MSN shuts down its chatrooms

in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and most of Asia from 14 October

[georgeek]

Others will follow I expect.

News here [news.bbc.co.uk].

[jbinbpt]

Yup, you beat me to it....

In no way am I not expressing outrage about this, but it is an interesting development. The big M$ has decided that there are good countries and bad countries. FT Article [news.ft.com]

Instead of policing the content of their chat rooms, M$ has decided that they really don’t need every one in the world except those in Canada, United States and Japan.

Is it me or did the WWW just get a little smaller?

[mack]

sounds more to me like chat wasn't profitable?

Mack.

[jbinbpt]

You mean MWW instead of WWW?

[Chuma]

Sounds like the farmer in Australia who blew off his toes with a shotgun because a snake bit him.

Many teenagers and people who only use the web to chat to their friends will stop using the internet all together unless someone steps in to fill the gap.

Thanks.

[pendanticist]

From the perspective of Familial, National, or World security, I have to say it's a good idea to throttle the open atmosphere within un-moderated chatrooms for a variety of reasons. I just happen to believe that certain aspects of the Internet have been far too open for too long. <-My personal view.

On the other hand, when you think about it: How much of what has been free or easily accessible, has gone the wayside in favor of pay, or subscription accounts in the past?

Look to WebmasterWorld for a perfect example of 'what once was totally free' is now partially subcription based.

One then has to ask: "How much of anything that's currently free on the Internet would one realistically expect to remain free?"

The Internet has, and will continue to evolve.

Pendanticist.

[ken_b]

"How much of anything that's currently free on the Internet would one realistically expect to remain free?"

Interesting thought. I recently saw a site similar to mine in topic and was interested to see that a portion of their content was on a subscription basis.

I'm not ready to jump on that bandwagon. But it did make me wonder what kind of traffic they have to make that work.

Maybe that's another thread though.

[killroy]

But isn't the larger issue about free communication and expression on the net? Isn't that what made it popular and viable for hte masses anyways?

I feel like we're in trouble if we cannot afford to have what kick-started the web in the first place. Maybe it's back to p2p chat (like mailing lists or newsgroups?) without central authority that can be blamed and sued.

I feel really uncomfortable with this discarding of our roots. What will replace that?

SN

[DaveN]

another article here

[media.guardian.co.uk...]

DaveN

[dcheney]

Its curious how some things - like IRC chat - has remained free (and commercial free) now for a very long time.

[Shak]

nothing like a good pr story, when shutting down a loss making operation

Shak

[gopi]

Exactly shak , IMO M$ got two apples with a single stone ... Cut the lost making operation (which have little chance in the future to be monetized ) all in the name of Protecting Kids/Curbing terrorism and gaining a little Goodwill/PR in the process :)

[EliteWeb]

MSN hires chat moderators for their rooms so it is quite possible whatever they were doing it wasnt becomming profitable. Guess it wasnt just a software up and running instead it had workers behind it too.

/me is not a chat moderator nor has he used MSN chat.

[plumsauce]

Perhaps it has something to do with the new
privacy laws that the EU is mandating.

The story was posted in /. in July/23ish about
the law as it was implemented in Sweden.

Basically, the user must be informed, and consent
given before certain usages and aggregations of cookies.

Maybe the operation was not tenable under these new
disclosure requirements.

Doe MSN use Passport, and does Passport use cookies?

++++

[HughMungus]

I think Microsoft's choices were either to have unmoderated chat and continue to deal with the legal hassles or to have moderated chat and pay people to moderate it and I doubt the latter would be profitable. Anyone who has ever interacted in any kind of unmoderated environment can tell you that it is not a nice environment and very open to abuse. Once again, a handful of idiots ruin it for everyone.