Suggested Instant Messaging Providers

For work, I need to sign up for a instant messaging account using a free provider of my choice. Common suggestions include Yahoo, MSN, Gmail, and AOL.

I plan to use a free third-party client--perhaps Pidgin or something rather than the provider's proprietary client.

In my deep dark past, I used to work for a marketing company, and I know not to trust Yahoo, MSN, Gmail, or AOL, given their underhanded, behind the scenes, "don't overtly tell and hopefully no one will ask or find it in buried in the legalese goop (aka Terms and Conditions)" methods of automating the marketing experience for users.

Do any of you know of any relatively ethical and free Instant Messaging providers?

Your work requires you to have an IM account under any provider? I would expect it to be one that the business uses.

Anyway, I don't know exactly what your specific concerns are, but at a previous job, we used AIM with Pidgin and the OTR plugin. The OTR plugin is basically a very simple-to-use encryption scheme that allowed us to discuss company plans over AIM.

At my last job, at a far bigger company, we used an internal XMPP server that never reached the open waters of the Internet.

The only IM system that I can think of that isn't controlled by Evil Corporate Overlords (TM) would be XMPP, since anyone can run their own server. Maybe try looking into that.

Thank you. I found some possible solutions.

I installed Pidgin client, and set up an XMPP account through Programmer-art.org - Home

My point of reference was Main Page - JabberWiki

I'll install and try it out tomorrow.