Microsoft just won a big battle over the DOJ's "gag order" about customer data

Last week saw another win for tech companies doing battle against the United States government.

The Department of Justice issued new guidelines last week that now require government officials to make specific requests whenever they want to keep an investigation private. Under the new guidelines, officials also won't be allowed to ask for more than a 12-month delay in notifying customers, except in "exceptional circumstances."

That said, DOJ officials seeking customer data will still be able to hide their requests from specific customers if they believe those customers might delete data once they know the feds are onto them, or if the customer might bolt to avoid legal action.

Still, the decision is something of a victory for tech companies and customers interested in transparency: Tech companies that store customer data have long been legally told to stay silent in many cases where federal law enforcement request that information.

The win comes on the backs of Microsoft. The company sued the DOJ last year, arguing that government searches of data violated customers' Fourth Amendment rights, which protect against unreasonable search and seizure. Microsoft's lawyers also argued their own First Amendment rights were violated by the gag orders that prevented them from notifying customers that government officials were looking through their data.

The government issued 2,576 "legal demands" to Microsoft that "included an obligation of secrecy" over a period of 18 months, according to a company statement put out by Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith. Of those demands, 68 percent "appeared to be indefinite demands for secrecy."

"In short," Smith wrote, "we were prevented from ever telling a large number of customers that the government had sought to access their data."

The company is now "taking steps" to halt its lawsuit because of the new DOJ guidelines, but Smith emphasized the need for legislation preventing long-term gag orders, rather than relying on DOJ guidelines. He pushed Congress to pass the ECPA Modernization Act of 2017, which would prevent officials from sticking tech companies with anything longer than a 90-day gag order unless the government asks for a renewal.

The tussle between Microsoft and the DOJ is just the latest in an ongoing series of tech companies battling the government over issues of privacy.

The DOJ recently had to significantly alter a broad warrant that sought data from 1.3 million IP addresses of visitors to DisruptJ20.org, an organizing point for people who protested the inauguration of President Donald Trump.

Perhaps more famously (or infamously), the FBI and Apple had a public spat over whether Apple should be compelled to provide law enforcement with access to the iPhone of a perpetrator behind a December 2015 shooting spree in San Bernardino, California. Apple argued that to do so would undermine the privacy of all its customers.