The Washington Post reports: Microsoft plans to encrypt data flowing through all of its communication, productivity and other services as it seeks to reassure users in the United States and beyond that it will guard their personal information from snooping governments, the company announced Wednesday night.

The encryption initiative, approved by company executives last week, comes as many of the nation’s top technology firms scramble to protect their reputations after months of revelations about how the National Security Agency and its foreign counterparts have siphoned off massive amounts of user information, including e-mails, video chats, address books and more.

“The goal is clear: We want to be sure that governments use legal processes rather than brute force to access user data,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said in an interview. [Continue reading…]