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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."
Now where will all the 14 year old blonde lesbian goth chicks with piercings, and a fetish for cybering do once they clock off from work and head home to the wife and kids... .... so sad. . . soo truely sad it is....
Force of Will = Glue 'nuff said.
there were also lots of arabic rooms that the Al Queada may have been hanging out in,
Just reading this comment from you is scary. But perhaps not scary in the way you think... It's scary that your first thought about an arabic chat room is as a possible host for "Al Quaeda". Those darned terrorsts are everywhere now, aren't they? And yet 5 years ago you never even knew they existed.
Oh, but because I suggest that perhaps arabic chat rooms are NOT somewhere for Al-Quaeda to hang out, that must make me a terrorist too...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Yahoo has chat rooms associated with their yahoo groups - these are still active. They don't display ads on the way in. Group use ads when you view threads - every n items you read, you get to view (ignore) an ad.
I didn't realize that yahoo also had these ad-hoc chat rooms but that appears to be what's been shut down.
As several other posters have remarked, this kind of adult/child dialog is nothing new. Way back in the day, when CompuServe was master of the on-line universe and a 2400 baud modem was da bomb, I recall watching my 7 yo daughter chatting on-line on night. When I noticed someone say 'would it matter to you if I was a 27 yo male', I pulled the plug on her chat and permanently shut down her access to chat rooms.
While I don't condone pedophilia, PARENTS ARE OBLIGATED TO DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES HOW THEY WANT TO MANAGE THEIR CHILDREN'S ACCESS TO THE INTERNET. Please do NOT ask the government or buinesses to become the ethics police, that's MY job.
I realize it's damn near impossible, and not very healthy, to monitor your kids 24/7, but teaching your kids right and wrong is what we get paid to do - you pop one out and you get the responsibility that comes with the sex.