<p>IDG News Service The German police have been monitoring social media and email services for years, an overview of expenditures by the Federal Ministry of the Interior suggests.</p><p>In an answer to questions asked by the Left Party about an eavesdropping tool that in 2011 allegedly was used by the German government to intercept Skype calls, the ministry detailed the expenditures for private service providers.</p><p>In the list included in the document, the ministry revealed that it has been paying external contractors for software to monitor Skype and decode Facebook chats, as well as decoding software for emails sent via Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail, discovered Anne Roth, a researcher for theA Privacy and Freedom of Expression program of theA Tactical Technology Collective. She found the listing in a recently published English translation of the document.</p><p>In 2009, for instance the German police rented hardware and software to monitor Skype for almost A!30,400 (about US$39,300) from the German company DigiTask. A Skype monitoring system was also rented in 2010, the document shows.</p><p><a href="http://www.cio.com/article/718525/Facebook_Gmail_Skype_Conversations_Monitored_and_Decoded_By_German_Police">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://news.techeye.net/security/germany-spies-on-the-internet-after-all">Germany spies on the internet after all</a> (TechEye)</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=dVi_KEn8w-aQaKMXupfT78V-0tFeM&ned=us">18 additional articles.</a></p>