It seems that one Santa had a little too much ho-ho-ho at the expense of Microsoft. Last year, the company instigated AIs at northpole@live.com for kids to add to their Windows Live Messenger contact list. When a reader in the UK noticed that his young nieces had been talking to it this year, he also noted that their conversation turned from talking about eating pizza to another subject we will refer to as “more mature.”

Spokesperson Adam Sohn says, “If they’re meant to be cheeky and have fun with you, they may repeat certain things back,” he said, or respond to certain words with “that’s naughty.”

Although they tried to clean up its act, they finally shut down the service, undoubtedly fearing now that the word was out, others might be tempted to push it to its limit.