澳購物網站向IE7用戶額外收費

澳大利亞一家購物網站最近宣佈，凡是通過IE7瀏覽器在該網站購物的用戶，都需額外支付交易款項6.8%的服務費。該網站首席執行官表示，這一想法是在網站改版期間萌生的。他指出，雖然該網站用戶中大約只有3%使用IE7瀏覽器，但他的技術團隊還是需要花很大精力調試網頁，以使其能在有些過時的IE7瀏覽器中正常顯示；而花在IE7瀏覽器測試上的時間是Chrome, Safari和火狐三種瀏覽器測試時間的總和。這位執行官表示，他並不指望有用戶真的會額外支付這項服務費，只是希望通過這個措施鼓勵用戶升級到更高級別的瀏覽器。

The Australian online retailer 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.

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.