Outcries, over the privacy implications of accessing private Hotmail accounts, came shortly after Microsoft defended itself against how it accessed a bloggers private account to find out if a former employee stole trade secrets.

Microsoft is now making a change to its privacy policy. This change would require its legal team to look into individual cases to see if a court order is absolutely required to access private user data. The company would then proceed to have the evidence “audited” if you will, by an outside lawyer, and then perform the search - only if a judge allows it by signing off on the evidence. Microsoft will also publish a bi-annual transparency report that will highlight these types of searches.

Recently, reports emerged that previous Microsoft staffer Alex Kibkalo is confronting elected criminal chargers over assertions that he stole competitive advantages throughout his residency at the organization. The prosecution states Kibkalo "transferred restrictive programming and prerelease programming overhauls for Windows 8 RT and also the Microsoft Activation Server Software Development Kit (SDK)" to his particular Skydrive (now Onedrive) record in August 2012.

In 2012, a French blogger tipped off Microsoft that he gained a code from the Microsoft Server SDK, which had initially hailed from a Hotmail client and implied Microsoft could get to his record without a court request. This was lawful on the grounds that an explanation in Microsoft's terms of administration permitted the move to make place assuming that it was to ensure the security of its clients. In the long run, the move prompted an examination where, as stated by court archives, Kibkalo was recognized as the source and conceded spilling Microsoft code to outcasts.

Source: http://mashable.com/2014/03/21/microsoft-privacy-hotmail/