Spammers, Pedophiles Force Microsoft to Quit Chat

This morning:

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Microsoft Corp. announced on Wednesday it would shut down its Internet chat rooms in 28 countries, saying the forums had become a haven for peddlers of junk e-mail and sex predators.

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Their real reason( my opinion).

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In the United States, Canada and Japan, Microsoft will introduce an unsupervised chat service solely for subscribers, who are considered more accountable because their billing details and identities are on record with the company.

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And the reaction so far:

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Proponents pointed to the highly publicized crackdown on online pedophilia rings as proof such measures are necessary.
But free speech advocates, industry rivals and even some children's rights groups questioned whether this would drive the darker elements of online chat underground.

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The full story HERE

Quite sad that more and more things are starting to be charged on the net. Hope not too many of the others follow suit. seems to MS way of doings things. First get you hooked on it and then start charging when you are already locked in and unlikely to change. I know lots who have accounts on MSN and mainly use the chat feature butif they start charging someof them might not want to change cos its too much trouble telling all their friends and since the cost wouldnt be too high in their opinion they might just stay put and pay the extras. Although there will be those like me who couldnt care less.

:mad: oh gee we can charge people for stuff they already have and...no **** they will pay it under the guies of protecting them from bad people...is the world filled with morons...are we the few who see clearly that protection is the oposite of freedom. I think I will have to slap the SH!T out the next person that tells me "there should be a law...." or "thats so not fair"
well sorry about this but I could go on and on but you don't want to here me rant all night.

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First get you hooked on it and then start charging when you are already locked in and unlikely to change.

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looks like M$ learned how to do business from a drug cartel :D - never used MSN chatrooms anyway but sure as hell won't be now. though I reckon some of the thoughts about 'driving darker elements underground' are probably accurate

Z

IMHO ...

M$ could care less about protecting children from internet predators. its kinda obvious that this is nothing more than a $$ plot to squeeze a little more from the people. I use messenger on a daily basis and sometimes venture to the chat rooms but would never pay for it. If Yahoo! follows in that direction then chatters are pretty much screwed. But an event like this could make Yahoo and other places even more popular as people seek chat alternatives.

Talkcity.com was popular back a few years ago. its where i first got to chat. they decided to close down and the new management started to charge people as well as charge for the use of clients like mIRC. they never regained that popularity they had before. this reminds me of a chain letter emial i got once upon a time about ISP's wanting to charge postage for long distance emails ..lol ... the way things are going, the good 'ol days of the net are slipping away.

needless to say this chat room tantrum m$ is having is just ridiculous. it wont even make a dent in the pedophile situation. but then again, thats not the "real" motive behind the closure in the first place.

i just bought my 1st computer other day and already been in chat rooms. i get there through hotmail so i assume this is the chat were all talking about. i talk to some of my friends and family there and now they are wanting to charge for it? i dont know about the rest of you guys but this girl aint paying to chat. this computer has microsoft windows, microsoft windows messenger, everything microsoft even designed for microsoft xp sticker on it. after all that we may have to pay for microsoft chat?

maybe if i hurry i can take this microsoft computer back to wal mart and get a full microsoft refund!!

May I suggest Linux to anyone. Full featured IRC chat clients, already installed. You don't pay a dime. I grew out of IRC a long time ago, but hey, It's still kind of fun.

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emial i got once upon a time about ISP's wanting to charge postage for long distance emails ..lol ... the way things are going, the good 'ol days of the net are slipping away.

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uh ... I remember when they used to charge 5 cents an e-mail 'til people started bitchin and competition forced ISPs to offer free e-mail . Thoses the good 'ol days you're talking about ??

wow 5 cents an email? nope, those days were before my cyber time. i have only been in this computer field for roughly 5yrs (when 98 was the latest greatest) and i can tell it has changed a lot. by that i mean more and more sites are charging for services that used to be free, and software as well. but it must have been horrible paying for each email sent. i never knew there was ever a charge for emails, i dont think i would have sent too many. but there is no doubt i would have been right there with the rest of them bitching and complaining about it. but somehow it wouldnt surprise me at all if someone didnt try to have that charge for emails again.

learn something every day :-)

Most people dont see it the way we do. I just read teh papers here and they r saying that its a good thing that M$ is doing this. The spew the same lines that M$ released. no one here seems to be questioning it. BUt i guess thats the way it is here. anyway, like one of you said, most will just switch to another chat hangout but m$ will definitely still make something out of this.