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Asian Consumers

Skype and TOM Online: Privacy breach is nothing new

Recent reports that Skype's Chinese partner TOM Online has monitored, filtered and recorded its users' text conversations have "ripped open an old wound for US Internet companies," says the South China Morning Post's Zhuang Pinghui. Skype quickly said it has fixed the problem, which came to light less than a year after US search engine Yahoo apologized for leaking user information that led to the arrest of Chinese journalist Shi Tao. Microsoft and Google have also been criticized for "bowing to government pressure" to safeguard their China operations. A probe has revealed that TOM-Skype's text service in China maintains records of politically sensitive words on servers that are not secure and easily accessible. "Some Chinese Internet users have long suspected TOM's software," and it appears that no Skype users have been detained or arrested, Zhuang claims. But this still "flies in the face of Skype's supposed strong encryption," notes Graham Webster on his Sinobyte blog. Skype, a US-based online communications service provider owned by online auction site eBay, has "messed up badly" and "should have been watching TOM like a hawk from day one," argues Rick Martin for CNET Asia. But really, this is "pretty much everyday news," because incidents "like this in China have long lost their shock value."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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