law - The not-that-legal VOIP services

A fascinating twist in a story the Shanghai Daily wrote about the VOIP-services in the city. I was intrigued, since officially only the approved telecom providers in China can provide these services and supposedly skype was running into problems, and would possibly banned.
So how would a state-owned paper deal with this legal condrum? The Shanghai Daily writes:

Only six Chinese telcos — including China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Netcom — are allowed to operate VoIP services, according to the Ministry of Information Industry. On the other side, no policy or law in China directly defines VoIP services as illegal.

Now, you see the possibilities? Who says they are illegal? They are just not legal, just like the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club.
It reminded me of a nice lunch I had at Alway's Cafe in Shanghai with a student of the New School in New York, who interned at a not so well known business paper in Shanghai and wanted to pick my brain about the local media scene.
"How is it for an American to work for an illegal Chinese publication," I tried as an icebreaker. Unfortunately, the girl freaked out and the rest of the time I had to comfort her by showing all those other not-so-legal things passing by on the street or hanging around in the Cafe. I estimate that about 50 percent of Shanghai is illegal; in the real Chinese world it might be more.