"The company won't disclose details of its encryption, either, and isn't required to as it is Europe based."
Hence, their alleged offering of "billions".
"But corporate parent eBay, having had to write down $1.4bn already following its $2.6bn purchase of Skype back in the bubble-2.0 days of 2005, might see an opportunity here. A billion or two from the NSA for a backdoor into Skype might make the acquisition seem like a sensible idea."
By "parent", if they get into trouble with an agency like the NSA and Ebay is U.S based (for the sake of argument), even though Skype was acquired, couldn't they 'break free' so-to-speak, and head back to Europe with their main operations? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Europe appears to still be their main base of operations while Ebay is like a corporate funding "parent"... that's how I view it from the article, but I could no doubt be mistaken.