Skype talks back to critics on security and privacy

Skype, once a feisty startup, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, has been taking a beating in the press for the past week or so. Most of the negative press has been based on innuendo, partly driven by the company’s boilerplate responses to inquiries by tech reporters.

The media pressure started last Friday at Slate, where Ryan Gallagher wasn’t satisfied with the stock answers and wrote this speculative post:

For years, the popular video chat service Skype has resisted taking part in online surveillance—but that may have changed. And if it has, Skype’s not telling.

The rest of the post was peppered with phrases that tried to spin the company’s reticence to talk into an indictment: like “a clear answer was not forthcoming” and “PR … wouldn’t confirm or deny” and “Whether [Microsoft’s ‘legal intercept’] technology was subsequently integrated into the Skype architecture, it’s impossible to say for sure.”