There was a theory that they were working on end-to-end encryption for Skype. If true, this may be related to that. I sure hope it's true, otherwise they will not be able to say that they "can't" provide people's communications with a court order, as they're now doing in Belgium.
Also, the court classified them as a "telco," likely because Skype offers integration with regular phone lines. It's also why, in the U.S., the government can use CALEA to intercept Skype calls.
So if they want to keep using that excuse, they may want to offer a "secure" data-only version of Skype, too (that's the default Skype), and provide a deprecated version that's integrated with regular phone calls.
This would also make it easier for them and everyone else to move on from the convoluted WebRTC 1.0 standard to the ORTC-based WebRTC 1.1. It would've been ideal to make this change with the overhaul of Skype's design to be more easily accepted by people, but oh well, better late than never.
https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/93006358956574720...
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/27/belgian_court_fines...
Also, the court classified them as a "telco," likely because Skype offers integration with regular phone lines. It's also why, in the U.S., the government can use CALEA to intercept Skype calls.
So if they want to keep using that excuse, they may want to offer a "secure" data-only version of Skype, too (that's the default Skype), and provide a deprecated version that's integrated with regular phone calls.
This would also make it easier for them and everyone else to move on from the convoluted WebRTC 1.0 standard to the ORTC-based WebRTC 1.1. It would've been ideal to make this change with the overhaul of Skype's design to be more easily accepted by people, but oh well, better late than never.