07.28.12
New Reports Confirm That Microsoft Skype is Spying on Users, Sharing Personal Data
Summary: Further investigation reveals that, following a takeover by Microsoft, Skype adopts US-inspired policies that are hostile to human rights
REPORTS about Skype help spread the word about its attack on private communication. As one site put it, ‘Slate did a little digging and found some rather strange coincidences. Only a month after Microsoft bought Skype, the company was granted a patent for “legal intercept” technology that would allow them to capture and record conversations made over Skype’s VOIP technology. Skype also changed its privacy policy allowing them to hand over “personal data, communications content and/or traffic data to an appropriate judicial, law enforcement or government authority.”’
“Using monopoly power Microsoft is trying to enforce and impose this spying on almost everyone.”We have a new page about Skype — a page in which we accumulate information. Here is another report which boasts more certainty on this subject. It’s from the trend-setting media, unlike other sources (citing the original) which concur: “Skype has expanded its cooperation with law enforcement in the United States, making text chats and user information more available to police, according to a new report in the Washington Post.
“Real-time audio and video surveillance remains “impractical,” the paper concluded, “but that barrier could eventually vanish as Skype becomes one of the world’s most popular forms of telecommunication.”
So that settles it. Skype is not just proprietary; it is also a spy, and not just in China (where it implemented the above for compliance). Using monopoly power Microsoft is trying to enforce and impose this spying on almost everyone. Richard Stallman was correct in assuming that antifeatures or malicious features would become more widespread as technology strides forward. Now more than even we need freedom-respecting alternatives. █
“Microsoft does not hesitate to use its operating system monopoly power and application program dominance to try to eliminate competition.”
–Apple Computer Senior VP Avadis Tevanian Jr.
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