Credibility Crunch for Tech Companies Over Prism
By AMIR EFRATI, SHIRA OVIDE and EVELYN M. RUSLI
With Silicon Valley’s credibility in protecting consumer privacy on the line, many of the largest Web companies on Friday emphasized they aren’t giving the U.S. government a direct pipe into their networks as part of a secret program to monitor foreign nationals.
But the denials of involvement by Google Inc., GOOG +1.75% Microsoft Corp. MSFT +2.03% and others, which come at the same time the Obama administration confirmed the existence of such a program, raised questions about how data is ending up in the hands of the government.
The issues are especially acute for companies who make their business by collecting and processing customers’ most personal data and secrets.
Google CEO Larry Page and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said in a blog post that the company doesn’t give U.S. government investigators “open-ended access” to its network and hadn’t “joined” a program known as Prism and run by the National Security Agency.
The executives said Google only hands over data based on legally-authorized requests that it reviews individually.
