Bill Gates says no one is an "absolutist" on either side of the digital privacy debate, but he supports his company's lawsuit against the US government seeking the freedom to tell customers when federal agencies have sought their data.
"There probably are some cases where (the government) should be able to go in covertly and get information about a company's email," the co-founder of Microsoft Corp said at a Reuters Newsmaker event in Washington.
"But the position Microsoft is taking in this suit is that it should be extraordinary and it shouldn't be a matter of course that there is a gag order automatically put in."
The lawsuit, filed last week in federal court in Microsoft's home town of Seattle, argues that the government is violating the US Constitution by preventing Microsoft from notifying thousands of customers about government requests for their emails and other documents, sometimes indefinitely.
The move comes as rival Apple Inc is locked in a showdown with the US government over access to an iPhone belonging to one of the killers in the December shooting in San Bernardino, California.
Gates says more collaboration between law enforcement and privacy advocates will help determine which "legislative framework ... strikes the perfect balance" on government access to private data.
"I don't think there are any absolutists who think the government should be able to get everything or the government should be able to get nothing," Gates, 60, said.
The man who co-founded Microsoft in 1975 and is still held in reverence by the technology world made waves in February when he appeared to distance himself from Apple in its legal fight with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, but later clarified his comments and said that headlines suggesting he supported the FBI's position were inaccurate.
