According to Ruslan Kogan this is the world's first Internet Explorer 7 "tax".
Posted on 06/15/2012 8:11:39 AM PDT by ShadowAce
According to Ruslan Kogan this is the world's first Internet Explorer 7 "tax".
The Australian online retailer Kogan.com has introduced the world's first "tax" on Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) browser.
Customers who use IE7 will have to pay an extra surcharge on online purchases made through the firm's site.
Chief executive Ruslan Kogan told the BBC he wanted to recoup the time and costs involved in "rendering the website into a antique browser".
The charge is set to 6.8% - 0.1% for every month since the IE7 launch.
Every month the surcharge will rise by 0.1%.
According to Mr Kogan the idea was born when the company started working on a site relaunch.
Mr Kogan said that even though only 3% of his customers used the old version of the browser, his IT team had become pre-occupied with making adaptations to make pages display properly on IE 7.
"I was constantly on the line to my web team. The amount of work and effort involved in making our website look normal on IE7 equalled the combined time of designing for Chrome, Safari and Firefox."
Mr Kogan said it was unlikely that anyone would actually pay the charges. His goal is to encourage users to download a more up-to-date version of Internet Explorer or a different browser.
Mr Kogan told the BBC his customers were very happy and he had received a lot of praise for his efforts.
"Love your IE7 tax. I hope it becomes effective" was one of the messages posted to Kogan on Twitter.
IE7 was launched in 2006, but since then Microsoft has released two major updates to the software.
The launch of Internet Explorer 10 is due in the autumn.
Unless his website or offerings are extra special, his customers will just move to competitors rather than paying the surcharge.
If he does not support my browser, I will sue.
I’m OK. I’m using IE5
Or--follow me closely here--they may just perform the free upgrade to a supported browser.
Nothing special on the website....and not a lot of products....
I'm suing you both for making the Internet a worse place than it was yesterday.
Go for the Gold .... backtrack to Netscape!!
Churchill’s prediction is coming true, that “the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”
It predates Netscape.
I am so cool. I'm using it right now.
In some cases the upgrade of Explorer isn't supported unless you upgrade Windows. For instance Windows XP users cannot upgrade to Explorer 9. At work, I'm stuck with Explorer 8 because my company hasn't upgraded past XP. Probably similar issues for people who haven't upgraded from older versions of Windows.
Then upgrade to a supported browser like Firefox.
Giving Microsoft ideas...NEXT:
The WinXP Tax
Upgrade, damn you peole!
Churchill was talking about First Person Shooter games.
This is more of a stupidity than a “tax”. Many people simply won’t buy from this jackass, which I’m sure will lead him to increase “taxes” even further to cover the lost revenue. And on and on until he’s out of business. Idiot.
If the company was the Aussie equivalent of Amazon.Com, he could probably push people into doing exactly that.
But since he apparently is just one of a zillion websites out there, he probably won't.
Disclosure: My wife sells Avon. Most of the customers she has picked up are little old ladies who like the catalog, the product guidance which she gives by phone and will never order direct via their website. She runs circles around her younger competitors because she understands and offers this service. Plus, little old ladies have an amazing amount of disposable income compared to their younger counterparts. Their average order is around $60 compared to $16 for the younger set.
Just because someone isn't tech savvy doesn't mean they are stupid or don't have money to spend on your business.
I began visiting the internet with the first beta version of Mosaic. I forget the number, but it was something less than one. Mosaic 0.97 Beta, or something like that.
Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced the floppy disk on which I stored it, as well as my last floppy disk drive.
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