Skype today denied that the Microsoft acquisition has allowed it to spy on users and record their calls, calling such accusations "false."

Skype today denied that the has allowed it to spy on users and record their calls, calling such accusations "false."

"In the last few days we have seen reports in the media we believe are inaccurate and could mislead the Skype community about our approach to user security and privacy," Mark Gillett, Skype's chief development and operations officer, wrote in a blog post. "I want to clear this up."

Gillett's blog post was prompted by a July 20 Slate story that said Skype refused to reveal whether it can eavesdrop on its users' conversations. The report suggested that Skype has long been "considered by most to be virtually impossible to intercept," a point of frustration for some law enforcement officials. But the article pointed to recent hacker chatter that said "supernode" upgrades to Skype's infrastructure would make it easier to snoop on peoples' chats.

After the story hit, Skype was somewhat tight-lipped, issuing a brief statement that said: "As was true before the Microsoft acquisition, Skype co-operates with law enforcement agencies as is legally required and technically feasible."

That, however, prompted reports of "Big Brother" Skype+Microsoft and questions about just how much the VoIP service knows about user activity, prompting Gillett's response.

According to Gillett, the network infrastructure updates are intended to improve performance, not spy on users.

"Skype was in the process of developing and moving supernodes to cloud servers significantly ahead of the Microsoft acquisition of Skype," he wrote. "Skype first deployed 'mega-supernodes' to the cloud to improve reliability of the Skype software and service in December 2010."

"The move was made in order to improve the Skype experience, primarily to improve the reliability of the platform and to increase the speed with which we can react to problems," Gillett continued. "The move also provides us with the ability to quickly introduce cool new features that allow for a fuller, richer communications experience in the future."

All Skype supernodes were moved to Microsoft's data centers earlier this year.

"The move to supernodes was not intended to facilitate greater law enforcement access to our users' communications," Gillett insisted.

The upgrades also do not allow for monitoring or recording of calls, he said. "Simply put, supernodes act as a distributed directory of Skype users. Skype to Skype calls do not flow through our data centres and the "supernodes" are not involved in passing media (audio or video) between Skype clients."

Skype also denied upgrading in order to facilitate access to Skype instant messages. But Gillett conceded that "In order to provide for the delivery and synchronization of instant messages across multiple devices, and in order to manage the delivery of messages between clients situated behind some firewalls which prevent direct connections between clients, some messages are stored temporarily on our (Skype/Microsoft) servers for immediate or later delivery to a user."

The company stressed that the switch to supernodes does not diminish Skype's security. "Skype software autonomously applies encryption to Skype to Skype calls between computers, smartphones and other mobile devices with the capacity to carry a full version of Skype software as it always has done. This has not changed," Gillett wrote.

As is required by federal law, Skype has a team that responds to requests for data from law enforcement. "Our position has always been that when a law enforcement entity follows the appropriate procedures, we respond where legally required and technically feasible," Gillett said.

The government can get a court order to obtain access to certain records held by tech firms. Several companies, like and , have started publishing data on the law enforcement requests they receive. Earlier this month, meanwhile, it was revealed that wireless carriers for customer information from federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies last year.