MSN chatrooms officially offline
14 October 2003
Following the announcement of a decision at the end of last month Microsoft has today closed its free unmoderated chatrooms.
MSN chatrooms across the UK, Europe, Middle East, Latin America and most of Asia are now unavailable for use in a move that has been welcomed by children's charities.
The decision to close the chatrooms arose from concerns that young web users were becoming increasing vulnerable to exploitation via those services.
The move has found some criticism from those claiming MSN is driven primarily by business motives, and some experts have warned that children could be driven to even less secure chatrooms in the future.
Rachel O'Connell, research director at the University of Central Lancashire's Cyberspace Research Unit, recently commented: 'If parents are celebrating this as good because it's the end of the problem, it's not. All it's done is change the problem.'
'It's the perfect opportunity for paedophiles to exploit,' she told the BBC.
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