Microsoft said Monday it will drop its lawsuit against the US Justice Department after the agency moved to scale back the use of gag orders.

The software maker last year sued the Justice Department over a key legal tool used by the US government, which forces companies to turn over data about their customers but bars them from alerting the people being investigated.

...Microsoft's dropping of the lawsuit comes in response to new guidelines quietly issued last week by the Justice Department that end routine use of such orders in demands for customer data. 

...In April 2016, Microsoft asked a federal court in Seattle to strike down portions of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, arguing that the 1986 law violated customers' Fourth Amendment protections because the government wasn't required to notify them when their records were obtained.

Microsoft also argued that the practice of using gag orders had become too common. In the 18 months before it filed its challenge, Microsoft said it had been forced to maintain secrecy in 2,576 cases -- two-thirds of which carried permanent gag orders.

Despite the Justice Department's new approach to search requests, Microsoft called on Congress to change the law.