Kogan introduces Internet Explorer 7 'tax'
Kogan's 6.8% Internet Explorer 7 tax can be dodged only by switching to a different browser - or spoofing the user agent string.
The brainchild of outspoken company founder Ruslan Kogan, a man not-unfamiliar with the means and methods of getting your small Australian electronics company in the international press, the tax will increase the cost of products purchased through the site by 6.8 per cent - 0.1 per cent for every month Internet Explorer 7 has been on the market.
Buyers browsing the site using Internet Explorer 7 will receive a message reading: 'It appears you or your system administrator has been in a coma for over 5 years and you are still using IE7. To help make the Internet a better place, you will be charged a 6.8% tax on your purchase from Kogan.com. This is necessary due to the amount of time required to make web pages appear correctly in IE7.'
Those unhappy with paying the tax are given a clear instruction: 'Avoid the tax, use a better browser.' The pop-up message provides links to Google's Chrome, Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari and Opera's eponymous browser by way of assistance.
'The way we've been able to keep our prices so low is by using technology to make our business efficient and streamlined. One of the things stopping that is our web team having to spend a lot of time making our new website look normal on IE7,' claimed company founder Kogan in a statement on the stunt. 'It's not only costing us a huge amount, it's affecting any business with an online presence, and costing the Internet economy millions.
'As Internet citizens, we all have a responsibility to make the Internet a better place. By taking these measures, we are doing our bit. This will help us increase our efficiency, help keep prices for all smart shoppers down, and hopefully help eradicate the world of the pain in the rear that is IE7!'
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Discuss in the forums ReplyThey PO'ed a small percentage of their users, and in return are getting exposure on News channels, The Register, etc... well played.
I'm pretty sure there are no valid reasons for staying with IE7, so I don't feel it's unfair in any way, and as BentAnat said, brilliant marketing ploy
The middle of the site disappears., he menu appears as a plain bulleted list outside of the main page, you can't add anything to your basket and somewhere in a server room someone looking at the web stats sheds one more tear.
Just guessin'.... but this is generally how it goes down with IE 6
You've got IE which, between 8 and 9 have one of the biggest install bases (plus most Gov't computers are running Windows with IE8 or 9 installed). Then since Firefox is multi platform, you still have the option of installing that if you are running a Mac or don't want to/can't use IE.
I have created websites that have worked equally well in ALL modern browsers including going all the way back to IE 5! Yes there were some challenges and a few minor hacks along the way to accommodate the differnces but nothing severe, complicated or expensively time consuming. In most cases it was just a couple of extra lines of CSS.
Shouldn't Bioware be suing him for having a name that sounds far too much like Krogan...
From my personal experience, Which is limited to what must be one of the most backwards countries in the world in terms of tech (PCs > 7 years old are VERY VERY common here. XP is prevalent everywhere, and mostly pirated, so not updated beyond SP1), I can give you some insight (based on traffic of about 10K unique hits, 90% Namibian a month, increasing by 20% every month, over the last 6 months - target audience is low income class):
IE makes up 60% of web traffic.\
Of that, about 5% is IE7 and below.
I know these stats are not representative of any other aprt of the world, but for a good marketing stunt like that, it's worth telling those 4% of total users (less, actually) to go play in traffic or update their browser, quite frankly.
How many sites/facebook posts/forums linked to them today? How much traffic and awareness do you think they gathered, and how does it affect their SEO?
I am sure that this pays dividents fopr them...
That being said, I could be way off target here, and am not trying to argue any point in particular, save for IE6 and 7 losing traction fast, as Win7, (and soon Win8) sales climb.
There are simply not that many un-upgraded XP machines out there that still work anymore.
Every browser should show the same result and websites should be developed without plugins, applets or hacks required to get there. W3C all the way baby... strictly HTML + CSS. I even despise javascript.
Love the typo. Leave it there, it fits him...
There are surgical and non-surgical means to pull that stick out of your rectum. Your GP can refer you to the appropriate proctological specialists.
I'm no IE fan, but I think they should have put a link to the latest version of IE too.
I run the schools website and the amount of complaints i get from parents saying it docent display properly is staggering. 95% of the time its due to an out of date browser.
Yep i have done jobs for a couple of places where they still use IE6 in the intranets. Companies have so many legacy applications that wont work on other browsers, they don't want to upgrade so they just sit on IE6. Its now getting ridiculous though. Generally its intranet's that are using these old browsers tho. I cant see many people on the internet using IE7 or below, most large companies limit internet access anyway. And if you are still using this on your home PC then you deserve to pay the extra tax. Its mental still to using those browsers.
Bill
You dont support Chrome? :S
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2178341/google-chrome-topples-microsoft-internet-explorer-worlds-favourite-browser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
Some stats say its the most popular browser there is now :) (because its awesome)
P.S. Though it is so awesome that it can say "hey this web designer sucks and didnt code for me, ill do it right anyway! :)".
edit: oh, and the tax is win++ :)
In other news, this tax is hilarious.
stop people using ie?
Don't make me come down here and sort you out, kids...
Only the old versions which are annoying to make websites for. He wants people to use a newer version like ie8 or ie9, or to use some other browser instead.