Skype Calls Now Illegal in China
PrintResidents of mainland China got a rude awakening today. According to The Telegraph, popular voice over IP (VoIP) app Skype has been declared illegal in the country. The only Internet voice calls that will be legal to place are those made over the two government controlled telecoms, China Unicom and China Telecom. This effectively ends Skype's ambitions to break into the rapidly growing Chinese market.
This is far from the first western online product the Chinese government has blocked. Service like Twitter and Facebook are banned as well. Google even closed down servers in China early this year amid the censorship controversy. While Skype calling mat technically be illegal now, it is uncertain what actions the Chinese authorities will take against it.
As of now, most users still report being able to connect to Skype, and most can still download the client. Skype has said only that Chinese users should look toward their Hong Kong partner Tom Online for VoIP services. Though, many fear that Tom Online is monitoring traffic.
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dread_ire
January 02, 2011 at 5:24pm
If this ends up being the truth and China also decides to start actively blocking skype, it will suck for a lot of expats. When my wife and I lived in China, skype was our only form of long distance telephone communication with friends and family back home.
Nimrod
December 31, 2010 at 6:26pm
Whats the difference between China reading and listening to everything you say and Google doing it?
The punch line here is that were living in the same tyranny in the U.S. that the Chinese are under. Yes, Google is the NSA.
Hutif
December 31, 2010 at 12:59am
Skype made it a lot easier for me to talk to my girlfriend when she went home for last summer. I'm not sure what I'll do for this summer now that China's paranoia is going full-blown... again...
It's bad enough they've blocked Facebook.
Biceps
December 30, 2010 at 8:47pm
Soon all computers imported from China will only be able to display articles from newspapers that say good things about China.
Ok, that is a little dramatic, I admit. However I believe it is important to realize the following: we all disagree with this type of censorship, yet we all (including me) continue to purchase products from companies like Asus, MSI, Nvdia, etc, who have most or all of their fabs in China (who pay taxes to the Chinese gov't). By doing so, are we actively contributing to this censorship, or are we contributing to a system that might finally overwhelm the autocracy?
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