Kogan.com imposes 6.8% tax on IE7 users

Kogan.com, an Australian online store, has started to put a tax of 6.8% on its customers who are using Internet Explorer 7.

This is not for their concern of the customer's saferty (because they are using older browser and are vulnerable to various online threats). But they claim that coding the webpages to make them look nice in Internet Explorer 7 takes extra effort and time and this is why they are imposing a tax.

The question is whether it is legal or ethical to tax customers like this? Like many other online services they could have simply redirected users to a page with instructions to update the browser.

What you think?

Notice how they don't include a link to update IE. Makes one wonder...

private company, i think they have a right to charge whatever they want. I also have the right to shop elsewhere.

^^What Patriot said. Besides how much does it cost them to ensure that their website will work on IE7, the hours of extra testing and coding for an outmoded and potentially insecure Browser?


I Wish more American companies would do this, but we pander to the lowest common denominator so we still run on Netscape.

Since it's on Internet Explorer 7, why make the "tax" 6.8%? Why not an even 7%?

And, since this money doesn't seem to be going to a government, I'd call it a "surcharge."

And, since this money doesn't seem to be going to a government, I'd call it a "surcharge."

"surcharge." Extortion is more like it. But then again as has been mentioned, everyone is free to shop elsewhere. So are they alienating a specific uninformed/stubborn consumer base just to make a point?

I think this is a good idea. People should be doing updates or get a newer OS/computer or different browser(Firefox, Chrome etc). Good to see a site that penalizes people for failing to keep their computers updated.

it may be a "good idea" but not a forced issue. IF I want to use outdated software on MY computer then I should have every right to, its MY computer, and I wont spend my money at any company that penalizes me for what I choose to load on MY computer.

I think this is a good idea. People should be doing updates or get a newer OS/computer or different browser(Firefox, Chrome etc). Good to see a site that penalizes people for failing to keep their computers updated.

If I shopped at a site that did that my business would be taken elsewhere.

That company would have WRONGLY assumed my browser was IE7 if I saw the "browser outdated" message.

In fact, some sites I go to on a regular basis actually told me my IE7 browser was out of date and to upgrade. All I wanted to do on one of the sites was look at their weekly sale ad. Could not do it using IE because it thought I was using IE7.

I was not. My computer is custom made. Windows 7 came with IE8 installed. I updated that to IE9.

IE7 has NEVER been on this computer and I've had it almost 2 years. Until approximately 3 months ago I never saw the outdated browser message.

My user agent string indicates the browser was IE9.

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/5.0)

I played around with compatability view. Whether it was enabled or not made no difference.

Two weeks ago I resolved that issue. A clean install of Win7 was the cure. A bit drastic but it worked.

If this situation could happen to me it could also happen to other people.
And a greedy company will lose some customers.

As for new OS and new computers I'm sure they would gladly update if YOU pay for it. A lot of people cannot afford the big bucks Microsoft wants for an OS disk. A lot of them would like to have a new computer but cannot afford one. Silly things like food, rent or mortgage, power, water, gas, phone, dr. bills, new shoes for the children, vehicle insurance, etc. are things which HAVE to be paid for and in todays world there is often not enough left over for a few indulgences.

An alternate browser is a good thing to have. But a lot of people are set in their ways and don't want to use anything but IE. And some of them are not aware that alternate browsers exist.

And, since this money doesn't seem to be going to a government, I'd call it a "surcharge."

"surcharge." Extortion is more like it. But then again as has been mentioned, everyone is free to shop elsewhere. So are they alienating a specific uninformed/stubborn consumer base just to make a point?

I think they're hoping of alienating the uninformed tech-unsavy consumer and simutaneously pulling in a more tech-savy IT-crowd of outdated software (or just IE) haters. To be honest I can see this work. You get rid mostly of people that don't know a tablet from a brick and in exchange pull in a crowd that lives on gadgets and newest IT-toys, Exceptions are obviously present (eg mr patriot ). But I can see a) how a sales rep sold the idea to management and c) (cause is just a smiley) why management went with it. It's certainly been a great publicity coup for them. I bet the story got covered by a bunch of news-agencies in Australia and everybody there has heared of them by now.. There's no such thing as bad publicity.

regards myrti

The High Tech Redneck has a point - it is his computer and he can have on it what he wants. But Kogan have a point too. I run a couple of small web-sites for clubs I am involved with and when I set them up they were tested against IE7. As IE is not my default browser it was only recently that I discovered that they weren't displaying properly on IE8, the page heading artwork was out of alignment. So presumably, if I had set them up on IE8 they wouldn't display properly in IE7.

I am by no means having a pop at HTR. I have an old laptop, running XP, which is kept primarily because it is the only computer I have access to which will run some seriously old 16 bit software originally designed to run on Windows 3.x ! The authoring company went out of business before they even ported it to Win 95 ! Unhappily, it is circuit board designs which are still current for maintenance purposes.

Regards,

Chris Cosgrove

I am the mistress of my own destiny..err computer...and i ain't payin ransom for anything!!
well maybe except for my dry cleanin...

Krogan has a right to charge, I have the right to say NO.

MissPlaced

Well, so far this has become a news in all the major newspapers of the world. They were also interviewed in the KPCC radio where one of the guys from Kogan.com said that they do not expect anyone to actually pay tax, but it will force them to update their browser. He also explained why it is 6.8%. Tax is calculated 0.1% for each month after IE7 was released for the first time ( total 68 months) = 6.8%. This indicates that this so called tax would keep increasing with time.

I still believe that this is a wrong and immoral approach. They could just redirect people to an update instructions page (may be put a youtube video on how to update).

PC Magazine seems to explain this tax very well :

This is lame, pretentious, and stupid for too many reasons to discuss.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405846,00.asp

Its a bunch of BS!!

Thier site looks FINE IN IE6!!

Well that's the point, no?
They charge for the work that is put into making it look good ni IE6/IE7. So of course it looks good in IE6/7. Otherwise they'd absolutely no hand charging their customers.

regards myrti