Retail site taxes IE7 users

An Australian retail Web site has begun charging a 'tax' on shoppers who use Internet Explorer 7 instead of a more modern, up-to-date Web browser, 3 News reports.

Kogan.com sells electronic appliances such as TVs, computers and phones. CE Ruslan Kogan says he introduced the 6.8% surcharge on IE7 users to recoup time and costs involved in making his Web site render properly on the nearly six-year-old browser.

Only 3% of visitors to kogan.com use IE7, but it was consuming all of the IT department's time and resources.

The move has gone down well on Twitter, with one user saying: “I salute your initiative against IE7. Can you please be president of The Internet?” Metro reports.

Kogan's British Web site is exempt from the 'tax', which is widely regarded as a gimmick. There have been significant updates to IE7 software in recent years and the latest version, Internet Explorer 10, is due to arrive this autumn.

IE7 is the bane of online designers, as it is the least standards-compliant of the current pack, RetailCustomerExperience.com states.

That means designers need to do separate testing and design changes to make sites appear correctly in all browsers. According to Kogan, that's a quantifiable hard cost that it is no longer willing to pay.

If one visits the online retailer using IE7, a message appears saying “you or your system administrator has been in a coma for over five years”.