MSN to close chatrooms

[mr webname]

Microsoft has announced that it will be pulling the plug on all of its Internet Chatrooms due to pressure from parents concerned about paedophile activity - cutoff date believed to be October 14th.
Only chatrooms Microsoft will keep going to be in New Zealand and Brazil, where extensive monitoring is said to be planned and the US and Canada where subscription and identity checking are planned:-

http://groups.msn.com/editorial/en-gb/content/chat.htm

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=446426
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32992.html

 

[bensontwenty]

Surely this is just going to chase paedophiles and children into more unregulated chat areas. Watch out for a string of competitors areas that will try to take advantage of this.

Whilst it is praiseworthy of Microsoft (did I actually use 'praiseworthy' and 'Microsoft' in the same sentence), I think this will cos greater problems as parents will now have even less clue about where their kids are hanging put on the internet.