MSN says MSN Messenger is not running contextual ads based on users' conversations, as recent reports suggest, reports DM News. "MSN Messenger advertisements are based on demographic information the user provides when creating their Passport account, such as age, gender, language, zip code and country," said David Jakubowski, general manager of MSN Search Strategy and Go-to-Market.

Some have raised the concern that the ads would be targeted to users' IM chats, which would cause concern among privacy advocates - as when Google announced Gmail would serve up contextually relevant ads to its email users.

Also, so far, MSN Messenger is not serving ads directly from its pilot paid search ad program, adCenter. "Text ads are not linked to adCenter, but we are continually monitoring the platform and will make updates as applicable," Jakubowski said.