Internet Explorer 7 and the Entrepreneur

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IE 7 is here - got in our office last week -with all sorts of new features such as:
Phishing Filter
Proactively warns and helps protect you against potential or known fraudulent sites and blocks the site if appropriate. The opt-in filter is updated several times per hour using the latest security information from Microsoft and several industry partners.

This means, starting early next year, the address bar in Internet Explorer 7 will turn green when surfing to a legitimate Web site--but only in some cases, not all.

"But the new system adopted for IE 7 has been causing friction, too. Initially, only corporations will be able to get the [green color] online trust indicator--a rule that shuts out smaller businesses. While the CA Browser Forum is still working on final guidelines that would include all legitimate Web sites, those could take a while to complete." Microsoft's Phishing Filter turns address bars yellow if on suspicious sites and red on confirmed phishing sites. When Microsoft has no information on a site, which will be true for many small businesses, the site will remain the standard white."

Verisign, Thawte, and other companies are among the certification authorities involved with the new procedure.

Joy Viren Murphy, sole proprietor of Aunt Joy's Personalized Christmas Stockings, profiled in the December 19 Wall Street Journal, fears that her business will suffer. "For that new customer, are they going to pass me by because I don't have a green bar?"

From the WSJ: "Microsoft says the number of companies left out will be minimal, noting that [LLCs] and partnerships, as well as S and C corporations, will be able to get the certificates and thus green bars. In the future it expects certificate authorities to bring more types of businesses into the scheme."

Mrs. Murphy feels, "the Internet made the world so big for small people like me" but feels the new system "seems like an excuse to shut out the small business like myself and make sure we don't take too many of the dollars from the big boys."

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