The growth of Internet telephony or Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) services has led to questions by policymakers and legislators over the regulation of VoIP. In this paper, we consider the extent to which VolP services are protected from an E.U./U.S. perspective and the concerns arising from the current legislative framework, mainly from a privacy perspective. This paper is divided into three parts. Part II considers VoW services in general. Part III examines the European framework and in particular, the current categorization of VoIP services before considering the privacy perspective, taking into account the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications 2002/58/EC (“DPEC”) and the general Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (“DPD”). Part IV considers the U.S. framework in protecting the privacy of communications, asserting that the federal courts and legislatures should act to explicitly protect VoIP oral Internet communications. Part V will conclude by discussing the principal areas that still need to be addressed.

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