Child groups hail Microsoft decision

Child protection groups and charities today welcomed Microsoft's decision to close internet chatrooms in a bid to prevent paedophiles using them to groom youngsters for sex.

The computer giant, started in 1975 by its chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates, who has three children, announced plans today after high-profile cases where adults have posed as children to chat online to unsuspecting young people.

Childnet, the children's internet charity, gave its backing and chief executive Stephen Carrick-Davies said: "At a time when exciting virtual environments are being created with a blur between the boundaries of public and private, we must ensure children are always safe."

But several internet experts claim Microsoft's motivation was more financial than a genuine concern about the types of conversation taking place in chatrooms.

Ian Angell, professor of information systems at the London School of Economics, said there were "some very sound financial decisions" behind Microsoft's move to close its chatrooms.

"You have to look at Microsoft's decision as financial," he said. "Because the chatrooms were free, the more popular they became, the more it cost Microsoft to run them.

"They do not want to get sued if an abduction or rape of a child is linked to contact made in their chatrooms and they have to demonstrate they are talking proper care. They will need to monitor chatrooms properly and that costs money."

In Britain, there have been 15 cases of paedophiles abusing children after contacting them through the net.

This month, a 15-year-old schoolgirl was allegedly raped in Wigan by a man she met on a website who is said to have tricked her by claiming to be a teenager.

Former US marine Toby Studabaker has also been charged with abducting a 12-year-old girl he met in a chatroom.

Professor Angell believes the Microsoft move was unlikely to make any immediate change to the risk of paedophiles grooming children and said the decision would result in children finding other chatrooms where it might be even more difficult to trace paedophiles.

However, NSPCC's internet safety expert Chris Atkinson backed Microsoft's move and said it would help close a major supply line for sex abusers who go to great lengths to gain access to innocent children by grooming them online.

"For too long we have been told by the internet industry that chatrooms are global and nothing could be done to stop their escalation and their use by adults who target children.

"Microsoft is showing this is not the case and we hope other internet service providers and chatroom providers take similar action to allow children to use the internet safely."

Microsoft said its UK chat services will close on 14 October. However, it will continue to run chatrooms in America, but customers will have to provide credit card details before they log on.

Microsoft's European general manager, Geoff Sutton, said the company had taken its decision because of growing evidence that sexual predators were using chatrooms to find victims.

"The internet is a fantastic tool but no child should ever give out an email address, never reveal who they are and never agree to meet anyone they've met over the internet."

But Rachel O'Connell, director of the cyberspace research unit at Lancaster University, who has been investigating paedophiles and the internet since 1996, warned that killing off chatrooms would not wipe out paedophilia online.