MSN have recently announced that they are to close down their free chat rooms. Cynics say that the only reason for doing this is to introduce charges, although I'm not so sure.

Microsoft could be worried about future litigation from people affected by what has happened whilst in the Microsoft chat rooms years ago. Something along the lines of actions taken against schools that failed in their duty of care to prevent child abuse.

Either way it is a worrying development whenever technology is withdrawn because to me it implies failure to govern effectively that technology. My old hobby horse of humans always being the masters of the technology.