Hi all, I have had time to read the replies and thanks for brushing up my ethics and legal studies with your comments. My point needs explaining. I chat at yahoo. Recently more chatters are from Pakistan. Sometimes people do not tolerate them based on their foreign origin. I started chatting with one particular person. He always bless's me. I assume in his culture which I know very little about this is a norm much like we in Canada might ask "how's it going?" or "how are you today?" as a conversational norm. Just a little detail. I should not have put my question as universal ethics (blame my past computer ethics course with Diane Dubrule) but rather intercultural exploration. There are still so many people to meet on the Internet. Unicode and XML as Larry Wall suggests will make it even easier to talk with others. What was once an unrealistic hope of cross culturalism via Internet is I think becoming easier to access and more realistic. Mostly because more of the world in "other" places is getting on-line now. Lucky for me they know a little English. ;) Peter Timusk B.Math Just trying to stay linear www.crystalcomputing.net >blog> http://logbook.crystalcomputing.net www.webpagex.org >blog> http://notebook.webpagex.org eof