2 more things
1. Google Talk currently does not encrypt chats or calls. But we are working hard to make many improvements to Google Talk while it is in beta, and we plan to fully support encryption of chats and calls before our official release.
i can hear some people screaming bloody murder already
2.We believe that you should have a choice in how you communicate with your friends, that you shouldn't have to use one service because that's where you keep your contacts and other information. We launched free auto-forwarding and POP access for Gmail so our users could take their messages with them and use any service they want, and we're committed to upholding this idea of user choice for Google Talk as well. Today, with instant communications, you can't talk to your contacts or buddies in one service while using another service. We hope to change that. We want to work with other willing service providers to enable their users to communicate directly with Google Talk users. And while we hope many people will use and like the Google Talk client, we're committed to making it as easy as possible for you to communicate with your friends using the client that you want--even if it doesn't happen to be ours. That's why we're also supporting open standards and the same protocol that clients such as Trillian, GAIM and iChat do.
if they manage to pull this off ( although i cant see msn and yahoo co-operating) this might just be what we've all been waiting for.