News Microsoft chatrooms close

From the Beeb:

MSN's free unmoderated chatrooms are shutting down in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Latin America and most of Asia.
The decision was announced by Microsoft at the end of September and was welcomed by children's charities as a positive step to ensuring safety online.

The move followed a spate of cases that provoked concern about unmoderated chatrooms being used by paedophiles to groom children for abuse.

But at the time of the decision major net service providers criticised the action as "irresponsible" and insisted it was driven by business motives rather than keeping children safe.

Net experts also warned it could drive vulnerable young people to other unmoderated chatrooms on the net.

More here.

As I said when this was first announced, this will have no effect on paedophiles "grooming". They'll just use different channels to do so.

And Microsoft's decision to close the chat rooms is more about money than keeping kids safe. Why is it that they'll still be open in the States, yet virtually every other territories version of them is being closed? $$$$'s, IMHO.