I'd like to point out that Skype users did *NOT* "agree to being tracked".
Let's explicitly state a fact that in our hearts pretty much all of us
already know:
Having clicked "I agree" or whatever to 50 pages or however much dense
legalese in order to use a "free" program does not validly qualify as
agreement from a moral perspective.
I'm sure I'm being highly conservative in saying that way, way less than 1%
of Skype users have so much as skimmed any of the legal language that
Microsoft unilaterally rammed down their throats.
I have never, ever heard a Skype user say:
"I fully understand that the details of who I'm talking to and when at all
times, by text voice and video, as well as the full content of all my text,
voice, and video communications, are viewable and browseable by thousands of
perfect strangers employed by dozens of government agencies and government
contractors.
I also understand that all of this information is likely viewable and
browseable by employees of Microsoft.
I also understand that Skype is likely keeping track of details of how I use
other parts of my computer, not just Skype, and uploading this information to
Microsoft, to be shared with who knows who and used for who knows what
purpose.
I fully agree to all of this."
I'd also like to point out that a proprietary program could well be doing, or
capable of being told to do, any arbitrary terrible thing, and no one has any
way of knowing.
I'm sure buried in the volumes of verbose and opaque language written by
lawyers working for Skype Technologies and/or Microsoft, there appear
statements that Skype does lots of terrible spying on the user. But, I'll
bet there are limits to what it says.
For example, does it say that Skype will access all private files unrelated
to Skype that are stored on the computer (e.g. all your personal documents),
and upload these to Microsoft or the NSA, to be shared with anyone whosoever
and used for any purpose whatsoever? I'll bet not.
And yet, There's no way to verify that Skype is not capable of being remotely
commanded to do this.
In conclusion:
1. No, Skype users did not agree to being spied on.
2. Proprietary software is always bad because it's impossible to verify what
it does and doesn't do, and effectively no one would ever agree:
"I agree to this program taking any action whatsoever without my knowledge"
Effectively no one would ever agree to this, and yet that's the result of
using proprietary software.
