Google, Microsoft push to extend privacy protections to cloud-based e-mail

Technology executives and law enforcement officials are clashing over a nearly 25-year-old law that protects Internet users' private information. Some of the world's largest technology companies, including Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., are pushing for changes to the law — written before the World Wide Web existed — saying it makes it too easy for government investigators to gain access to their customers' Web-based e-mail and documents.

That, the companies say, is bad for the bottom line. Many consumers and businesses are finding it easier and cheaper to entrust the storage of their e-mail and documents to Web companies such as Google that can store vast amounts of data in the so-called cloud — networks of remote computer centers filled with thousands of high-speed servers. But the cloud's wealth of personal data has also attracted law enforcement officials eager to tap into the information to catch and prosecute criminals. They say Congress should be wary about diminishing their powers to investigate crimes in a fast-changing digital landscape where evidence can disappear overseas — or into oblivion — in an instant. The debate over the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act escalated Sept 23 in a hearing before a House Judiciary subcommittee — the latest in a series of hearings aimed at updating the law to encourage the growth of online business while striking a balance between effective law enforcement and users' right to digital privacy.