I use a Mac and the applet doesn't work correctly for me. To send a private message to the Merchant, type your message in the chat area and click the Whisper button. If you want to send your message to all customers in the Merchant's chat room, click the Send button. Whisper is the default setting for sending messages, and is automatically selected when pressing the Enter key.
Public messages appear in the message window without any label.
The chat applet is set by default to display any messages in public mode. Public messages can be seen by all members in a given chat room. By default, any communications in a product room can be seen by all members in the room and the Merchant. Any communications sent as Private will be seen only by you and the Merchant. Private communications are set up between a member and a Merchant only.