Skype automatically adds contacts from Facebook after activating video chat without permission.

So today’s big announcement was the relaunch of Facebook chat and its video call integration provided by Skype however there seems to be a catch to the service which hasn’t been announced and quite frankly has annoyed me greatly.

It turns out that if your Facebook friends have their Skype details on their profile, and they have linked Skype with Facebook at some point (say for Skype’s Facebook feed integration) and have activated video chat that Skype will search all of your friends and automatically add them to your friends list. Without asking for your permission, or at least not expressly.

It gets worse too, if your friends have also done this then there is no accepting the requests it just automatically adds them to your list allowing them to see when you are online with you being none the wiser. I only found out as a friend pointed out that I had been automatically added to his Skype and I had automatically accepted the request. Personally I use Skype and Facebook for very different things.

Facebook is used for social networking and lets be honest anyone who you meet and get on with will probably add you and you will probably accept, Skype on the other hand is much more personal and is more for people who you intend to keep in contact with on a regular basis or for meetings etc. not for every Tom, Dick and Harry.This needs to be resolved and dealt with appropriately and quickly by both parties