China outlaws Skype
Skype and other internet telephony services have been outlawed in China.
The Chinese ministry of Industry and Information Technology has said that all VoIP services are illegal, apart from those backed by state telecommunications carriers China Telecom and China Unicom, according to the Chinese Communist Party-controlled People's Daily on Thursday.
"The decision is expected to make Skype, UUCall and other similar services unavailable in China," the People's Daily wrote.
On Thursday, Skype said it was still accessible in China. "Skype is not banned," a spokeswoman for the company told Bloomberg. "Our users in China currently can access Skype via Tom Online, our majority joint venture partner."
Skype had not returned requests for comment at the time of writing.