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Let's hope we don't get crushed under the wheels

Well IE7 is coming ready or not and most people are going to get it whether they want it or not. And an update to IE7 that's due out in January shows that once again Microsoft, like most big corporations who think they know what's best for people, have jumped in to fix a problem for the big end of town without thinking about everyone else.

At the moment IE7 is just another Web browser and, in my humble opinion, not a very good one. Instead of having the various buttons set out in a neat and orderly row where everyone can see them it really looks as though they were thrown on as an after-thought. Important buttons are no longer in the top left hand corner but can now appear to the right of the address bar or even well below the address bar if you also have the Google toolbar installed.

Steve suggested that it looked like a mad woman's breakfast and I certainly have to agree. It is just not user friendly - but then change for change's sake has rarely got anything to do with being user friendly. On top of that the thing is slow whether you have the phishing filter on or not.

But there is worse to come with IE7 and phishing and what's coming down the track is going to have a major impact on everyone involved in e-commerce whether it be mainstream or adult. You see, Microsoft is planning on releasing an IE7 update in January that will turn the address bar green - but only if you're surfing a page that Microsoft feels is a legitimate website.

This new feature is aimed at helping people recognize phishing scams on the Net. It seems that there are many sites out there that are designed to look just like a legitimate site but in fact are quite bogus and are out to defraud surfers.

Now I have no problem with Microsoft wanting to nail those sites. To do so is a noble cause and one we should all support. But of course, Microsoft is a big business and I have to wonder whether there really is anyone in that corporate monster that has the ability to think in terms of small business.

The problem is that Microsoft has decided that only corporations will get the green address bar seal of approval. Of course green is a color that we are conditioned to trust so people will trust that green address bar to indicate sites where they will be safe to do business.

The rest of us - all those small businesses like you and me who want to sell products online won't get the green glow of trust for some time to come … if ever. With so many legitimate marketing websites out there in Internet land Microsoft may never get round to giving everyone the green light.

So what will surfers think when they land on a site that wants to sell them something, is asking for their credit card details, but doesn't have the green light from Microsoft? Will we really see sales drop off?

It's a scary thought and it raises the question of just what we can do to overcome that psychological barrier that every potential purchaser will face when they come to our sites. Few of those people will have read or understand that it's only corporations that get the green light and that there are many many completely trustworthy sites out there that are not owned by corporations.

All those people will see if they come to your site is an absence of green and so they will think that there's real possibility your site is out to rip them off.

Nice one Microsoft! Why are corporations so trustworthy while the rest of us are not?

I can think of corporations that I would never even give my email address to let alone my credit card details. Yet corporations will be able to purchase the extended validation certificates that Microsoft will use to verify a site while other perfectly legal and legitimate legal business entities will not.

What makes it even worse is that Microsoft doesn't appear to really understand the problem that it will be creating. A Microsoft spokesperson is quoted as saying:

'That (the inability of anyone but corporations to get the green light) is definitely a legitimate concern, but not an immediate problem.' Oh? Who says it won't be an immediate problem for non-corporations?

Microsoft tries to explain it away by suggesting that it is the big corporations who suffer the most from phishing attacks and that may well be the case but the rest of us are going to suffer when the green light goes on.

I wonder how long it will be before someone comes up with a script to light up the address bar in a beautiful and friendly shade of green.