Ulterior Motives…

Microsoft announced today that they are terminating MSN Chat services in Europe and parts of Asia while leaving services in North America virtually intact. Their rationale states they are taking this action because of pedophilia and concerns over children’s safety. But is that their real motive? Is the risk of children encountering a pedophile in a chat room any less because the child lives in the US? Canada? Japan? My bet is it is not. Isn’t it too big a happy coincidence that Microsoft is still being investigated for monopolistic practices in Europe, that parts of the German government have defected to Linux, that parts of Asian business communities have also defected to Linux, and that China has developed its own operating system in an effort to boot Windows out of the country; and those appear to be the some of the target areas for the MSN chat shutdown? MSN stated they will allow paid subscribers in the US, Canada, and Japan unsupervised access to chat. All in all, my bet is that this has more to do with money than with child security. It’s Microsoft being their typical selves.