Users of Microsoft's instant-messaging service found themselves unable to share links to YouTube videos on Friday evening and Saturday morning, sparking brief worries of a possible Microsoft-led effort to block access to the Google-owned video-sharing site.
Microsoft said in a blog posting Sunday that the issue was a mistake made by the third party that handles blocking of potentially unsafe content for MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger.
"As some of you noticed, we had a problem from Friday night to Saturday morning where our Messenger service was incorrectly blocking some legitimate IP addresses," a Microsoft employee said on the company's Messenger blog. "We sincerely apologize for any difficulties this caused our users."
The company thanked users to alerting it to the problem. "Because of your help, the incorrect block was only in place for a few hours."
Microsoft also tried to throw cold water on some of the "outlandish speculation" on the cause of the problem.
"Microsoft did not request to block any of the URLs that were accidentally blocked," it said in the blog. "The blocks were made by our partner as a result of their process to block harmful URLs. We are still investigating the specific reason our partner made these incorrect blocks and we will work with them to improve their process for detecting harmful URLs while not blocking safe ones."
Updated at 10:35 a.m. to note that the product has been released.
Microsoft released the latest version of its instant-messaging program for the Mac on Tuesday, though it still continues to trail its Windows counterpart when it comes to features.
The biggest change in Messenger 7 for Mac is the ability for corporate users running Office Communications Server to engage in video and audio chats with one another. For non-corporate users, the biggest changes are the ability to give nicknames to contacts and search within one's list of contacts.
Microsoft declined to offer any update on when video chat for consumers would arrive.
"We provided a look at our roadmap late last year and we remain on track--delivering A/V support to our corporate users and continuing to work with the Windows Live team to make A/V support available for (consumers)," senior marketing manager Amanda Lefebvre said in a statement.
Video chat has been available for some time on the Windows side and is a staple of Apple's iChat instant-messaging program, which is compatible with AOL's instant-messaging program, but not buddy lists from Yahoo or MSN/Windows Live.
I couldn't find a live link to Messenger 7 on Microsoft's Mac site on Tuesday, but I'll update the blog with a link when it goes live.
Update: It's now available from Microsoft's Mac downloads page and from CNET Download.com.
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