[VikingCoder]

The browser follows the link. The browser can absolutely be checking for malware links, and warning you before you follow them. And you should be able to configure your browser to not do that, if you don't want it to.

So, it's not "damned if they do, damned if they don't," from my point of view, they have to do it in the right place. Within Skype itself is absolutely not the right place.

[username3]

The article doesn't mention which browser the reader and colleagues used to open the link. It could be IE checking the links and not Skype.

[jdmichal]

It's not even using a HTTP GET request that a browser would. It's a HTTP HEAD request.

[MichaelApproved]

"and warning you before you follow them"

L.O.L. Warnings are ignored so often they're practically useless.

[recoiledsnake]

When the viral infection is spreading at 4000 messages a minute, by the time the Skype team informs the IE, Chrome, Firefox, Opera anti-spam teams and waits for them to add it to their blacklist, they might as well not do anything.

What's wrong with scanning links in chat for malware on the Skype servers so that they can immediately stop such messages from spreading?

[VikingCoder]

Skype team should be able to inform IE team at roughly the speed of light.

Chrome team does a pretty good job of finding malware themselves.

What's wrong with scanning links is the scanning part. A third party has NO BUSINESS in seeing any of the bytes in my conversation.

If I'm a political dissident in a repressive country, I don't want MS to have the OPTION of handing my conversation over to my government.

[etha]

Your government wants them to have that option. Why should MS listen to you and not your government?