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Mary
SearchIRC Admin
Joined: 03 May 2003
Posts: 692
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 Posted: Sep 24, 2003 7:41am Post subject: Microsoft to shut down "unsafe" chatrooms |
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http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,60567,00.html
| Quote: | LONDON -- Microsoft said Wednesday it would shut down its Internet chat rooms in 28 countries, saying the forums had become a haven for peddlers of junk e-mail and sex predators.
The straightforward truth of the matter is free, unmoderated chat isn't safe," said Geoff Sutton, European general manager of Microsoft MSN. |
| Quote: | "This is a decision based upon consumer experiences, child protection and our strategic investment to build up MSN Messenger," Sutton said. Microsoft competes with AOL Time Warner's Internet unit and Yahoo in the hotly contested instant-messaging market.
The U.S. software giant has been putting more weight behind its messenger service, including plans to license it to business customers and integrate it more closely with its money-losing MSN Web service.
Some applauded the move, saying other Internet companies should follow Microsoft's lead in pulling the plug on unsupervised, anonymous chat areas. |
| Quote: | Rivals, including AOL, Yahoo and British Internet service provider Freeserve, said the Microsoft move would not make them rethink their chat policies.
"Chat is one of the most popular tools on the Internet and it's not going to go away," a spokeswoman for Freeserve said. |
I like how they leave out IRC. I guess only 15,000 user commercial services count, not the ONE MILLION PEOPLE sitting on IRC right now. :p
Comments? |
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Mary
SearchIRC Admin
Joined: 03 May 2003
Posts: 692
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Trusler
none
Joined: 14 Sep 2003
Posts: 30
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| Posted: Sep 24, 2003 11:41am Post subject: |
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What a great opportunity for IRC servers that are well run to shine and capture some of this market share.  |
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Mary
SearchIRC Admin
Joined: 03 May 2003
Posts: 692
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| Posted: Sep 24, 2003 12:22pm Post subject: |
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Absolutely.
There are two issue I think its important to address -
1) ease of use. a few /.'ers brought up the fact that its very easy to use MSN, AOL, etc, while a user has to download an IRC client, install it, look for a network and channel, then learn complicated commands to use IRC. I think SearchIRC does a pretty good job in the point, click and join department, and every IRC network can add their SearchIRC channel list to their website, giving users instant access to any channel that interests them. (I know a lot of you use pjirc instead of jpilot... I think Jason can be harassed into making the switch if thats the preferred java client). By centralizing "IRC" and making it very simple to access, I believe those who use commercial services would prefer what we offer over the subscription services.
2) the perception that IRC is unsafe for children. I know quite a bit about this subject (resume on request). There are pedophiles on IRC. There are likely pedophiles in your neighborhood too. The difference is, parents are physically protective of their children - they wouldn't dream of letting their ten year old go stand out on the highway, or roam around a mall on their own, but they have no hesitation putting their child at a keyboard without any supervision whatsoever. There is nothing "wrong" with IRC. Whats "wrong" is, parents don't understand the internet is just another public place where (for their sake AND ours) children need to be supervised. But there's the rub. Parents will turn to services like AOL and MSN, that are NO safer than general IRC networks, but have used carefully worded propaganda (like saying FREE chatrooms aren't safe) to mislead parents into using their pay chats. |
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Trusler
none
Joined: 14 Sep 2003
Posts: 30
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| Posted: Sep 24, 2003 1:15pm Post subject: |
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I'm working hard to try to make DarkeIRC as easy to use as possible - a web client, and a pretty good help area on our web site about how to utilize IRC. I hope this ease of use issue will become a more permeable barrier with these kinds of initiatives. I know you all do similar here on SearchIRC, and I think it is great.
To the concern of appropriateness for children all I can say is this - there is no subsitute for good parental supervision of a child's activities, whether outdoors or on a computer. |
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Bayou-Ru|er
Newbie
Joined: 30 Jul 2003
Posts: 75
Location: 3rd Rock from the Sun
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| Posted: Sep 24, 2003 7:45pm Post subject: |
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| Well its not much different from when a few years back they closed there IRC servers, which spured the boom in IRC servers poping up a dime a dozen |
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Darkie
none
Joined: 03 Jan 2004
Posts: 13
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uchat
Idler
Joined: 17 Mar 2004
Posts: 335
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| Posted: Mar 17, 2004 9:24pm Post subject: |
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we don't need no steeking MSN!  |
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Griff
none
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 18
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| Posted: May 06, 2004 12:08pm Post subject: Re: Microsoft to shut down "unsafe" chatrooms |
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| mregit wrote: |
I like how they leave out IRC. I guess only 15,000 user commercial services count, not the ONE MILLION PEOPLE sitting on IRC right now. :p
Comments? |
I;ll tell you why, because IRC is advertisement free, Aol even their Aim contains Advertisement, and MSN don't get me started. And isnt all the information relayed thought their servers? So like every word you ever speak is realayed though their own serves, thats why when Aol or MSN networks ever go down for maintance thats why you are unable to log in.
Notice they didnt mention ICQ either, most of the names that they mentioned are commercial big brother companies. Ran by Huge Economicle Super Powers.
Its sad the days of irc are not like they use to be
IRC, developed by Jarkko Oikarinen of Finland in 1988, allows people connected anywhere on the Internet to join in live discussions. Each discussion is on a "channel," and many people can join at once. DALnet was one of the earliest IRC networks, formed by users of EFnet (Eris Free Network) in June 1994 because of the netsplits (caused when the connection of one or more servers in a network is broken) and lag that were plaguing that network. DALnet pioneered Services, which allowed users to control their presence online without being harassed or having channels stolen from under them. |
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Guest
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| Posted: May 06, 2004 7:54pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Notice they didnt mention ICQ either |
| Quote: | | I like how they leave out IRC |
Do a little research... AOL owns ICQ. Does it say "AIM and YIM"? No, it says "AOL and Yahoo" so why would you expect them to mention a *product* when they are talking about companies? Furthermore, you'll notice that ICQ runs an IRC server (IrCQ). And even AOL runs one, irc.aol.com (EFnet). So saying that ICQ and IRC were leftout is not true. AOL includes AIM, ICQ, and IRC. |
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uchat
Idler
Joined: 17 Mar 2004
Posts: 335
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| Posted: May 07, 2004 1:56am Post subject: |
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AOL includes AIM, ICQ, and IRC.
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IRC is *not* included in AOL because AOL doesn't *own* IRC. IRC is a protocol .. not a company, service or product.
AOL can close all of their IRC servers and IRC it's self wouldn't be affected too much simply because the users that use that server, irc.aol.com for example, would simply pick another server on that network.
I've found throughout my travels that users care more about what network they use than which server. So let the big companies pull out. |
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codemastr
Idler
Joined: 05 Feb 2004
Posts: 353
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| Posted: May 07, 2004 5:19pm Post subject: |
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| So they should have interviewed thousands of different IRC admins? Did you think perhaps that's why they didn't include IRC? To talk about AIM, you talk to one person. To talk about IRC you talk to 5 thousand. |
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Zao
Newbie
Joined: 23 Dec 2003
Posts: 84
Location: IRC
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| Posted: May 07, 2004 7:33pm Post subject: |
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| Anonymous wrote: | | Quote: | | Notice they didnt mention ICQ either |
| Quote: | | I like how they leave out IRC |
Do a little research... AOL owns ICQ. Does it say "AIM and YIM"? No, it says "AOL and Yahoo" so why would you expect them to mention a *product* when they are talking about companies? Furthermore, you'll notice that ICQ runs an IRC server (IrCQ). And even AOL runs one, irc.aol.com (EFnet). So saying that ICQ and IRC were leftout is not true. AOL includes AIM, ICQ, and IRC. |
irc.aol.com has been gone for quite some time now. |
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Mary
SearchIRC Admin
Joined: 03 May 2003
Posts: 692
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| Posted: May 07, 2004 8:53pm Post subject: |
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| codemastr wrote: | | So they should have interviewed thousands of different IRC admins? Did you think perhaps that's why they didn't include IRC? To talk about AIM, you talk to one person. To talk about IRC you talk to 5 thousand. |
Reporters regularly cover congessional hearings, governor's conferences, international organizations, wars, and other events where hundreds, thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people give equal representation to the group. The news would be rather tedious if every single member of Congress was interviewed each time there was a law up for vote. Instead, reporters select a few representatives and single them out for questioning.
Any media publishing a quote such as, "The straightforward truth of the matter is free, unmoderated chat isn't safe," has an obligation to interview at least a few of the people involved in world's oldest and largest free, unmoderated chat system to get an opposing view.
Instead the reporter got opinions from competing commercial instant message providers. This is like ignoring all the Democrats and interviewing ONLY the Republicans in Congress. The result is a one sided, highly innaccurate picture. |
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