When the European Union’s top court struck down legal provisions that allowed tech companies to share customer data across the Atlantic Ocean, it upended 15 years of business practices in a single day. Now, new thinking has to come to bear, according to Microsoft (MSFT) president Brad Smith.
In a blog post published Tuesday, Smith, Microsoft’s long-time top lawyer who was named president last month, agreed that it is important to balance customer data privacy with the need of businesses to be able to handle data across international borders. He likened the meeting of such disparate demands to solving a Rubik’s cube.
