Yahoo limits chat rooms after kids targeted for sex

The leading Internet portal, Yahoo, has stopped letting its users set up their own online chat rooms, after a TV news report that some people were using the service to solicit sexual encounters with children.

''We began implementing the changes to Yahoo Chat user rooms in the past week," said spokeswoman Mary Osako, who added that Yahoo planned to resume the service at some future date. ''We are working on improvements to enhance the user experience in compliance with our terms of service," which forbid obscene communications. In the meantime, Osako said, Yahoo users will be able to chat, but only in rooms Yahoo sets up and maintains.

Osako refused to say whether the policy was inspired by a news report on a Houston TV station, KPRC. The station found that some men were using digital cameras to post pornographic images in chat rooms, while advertising their desire for sex with underage girls.

The Yahoo chat service is free to users, generating its revenue from companies that display advertisements on the chatters' computer screens.

Several major chat room advertisers, including PepsiCo Inc., State Farm Insurance, and Georgia-Pacific Corp., dropped their ads after learning of the KPRC report.

''We were thoroughly appalled when we were told that our ads were appearing on those sites," State Farm spokesman Phil Supple said. ''We took immediate action to see that they were withdrawn."

This isn't the first time an Internet service has restricted chat room usage because of concerns about child exploitation. In 2003, Microsoft eliminated its MSN chat room services outside the United States and required American users to be paying customers of the company -- both efforts to weed out pedophiles.

The America Online Internet service gives its members considerable leeway, including the ability to set up private rooms for adults-only conversations. But spokesman Nicholas Graham said AOL has strict rules to protect children.

''We do not allow adult access to Kids Only chat areas, which are monitored 24/7," said Graham, in an interview conducted over AOL's instant messaging system. In addition, AOL users can obtain screen names for their children that bar them from all adult chats.

And even adults must watch what they say on AOL. The rules allow for the disconnection of users who engage in illegal activities, or who transmit messages that are ''vulgar, obscene, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable."

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com. Material from Globe wire services was used in this report.