Skype To Feature Giant Ads 178
benfrog writes "Skype will be introducing a new 'feature' into calls for users don't have subscriptions or credit. Giant ads. They are actually calling them 'Conversation ads' because they hope the ads (as large as the picture of the person to whom you are speaking) will 'spark additional topics of conversation that are relevant to Skype users and highlight unique and local brand experiences.' The ads, of course, are tailored to each individual user, though there is an opt-out for that."
Ad Muncher blocks skype ads. (Score:0, Interesting)
as well as paltalk and spotify ads.
oh yeah it blocks all banners/popups/video ads in all your browsers too. ;)
www.admuncher.com/beta.pl
Where's the encryption? (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't Skype supposed to be encrypted between the end users? Of course, that claim has always been in a "Trust us, we're trustable!" framing, but if this listens to your text & voice comms in order to select ads, that finally does confirm that there is absolutely no privacy on Skype.
Insulting (Score:4, Interesting)
I understand the ads. They suck, but at least you can get rid of them.
What gets me is that according to Skype, these aren't ads, they're "conversation starters" and they hope that we will discuss them with our friends. That's just downright insulting.
Show me the ad if you must. Don't tell me that I should like it and talk about it with others. I'm not your damned advertising agent.
More importandly: (Score:2, Interesting)
Please point me to a open source equivalent that can do video too.
(And that I can use with my grandma, who can't handle anything more complex than a iPad. *sadface*)
SIP only works with audio, as far as I know
XMPP's Jingle can also only do audio, as far as I know.
And in any case, I don’t know any client that does video.
MSN, Yahoo and ICQ do video, don’t they?
(But it was usually not really good quality, and complicated to get to work. Plus, I did never see it work with open-source clients. [Including even aMSN.] Sadly. It lost me a girl's love for Linux.)