Microsoft is pulling the plug on all its British Internet chatrooms amid growing concerns that they are being inappropriately used by paedophiles.Jamie Smyth and Helen Carter report.
The decision was applauded by children's charities yesterday and is likely to put pressure on other Internet providers to withdraw chatrooms, many of which are visited by Irish children.
From October 14th, tens of thousands of chatrooms run by MSN UK - the Internet arm of Bill Gates' Microsoft empire - will close. Users will be given two weeks' notice of the decision when they log on to chatroom sites today.
Microsoft's British chatrooms, which are used by 1.2 million people a month, are attractive for Irish children because they use the English language. Other popular chatrooms in the Republic include Ireland On-Line, boards.ie and Yahoo UK/Ireland.
In Dublin, Barnardos chief executive, Mr Owen Keenan, said last night it was a good decision by Microsoft as there was no doubt chatrooms had been used to trap children. He said the issue of paedophiles grooming children online was a problem that needed an international solution.
Chatrooms have an increasingly tarnished reputation as they offer computer users a cloak of anonymity. They have been repeatedly used by paedophiles to groom young children.
A series of cases involving children abused by adults they encountered in Internet chatrooms has precipitated Microsoft's decision. There have been at least 26 court cases in Britain involving child abuse which have been directly linked to chatrooms. In June this year, Michael Wheeler (36), of Cambridge in south-west England, was jailed for three years after pleading guilty to 11 sex offences against young girls. He had abused two 13-year-olds after making contact with them via a chatroom.
MSN UK said the move was to help safeguard children from inappropriate communication online.
Ms Gillian Kent, director of MSN UK, said: "Ninety-nine per cent of chat has been used appropriately by people. It is only a small number of people who abuse the service - but it is really serious abuse. There are spammers who use it as a way of peddling their wares - a lot of it porn - and then there are the perverts. We want to make msn.co.uk a safer place and we have been working on this for a couple of years with the children's charities. - (Additional reporting Guardian service)