Microsoft to close chatrooms
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3133192.stm

:spin:

It's about time, although I still have some concerns over MSN Messenger too.

Again, with the scare mongering.

They are obviously doing this to avoid being sued, it won't help children, they will just to a less regulated chat room.

Is it just a PR exersise? Surely the paedophiles will just move on somewhere else?

Had heard rumours of this, in a way a good thing.
BUT, is it micro$oft washing it's hands of the problem and covering it's own arse?

whats to stop these pervs using yahoo or irc to mention 2?

Smacks of this, but at least someone is trying to do something, maybe it'll get other people thinking ..

I notice they're not closing down their paid for services ...:rolleyes:

But how many kids would be on that ??

Will it really be a deterant? Paedophiles don't seem too bothered to pay for 'certain' sites which cater for their tastes.

I've no doubt there would be a lot fewer, and therefore the MSN system could in future be seen to be harder for paedophiles to use. However I do think we are looking at a very well-spun piece of PR here, and the primary motivator is to try to get people who liked free MSN chatrooms to pay for them. Talking about eliminating paedophiles is a welcome side effect for MSN, but it is also a smokescreen for what they are really doing.

Oh come on get real I bet you'd try and close the whole internet if you could. If you dont like it don't use it

The internet is designed for communication, if you ownly want kids to have resources for homework, perhaps you could just buy an encyclopedia cd/book.

MSN messenger is fine - you need someone e-mail address to talk to them, you need to know the person to get their address, paedophiles won't just randomly cycle through email address to find a child, it would take years.

I agree with towny, Microsoft has just said his to get the paranoid british public to like them. I heard from one of the organisations who monitor this type of thing that 'disconecting contact will just cause the children to swap their details before the site goes down' thus making the problem worse.

Nope, I use it a lot, as do my kids ....

My concern is not about me, or my usage, I can regulate that myself. Children are at risk on the Net, but it has and will continue to be part of their lives. I as a parent am concerned as to who they are talking to, and where they visit.

These chat rooms were open to abuse, and have been closed down in recognition of the risk.

Get Real - I thought I already was

:D

While I can see that this might be an underhanded means of charging for a previously free service, surely charging for the use of chatrooms is good in that anyone abusing the service will be traceable via their payee details.

Also, there has been this wierd attitude to the web, that things should be free, why is that anyway?

The Internet/WWW was created to share information to a wide audience quickly and efficiently.
Won't they .... they will pose as children on sites such as Neopets etc, and slowly build up confidence..... over months and years. Email address sharing is not uncommon, but it's a faceless medium. I can trawl the internet now for @hotmail.com addresses and have tons in less than 20 minutes. Childrens email addresses can be very easy to spot.
This is a definate possibility, and would drive the problem further underground for the immediate future.