Skype may be shut down
People the world over have become accustomed to using Skype for making free phone calls. The service is especially popular with travelers and people who have family living in other countries. Now, as the result of a dispute over ownership of the technology, skype may be shut down completely leaving millions of users out of luck.
Jolted, the company that invented the service and who owns the technology is at war with eBay who owns Skype. eBay paid over $3.1 billion for Skype nearly four years ago and its hard to believe with that much money involved that they didn’t cover all their bases legally in the purchase.
Skype allows its 480 million customers to communicate for free over the internet when calls are placed from computer to computer. It also enables computer users to call out to normal phone lines and cell phones in what is called “Skype Out”. The software that allows all of this to happen is owned by Jolted and licensed to eBay.
When the $3.1 billion deal was inked, eBay signed certain confidentiality agreements with Jolted that prevents eBay from disclosing any source code of the software. Jolted claims that eBay broke their promise and that some secrets have been leaked. So, as a result, Jolted is revoking the license. This would basically leave eBay with a Skype that doesn’t work and a value of zero dollars
The case is scheduled for court in June 2010.
Thanks to www.guardian.co.uk for the above information. For more information on this article please visit their website.