Alan C. Posted March 13, 2013 Posted March 13, 2013 France pushes for controls on Skype calls French prosecutors have been asked to investigate Microsoft’s Skype because of its failure to register in the country as a telecoms operator, in the latest attempt by France to control the activities of global internet companies. In a statement on Tuesday, the telecoms regulator Arcep said that it had contacted the Paris public prosecutor after the instant messenger group ignored “several requests to declare itself as an electronic communications operator." Arcep said the fact that Skype allowed its users to make voice calls to fixed line and mobile numbers in France meant that it provided a telephone service, and therefore had an obligation to allow emergency calls and to allow French police and security services to monitor its voicemail traffic when legally required. . . . While it is doubtful that EU law would allow France to impose criminal sanctions on Skype, whose European headquarters are in Luxembourg, the Arcep complaint is the latest evidence of the country’s willingness to take action against large internet companies. . . . Some lawmakers in the ruling Socialist party have been calling for the imposition of taxes on Google’s activities in France, while a French court has ordered Twitter to identify people behind racist tweets. But the biggest criticism has come from France’s leading telecoms companies, who argue that companies such as Google and Skype are flooding their networks with data at a time when the operators are struggling to find the funds to invest in networks. . . . Skype has argued that telecoms operators across Europe often deliberately slow down its service or refuse to carry voice-over-internet services on their mobile phone offerings. Skype is reluctant to be classed as a telecoms operator in France because of the heavy cost burden of retaining records of internet calls for a given period of time, which would be required by the security services.
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