14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is reportedly keeping track of every single HTTPS link its users are sending on Skype, even though the company has said so many times that customer privacy is one of its main focuses.
Citing an anonymous tipster, Heise Online reports that an IP address from Redmond visits every single HTTPS link mentioned during a conversation on Skype, even though the sent information was supposed to be private.
To test the claims, the source sent two different HTTPS URLs in a regular Skype window, one containing login information another one used to access cloud-based file-sharing services.
A few hours after the conversation has ended, an IP that seemed to be based in Redmond accessed both links. Surprisingly, no activity was recorded on some other HTTP links, so the company most likely keeps an eye on secured URLs exclusively
While the Redmond-based tech giant hasn’t said a thing about a potential monitoring of HTTPS URLs, one of the paragraphs in Microsoft’s data protection policy seems to cover any attempt to access the links submitted by users during their conversations.
“Skype may use automated scanning within Instant Messages and SMS to (a) identify suspected spam and/or (b) identify URLs that have been previously flagged as spam, fraud, or phishing links,” the policy reads.
In plain English, this basically means that Microsoft checks the links you send to your contacts for your personal safety, trying to block any malicious URL that could be used in phishing or spam attempts.
At this point, there doesn’t seem to be any way to skip the tracking, so chances are that text conversations without HTTPS content might also be tracked. It remains to be seen, however, if the software giant Microsoft launches a statement to detail the way it deals with secured links on Skype or not.