The information was given according to a statement by Microsoft Chairman Brad Smith at a Senate hearing on May 8.
According to Tech Crunch, Mr. Smith said that DeepSeek did not appear on the Microsoft app store due to concerns related to user data storage in China and the possibility of replies from this application being affected by third parties.
DeepSeek's privacy policy states that user data is stored on servers located in China, which is subject to the country's laws, including requirements for cooperation with intelligence agencies. DeepSeek also strictly cunds topics considered sensitive by Chinese authorities.
Although some organizations and countries have imposed restrictions on DeepSeek, this is the first time Microsoft has publicly confirmed the ban. At Microsoft, we do not allow employees to use the DeepSeek app, Mr. Smith emphasized.
However, he also noted that providing DeepSeek's R1 model on the Azure cloud platform was different. Since DeepSeek is open source code, anyone can download, store on their own server and provide the service without having to transfer data to China.
However, this does not completely eliminate risks, such as the model being able to disseminate propaganda content or generate unsafe programming code.
At the hearing, Mr. Smith said that Microsoft "interfered" with DeepSeek's artificial intelligence model to eliminate "harmful side effects", but did not specify the implementation process. In its initial announcement when bringing DeepSeek to Azure, Microsoft also said that the model has undergone safety testing and strict assessment.
Although DeepSeek is a direct competitor to Microsoft's Copilot app, the company does not impose a ban on all similar chat apps on the Windows store. For example, Perplexity is still on the list of apps. However, Google applications such as Chrome browser or Gemini chatbot do not appear when searching in Microsoft's application store.
