Skype has been appreciated since its launch for providing a safe and simple way of communicating. Unfortunately, the promises for security and privacy might have been overrated.

A report issued last week by some human rights advocates revealed that Skype’s Chinese service monitors text chats with sensitive keywords and also stores them with other personal user records. The announcement became big time news and the company’s officials had to commence some damage control, releasing statements to explain their actions.

Skype’s president, Josh Silverman, acknowledged the monitoring as “common knowledge” and that he had no intentions of hiding the fact that the company worked with local laws. He noted:"These regulations include the requirement to monitor and block instant messages containing certain words deemed offensive by the Chinese authorities."

Skype stated that very few people were affected by this situation, and only by using the Chinese software version. The people that used TOM Online Inc.’s version, a joint venture between eBay and Chinese company TOM-Online, were the ones exposed to this problem and apparently, Skype’s homepage in China redirected Web surfers to that download page rather than to the official international version. Even though Skype was supposed to discard censored messages and not display or transmit them anywhere, the report proves that the messages were sent and stored on several TOM-Skype servers located in China.

TOM’s officials said only that the company adhered to the Chinese rules and regulations, and refused to say anything else.

The issues on the security of privacy are always a big deal and the matter is unlikely to fade off any time soon.