Chatroulette: Still Naked, Still No Privacy, Now Illegal

Welcome back to Chatroulette. We hope you enjoy exposing yourself to strangers across the world one at a time. But we’re going to help police arrest you, because that works for us.

Actually, I like this.

Ever since I mentioned Chatroulette a few months back, my words on how ridiculous Chatroulette is have been a big draw here; we get traffic every day to this post about Chatroulette, and I suspect the reason is that we were the first to point out the issues with geocoding pictures of naked masturbating people.

Vist Chatroulette.com now and you see this ominous warning:

Welcome to our site. Enjoy your time here.

Warning: Broadcasting inappropriate content to minors is a violation of both US and UN law.
We are actively cooperating with law enforcement agencies.

Yeah, that’s right. It might not have occurred to you when you dropped your pants for all the world to see, but “all the world” includes minors. And exposing yourself to minors is illegal in many places.

Well, as NewTeeVee.com reports, Chatroulette is now cooperating with law enforcement officials who ask for help identifying naked people. And this isn’t a freedom of expression issue, it’s a “what the heck is happening on the Internet?” issue.

Or it’s about business. Chatroulette is a cool enough idea in a “social networking is what the Internet is really about and Chatroulette is a form of social networking” way, but there’s no good way for a small operation to police everything that happens on their site. So let’s let the police do our policing! It’s free, and we look like good guys!

What if your next business change included a way to let others make your change for you?