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Msn Chat Rooms: Microsoft Canada
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Microsoft announced this week that it's going to shut its free MSN chat rooms in a couple of weeks (leaving only paid members in the US, Canada and Japan able to chat). The reason: the rising pedophile threat - adults chatting with kids on Internet chat rooms. What Microsoft is basically saying is that it could no longer guarantee the integrity of its chat rooms or the safety of the kids using them. It's not surprising how frustrating it's been for anyone who runs big chat rooms. Most of them have plenty of users pretending to be who they aren't (standard operating procedure for many folks), plus lots of pornographers and spammers (and pornographic spammers, even).
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As of October 14, MSN will be shutting down all chat rooms except for those in the United States, Canada and Japan, which will be converted to a subscription-only format. When asked why they're being shut down, Microsoft cited its concern over pedophiles using both unmoderated and moderated MSN chat services to seek out new victims and a need to make users of its remaining subscription-based chat services more accountable for their conversations. It is ... believed that economic factors are also behind Microsoft's decision.
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MSN chat rooms in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America will be shut down on 14 October. Subscription only chat services will then be introduced in the US, Canada and Japan only. Microsoft says these will be more secure because users must provide identification in order to pay.
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MSN chat rooms affected by the change will be shut down on Oct. 14. That's a day before the deadline for third-party IM services such as Trillian to strike a licensing agreement with Microsoft to prevent the possibility of their being blocked. Oct. 15 ... marks the deadline for people using older Messenger versions to upgrade to 5.0 or higher.
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If Microsoft goes ahead and closes down MSN chat rooms, the effect will be that kids stop looking for chat rooms, right? Hardly! - there are too many. And some of them are moderated, of course, but others are not.
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Microsoft has gone ahead with its decision to close all its MSN chat rooms in the UK and a number of other countries today, despite criticism from other ISPs, portals and chat room operators. In a move that was applauded by children's protection groups and charities, the company said last month that it would shut down free chatrooms in around 30 countries - all bar the US, Canada and Japan - primarily to protect children from paedophiles operating online. However, the move was met with mixed responses, with ISP Freeserve describing it as a PR coup that could end up directing children to less safe chatrooms, while some analysts suggesting the company's motivation was purely business, as it looks to shed some of its non-paying users and increase profits through paid services.
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