Russia Won't Ban Gmail or Skype Amid Security Concerns

It looks like Russia won't be banning Skype or Gmail, after all. The Kremlin was reportedly considering blocking both services, along with Hotmail, in response to a major cyberattack that crippled the country's most popular blog and an independent news site. Some within the Kremlin had believed the services posed a major threat to national security, but some critics had thought the government may have just been looking for an excuse to tighten its control over the Web -- ahead of December's parliamentary elections and next year's presidential race.