By Bernhard Warner, European Internet Correspondent LONDON (Reuters) - Microsoft has announced it will shut down its Internet chat rooms in 28 countries, saying the forums have become a haven for sex predators. "The straightforward truth of the matter is free unmoderated chat isn't safe," said Geoff Sutton, European general manager of Microsoft MSN, told Reuters. From October 14, the software giant will shut down its MSN chat services in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and much of Latin America, forcing millions of message board users to find alternative online forums to discuss the topics of the day. In those regions, said Microsoft, the chat was free and unsupervised, giving rise to a nefarious element that bombarded users with "spam" mail, much of which was pornographic and, in some cases, allowing paedophiles to prey on children. The decision has triggered a heated debate among free speech advocates, children's rights groups and Microsoft rivals about the proper way to police online forums, which predate the Web itself and have been critical to the Internet's growth as a mass medium.
Err like there are a couple of paedophiles, and a few million innocent users! Oh people in the US will be delighted to know that they will still have Chat, but they have to pay for it ::)
Incredible isn't the word.
Ozzy
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