Yahoo! blasted for chat room apathy By Wendy McAuliffe, ZDNet (UK) November 9, 2000 11:55 AM PT URL: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2652022,00.html?chkpt=zdnnstop Two leading children's charities have lambasted Internet giant Yahoo! for the way it runs its Instant Messaging service and chat rooms. Following an investigation by ZDNet UK News, Nigel Williams, director of Childnet International, expressed concern at the way Yahoo! runs adult-rated chats on the main screen of its instant chat service, Messenger. Williams is also founder of Chatdanger.com, a site looking into the dangers of Internet chat rooms. Childnet set up Chatdanger.com in October to coincide with the sentencing of Internet pedophile Patrick Green. Williams explained that Chatdanger.com was designed to "raise awareness among children and parents about the potential dangers of unmoderated Internet chat rooms, and to seek to put pressure on those companies providing chat to do more to protect children." 'Misused' chat rooms But Williams' hopes for companies to adopt a more proactive approach to running chat rooms appears to be in direct contrast to Yahoo!'s policy. Catherine Taylor, marketing director at Yahoo!, explained Wednesday: "We will only take it down (a room or chat area) if it breaks the law or if it is inciting to break the law." While Yahoo!'s chat rooms break no laws, Williams thinks it inappropriate for a family-oriented service to allow rooms like "pre-teen sex" and "11 to 19 year old sluts" (as displayed on Yahoo! Messenger's chat room list) to be made available to children. John Carr, Internet consultant at NCH Action for Children, says Yahoo!'s policy is "completely reprehensible." "Yahoo! is being very irresponsible, as they know that chat rooms are being misused by pedophiles. They are Pontius Pilate, and have washed their hands of this new world that they are creating." Last week, Yahoo!'s Messenger client was upgraded to Version 3.5. On launch, the new client highlighted rooms with clear pedophile themes from the opening screen. Chat rooms alluding to discussion threads clearly inappropriate for children remain accessible. In fact, they're merely one click away from the opening screen to anyone using Yahoo! IM; this is despite the fact that days after launch, the company placed the rooms deeper into the service. Yahoo!: Censorship isn't the answer Yahoo! told ZDNet it was working with Childnet in educating children about the dangers of using chat rooms. However, for Williams that is not enough. "Yahoo! has to recognize that because they are a leading Web site, they have a responsibility to set some industry standards on this issue. The nature of their chat and their users is of great concern," he said. Yahoo! maintains that censorship is not the way to deal with the dangers associated with using chat rooms. "We wouldn't censor the chat rooms through subjective decisions such as someone not liking gays," Taylor said. Taylor reiterated that Yahoo! would only remove a room if it was found to contain illegal content. Yahoo! has confirmed that it does not employ staff to check whether illegal content is being posted in its chat rooms. Recent research by media magazine Campaign Magazine found teenagers to spend an average of 191.2 minutes a month on Yahoo! Messenger, making it the most popular "site" (sic) in that age group. Taylor said "it has a very high usage amongst teens." She also insists that Yahoo! discourages children under the age of 13 from registering with its products. Childnet is unhappy, however, that the warnings are deeply embedded in the text. Williams said he is pursuing the site to have warnings placed higher on the service. "We're waiting for Yahoo! to get back to us about a meeting. I emailed them at the beginning of the week. ... We're not going to let this go and we will continue to push Yahoo! further." Following conversations with Yahoo! Wednesday, requests for reaction to Williams' and Carr's comments have gone unanswered. -- archive: http://theMezz.com/cybercrime/archive unsubscribe: cybercrime-alerts [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] url: http://theMezz.com/alerts ___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
