Skype Journal: Russia's iron telecom tries to frame Skype

Skype's success is taking hard currency out of the mouths of the Russian telecom industry — Rostelecom/Ростелеком especially — and slowing the flow of baksheesh to their political brethren.

Fine.

Aren't you surprised at the Russian telecom lobby's lack of originality in maligning Skype? These neo-Stalinists have generations of experience at framing innocents. They could have said Skype causes cancer, makes you stupid, promotes alcoholism, breaks up families, slows the Internet, is used by addicts, makes you wait longer for phones, lowers sperm count, is run by reprobates, raises the cost of food, is funded by the Romanovs. Anything.

They could even have fomented anger over Estonia, where most of Skype's engineers live and work. Estonia is a former Soviet state with a large Russian-speaking minority. There's resentment over Estonia joining the EU and its economic prosperity. But no, they didn't go there.

Instead, the commercial lobby latches on to a law enforcement meme: Evil People use Skype for bad acts and The State must be able to listen in on everyone to thwart their plans. We've heard this from crime fighters in Germany and Italy, the UK and the US. Nobody from Russian law enforcement, however. Just lobbyists for phone companies.

At their meeting 21 July meeting, last week,

...it was noted that the market for IP telephony is increasing much faster than the market for traditional voice communication. Has also made a forecast that by 2012 40% of traffic will be IP telephony. Without any control by the States, that will inevitably trigger security concerns, the majority operating on the territory of the Russian brands, such as Skype and Icq, are of foreign origin, and therefore it is necessary to protect domestic producers in that area, etc.

Meanwhile, Skype is winning the hearts of the Russian people with Skype's "Victory Day" video conferences for WWII veterans. You can buy Skype credits in 72,000 QIWI (КИВИ) cash-in kiosks across Russia. Enjoy Skype.com in Russian.

Napoleon Bonaparte, beaten badly by Czarist Russia, gave advice Skype might heed: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."

Skype tip: (flag:ru) will show a Russian flag emoticon.

tags: skype, russia, rssp