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Yahoo! Closes User Created Chat Rooms
karvind writes "Chatmag News reports that Yahoo! has disabled all the User-created Chat rooms. According to Yahoo's chat log page:'The ability to publish user-created chat rooms in the public Yahoo! Chat directory is currently unavailable. We are working on improvements to this service to enhance the user experience and compliance with our Terms of Service'. This may be true but Yahoo! is also facing a $10 million lawsuit that accuses it of cashing in on some disturbing chat rooms. The companies are paying huge fees for their ads to appear on Yahoo!. But many are now canceling those ads because of the report."
I know the freedom of speech zealots will cry wolf over this but I'm very glad to see this happen. Although the room names don't imply that something illicit is going on, it would be nice if there was a way to keep kids chat rooms for kids and adult chat rooms for adults. Yahoo has been VERY lax about this in the past and it's good to see them make an effort. Even if it's being forced by a lawsuit.
My sig of choice is Marlboro
All Yahoo chat rooms :
joeuser: where are the ladies
joeuser2: HI R U FEM?
adbot: jargonlkjdsfhgnbfoo
adbot2: 25/f/perfect nudexxxpics.sex.ws click here for my pics!
Followed by the hammering of your desktop full of randomly generated adult website advertisments and emails. Things have gotten so bad with the bots that people are relying on 3rd party programs to block the sheer amount of crap that an average yahoo user receives every day.
I'd honestly say a good 30-40% of the "users" in the rooms are adult website advertisement bots. I've spent a few minutes on this comment and I already received at least a dozen bogus IM's / ads from them. The news about companies not wanting to deal with yahoo's obvious chat room problems doesn't suprise me in the least, I say good riddance.
Not surprising at all...
Microsoft's media portal in australia, "ninemsn" (think msnbc) recently had to explain how it failed to notice its members had set up a "Rape Club" chatroom devoted to discussions a photos of, er, rape.
I just tried to track down a link through google news.
Which (at the moment) leads to a news article on ninemsn (!) Amusingly, follow the link and receive:
"The article you have requested does not exist"
Tinfoil hats ahoy! Instead, try this link to read about the whole sordid affair:
"Yes, more legislation is required. The law has not kept up with this type of criminal activity," U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, told the Houston television station KPRC." With a nod from Gitmo Gonzales ""Short of changes in the law in Congress, we may be limited about what we can do in this area," U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said."
It's yet another shenanigan and publicity stunt by a *Texas Republican* and a Texas local TV station. I resent that the article submitter did not mention that. Not that I ever was fond of the bot-infested Yahoo chat, but the action of those US Talibans reeks of stink; we found something we didn't like on this thing, nevermind that we shouldn't have been looking for it in the first place, so we'll mess it up *ALL*, for all, and let's take a chance and excuse to legislate!
Remember that 'sexy cheerleading' legislation?! I hate those folks; buckle up for their attempts, onslaught after first step, to legislate their morality and force it upon all!