澳大利亚一家购物网站最近宣布，凡是通过IE7浏览器在该网站购物的用户，都需额外支付交易款项6.8%的服务费。该网站首席执行官表示，这一想法是在网站改版期间萌生的。他指出，虽然该网站用户中大约只有3%使用IE7浏览器，但他的技术团队还是需要花很大精力调试网页，以使其能在有些过时的IE7浏览器中正常显示；而花在IE7浏览器测试上的时间是Chrome, Safari和火狐三种浏览器测试时间的总和。这位执行官表示，他并不指望有用户真的会额外支付这项服务费，只是希望通过这个措施鼓励用户升级到更高级别的浏览器。

The Australian online retailer Kogan.com has introduced the world's first "tax" on Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) browser.

The Australian online retailer Kogan.com 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.

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(Agencies)

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