If I remember correctly (and it's been about 6 years or so since I bothered with IRC) for a fee, a chat room can be registered to a particular user who can set up scripts and grant "room kick" abilities to select individuals to prevent the spam problems. As I said, it's been some time since I messed with IRC, so all of that may have changed. One of the few problems I remember from IRC, however, is that the servers (if they get enough complaints) sometimes ban certain ISP (i.e. AOL users) from being able to access the chat rooms.

Another possibility would be AIM (a free chat app and most modern versions allow for the creation of an internet chat), I suppose, or possibly Yahoo though I have no experience with it.

GW