MSN's Free chatrooms are shutting down today in the UK & Europe and other countries across the world.
Microsoft made it clear in September that these changes would begin on October the 14th. The idea is to protect children from known chat paedophiles. However, MSN kept the whole idea of "Subscription Based" Chat very quiet at the time but now we have reached the deadline (14th October) all users wanting to use MSN Chat will now require a subscription to MSN 8/9 accordingly.
If you don't have an MSN 8/9 subscription then you can buy a subscription to MSN Chat for $19.95 a year which includes Hotmail extra storage. As far as we know MSN 8/9 customers have the Chat bundle in their MSN 8/9 subscription.
Screenshot: View New Subscription Offers For MSN Chat
News source: In-House