-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Online electronics dealer taxes IE7 users.
- Thread starter Good Job Bob
- Start date
- Status
dinazimmerman
Incurious Bastard
I use the latest IE. It works, and I'm too lazy to download anything else.
moniker
Member
You're missing out.
The legalities of this are interesting, a few collegues and I were discussing it earlier. Under Australian law you could potentially argue unfair contract terms under Schedule 2 of the new Australian Consumer Law (2012) and you could get the contract term struck out. However, if Kogan make the argument that the cost of catering to people using old browsers is very high, and the fact that it's so easy to upgrade it is likely that a Court would look favourably towards this policy. Making a penalty clause for the express purpose of punishment is unenforceable at law but on the face of it they're not doing it to punish, only to mitigate the cost of the extra programming.
There's also the issue that if they're promoting Chrome/Firefox/Safari/Opera and not IE while specifically taxing certain version of IE then they may be liable for anti-competitive behaviour, but this is a long shot as Kogan would simply deny they're trying to force users of IE and add IE9 as a choice for download.
There may be some obscure restraint of trade doctrine that I'm aware of (I don't practice in commercial law) but as it stood we agreed that unless the ACCC decided to use its powers to bring an action against Kogan it was unlikely that anything could really be done.
There's also the issue that if they're promoting Chrome/Firefox/Safari/Opera and not IE while specifically taxing certain version of IE then they may be liable for anti-competitive behaviour, but this is a long shot as Kogan would simply deny they're trying to force users of IE and add IE9 as a choice for download.
There may be some obscure restraint of trade doctrine that I'm aware of (I don't practice in commercial law) but as it stood we agreed that unless the ACCC decided to use its powers to bring an action against Kogan it was unlikely that anything could really be done.
On what?
Good Job Bob
Member
Extensions, speed, better webpage rendering, etc.
SolsticeZero
Banned
Yep. It boggles my mind that anyone would take IE over Chrome these days.
Dreams-Visions
Member
does it have real add-ons yet? on the level of FF and Chrome?
Anton Sugar
Member
"Extensions" and "speed" don't always go well together.
Megadragon15
Member
I fail to see how one Australian internet retailer who wants to tax IE7 user shoppers to their site is going to make that much of a difference in terms of people's browsing habits.
moniker
Member
Or cors, html5 forms, webgl, web workers, history api, file api, etc ...
All very true. It also renders slower than Chrome or FF on my test laptop.
Zoe
Member
They can tell when a site doesn't work.
Mammoth Jones
Member
I know that feel bro. The amount of time spent making sure content functions on IE7 makes me want to cry some days at work 
DragonSworne
Banned
Because developers have spent millions of dollars making it so.
Trust me, my company needs to support IE6 because some of our clients still use it. Then we get complaints about the web apps running slow. I ask them what browser they are using as they say "IE6". SMH.
IE6 and IE7 are bloated slow web browsers that can't render new features of HTML and JavaScript.
Because you're a junior, I know you aren't trolling. So this just means you are stupid instead. 90% of people will agree.
Gentleman Jack
Member
Probably shouldn't be doing personal shopping from a work computer. Regardless doing any kind of online commerce from an obsolete operating system on ancient web browsers carries its own risks. Supporting IE7 is a huge resource drain for companies and if nothing else raising this awareness is good for consumers.
- Status