Act

The legal dispute, also known as The Microsoft Warrant Case, was between the tech firm and the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and centred on whether the US government could use a domestic warrant to access emails held beyond its borders.  

The case began in a New York court in 2014 and reached the US Supreme Court four years later. Microsoft's contention was that judges should not be able to use a warrant based on a 1986 law that allowed data to be taken from an international location but was written before the internet, social media and cloud computing came of age.

Instead, argued Microsoft, a new law should be passed through US congress that takes into account the technology developments of the last 32 years. 

So when the Cloud Act was passed by President Trump in March, the DoJ submitted a fresh warrant and called for the judge to declare Microsoft's objection as "moot", which the judge duly did and which Microsoft accepted.

Microoft president Brad Smith then posted his blog on April 3rd following the resolution of the case, welcoming the decision and backing the Cloud Act  as "an important milestone in the journey to modernize the law, enable enforcement officials to do their jobs and protect people’s privacy rights across borders".

The Cloud Act has also been backed by a number of other large tech companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook.

However the Act has been opposed by  a number of privacy advocates and civil rights groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Centre for Democracy and Technology and the American Civil Liberties Union, whose legislative counsel Neema Singh Guliani called on congress to reject the bill because "it fails to protect human rights or Americans’ privacy . . . gives up their constitutional role, and gives far too much power to the attorney general, the secretary of state, the president and foreign governments".

There was also opposiiton to how the Act was passed given that it was tagged onto the end of the sprawling and controversial omnibus spending bill passed by President Trump at the end of March after being hurried through congress with little debate. 

The Cloud Act was included at the last minute on page 2,212 of 2,232 page bill leading US senator Rand Paul to state that "Congress can’t vote to reject the Cloud Act, because it just got stuck onto the Omnibus, with no prior legislative action or review".

Microsoft has defended its decision to accept the judge's ruling in the Irish email warrant case and its backing of the Cloud Act bny acknowledgeing that there is still "urgent and important work" to be done in addressing the legal status of cloud-based personal data.

As information has moved to the cloud, tech companies have had to assume a more important role in protecting people's privacy rights, stated Smith. Governments are serving warrants on cloud computing providers rather than individuals or companies meaning that those same individuals and companies may be unaware their information has been searched.

Consequently, said Smith, there is "a greater responsibility on tech companies both to help protect public safety and preserve personal privacy".

For many individuals and companies this may be a worrying development given the track record of big tech companies in safeguarding its users' data. In March 2014, in the wake of the Edward Snowden whistelblowing affair, it emerged that Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Apple had all turned over tens of thousands of users' data to US government authorities as a result of secret court orders. 

However, Smith has also called on the public to back Microsoft and others in their efforts to make the Cloud Act the basis of a new international framework for law enforcement's access to private, cloud-based data, and has pointed to his own company's track record in defending customers' privacy rights.

"We did not sue our own government four times and devote energy to these issues over four sometimes long years to stop showing resolve now," he said. "Law enforcement needs to be effective and privacy rights need to be protected."