(Telecompaper) A number of companies are planning to file ten amicus briefs with the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals, supporting Microsoft´s position in its data-privacy lawsuit with the US government, Bloomberg reported. Microsoft said that Hewlett-Packard, Verizon Communications and EBay, as well as business and advocacy groups and computer science professors, will file the briefs. Amicus briefs are filed in legal cases by outside parties who have an interest in the result. In this case, the companies want to limit US ability to access customer data. AT&T and Cisco also signed briefs, as well as 17 news and media companies, 35 computer scientists, five civil liberties organizations and two of the largest US business organizations, Microsoft said. The case centres around US lawmakers seeking to access emails housed in a Microsoft data centre in Ireland. The US government has said the emails will help it solve a criminal case, while Microsoft officials have said providing access would violate privacy. Microsoft has lost twice in court and is appealing. The issue came to the fore following Edward Snowden's revelations last year about US government spying, which left some foreign customers concerned about the privacy of data stored with US providers. Microsoft in January decided to let overseas customers store private data outside the US. If it loses this appeal, that option may not keep the data from the US government.