MSN responded and complied with DOJ request ... last summer!
MSN General Manager Ken Moss explains what they really provided the DOJ when asked (emphasis mine): … What bothers me most about the MSN response to this whole DOJ situation was brought up by one of the anon's in their post …
Context & Ripple Effects
MSN's explanation follows reporting that the Justice Department sought search records and that Google declined while MSN, Yahoo and AOL complied. A preceding MSN privacy post put the service's handling of search information at the center of its response.
The significance is not merely that MSN answered the request, but that Ken Moss is defining the scope of that answer in public—an early test of whether search providers can separate cooperation with government demands from their privacy posture.
First-order effects
- The Justice Department has MSN's response, while Google's refusal distinguishes it from MSN, Yahoo and AOL in the public account of the request.
- MSN's users and partners receive a narrower, company-defined account of what records were provided through Ken Moss's explanation.
Second-order effects
- Yahoo and AOL, also identified as compliant, face pressure to explain the scope and privacy implications of their own responses rather than let MSN's account define the issue.
- Google gains a competitive privacy distinction from its refusal, making government-request handling a visible point of differentiation among search services.
Third-order effects
- If search-record requests become recurrent, providers' privacy policies will increasingly be judged by both their legal response and the transparency with which they describe it.
- The episode points toward government access to search data becoming a competitive and trust issue, not solely a behind-the-scenes legal matter.
The trend: Search providers are beginning to compete on how openly they explain cooperation with government demands for user-related records.