Skype President, Josh Silverman has responded to yesterday’s report that the company’s Chinese branch, TOM-Skype is monitoring user chats and in some cases, storing user data on insecure servers accessible by the public.

A report released this week by Canadian researchers alleges TOM-Skype monitors users Skype chats, scanning for certain words. The report also claimed that messages found to contain certain words were uploaded to an insecure, publicly accessible sever. Skype spokesperson, Jennifer Caukin said in a statement to the WSJ the idea the Chinese government “might be monitoring communications in and out of the country shouldn’t surprise anyone.” However she also said that the company was concerned to hear about the “apparent security issue,” and once they informed TOM about it, they fixed the flaw.

In a post on the official Skype Blog, president Josh Silverman detailed the company’s position on the issue. Silverman explained that as a communications company in China, TOM, like any other, has established procedures to meet local laws and regulations including the requirement to monitor and block instant messages containing certain words deemed "offensive" by the Chinese authorities.

He goes on to explain that in April 2006, Skype publicly disclosed that TOM operated a text filter but said that it was the company’s understanding that it was not TOM’s protocol to store chat messages and was inquiring as to why the protocol changed.

Silverman goes on to reiterate the point that the insecure server issue was a concern and had been solved and said the company would be addressing the “wider issue” of the messages being stored in the first place and reassured Skype users as to who was affected.

“It’s important to remind everybody that the issues highlighted in yesterday’s Information Warfare Monitor / ONI Asia report refer only to communications in which one or more parties are using TOM software to conduct instant messaging,” said Silverman. “It does not affect communications where all parties are using standard Skype software. Skype-to-Skype communications are, and always have been, completely secure and private,” he added.

Read the full blog post here.