Comment 8 for bug 444170

I think this is still a bug.

If the user menu (indicator-session-applet?) is so keen on interacting with Empathy and Empathy alone, it should ignore Pidgin's status changes. I believe it should remain grey when pidgin starts up, and perhaps not even show the little baloon icon at all when Empathy/telepathy/whatever is not active and online. Personally, I don't care much for the duplicate status options or indicators, and I don't care much for the no-option type of program Empathy is, so I really dislike being forced to reconsider by situations like this one.

Anyway, I think it's definitely wrong that the applet matches the same status that you enter through Pidgin, but when you change the status through him, it insists on starting up Empathy.