Current Event 11

http://www.news.com/
CNet News.com
by Joris Evers
11/13/06

Microsoft has added a feature to Internet Explorer 7 that will turn the address bar in the browser green when visiting a legitimate Web site. The green address bar will only be available when visiting a site of corporations--small businesses are excluded. The CA Browser Forum is working on final guidelines that would include all legitimate Web sites, but it could take a while to complete. IE7 will display a green address bar when the user goes to a Web site that has obtained an "extended validation certificate", or EV SSL, given only to incorporated entities. The green bars will not be available until early 2007.

Those involved are Microsoft and the CA Browser Forum.

Those affected by it are Internet users (those who use IE7). It also affects corporations because they will have to obtain the EV SSL. It will also affect the businesses who are not able to get the EV SSLs because their site will not be considered "legitimate" by IE7.

The ethical issue addressed is that some sites that are legitimate and just aren't for a corporation will not have a green address bar, leading people to believe their site may not be legit. If someone visits a site and it does not have a green address bar, a user will not be likely to continue viewing the site, when there may not be anything harmful about the site.

The impact to society is that it will help protect people from phishing scams.

I think this is a good thing because it will help people to see which sites are legit and which aren't.