So Google has adopted Jabber/XMPP as the core of their new Google Talk service. They provide a dedicated Windoze client, but they make a point of showing that any Jabber/XMPP client can connect to their service, a nice contrast to the other IM services that change their closed protocols that result in breaking free software clients.

Paranoid people should note that the Google Talk Privacy Policy says:

Google Talk does not archive the contents of your text or voice communications on Google’s servers, and we will not archive such contents on our servers without your express permission and clear notification to all our users.

The only wrinkle I’ve found so far is that Google Talk doesn’t interoperate with other Jabber servers at the moment (from what I can see). Which kind of misses the point 🙁