China + Skype = illegal?
Posted by Chris Leckness on 03/21/06 in Smart Phones, The Internet
We all know how strict China is on their internet laws (with their rules on what can be shown on the internet and such in China), but they are now going one step further, trying to ban Skype.
The reason for getting rid of Skype is quite simple, they want to keep their land line services (most likely making money for the government) and not have competition for the land lines from VoIP services like Skype.
Supposedly the government has already said for two years it will not be giving out any licenses for the services (which means no Skypeout/in, etc.) and it is looking into ways to ban the service totally so that you would not be able to use it in the country and it would become illegal to use. This will take some work though as Skype uses the standard http/https ports.
In my mind this is going to be a semibig deal as all the business technology travelers that go over to China for business and use Skype will end up having to find some other conventional method for communications (which usually means buying temporary SIM cards or calling cards).
News Source:
Engadget
Written by Chris Leckness · Filed Under Smart Phones, The Internet
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