“Signaling a new addition to the list of browser-specific Web sites, the U.S. Copyright Office solicited opinions on a planned Internet Explorer-only zone,” Paul Festa reports for CNET News. “The office, a division of the Library of Congress, invited comments through Aug. 22 on an upcoming Web service for prospective copyright owners that may launch with support for only limited browsers.”
“‘At this point in the process of developing the Copyright Office’s system for online preregistration, it is not entirely clear whether the system will be compatible with Web browsers other than Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 5.1 and higher,’ the office said in its notice. ‘In order to ensure that preregistration can be implemented in a smoothly functioning and timely manner, the office now seeks comments that will assist it in determining whether any eligible parties will be prevented from preregistering a claim due to browser requirements of the preregistration system.'”
“In an interview, an attorney with the office said that the sticking point was Siebel software that guaranteed compatibility with only selected browsers… The Copyright Office said it planned to upgrade to Siebel 7.8, which supports Netscape 7.2, Firefox 1.0.3 and Mozilla 1.7.7, but not in time for the Oct. 24 launch. Neither the Copyright Office nor Siebel said they planned to support other browsers like Opera or Apple Computer’s Safari.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Um, no, idiots, it’s not okay. Although it does make perfect sense that the U.S. government would set up a system for creative people like film producers and limit them to the world’s least creative, most derivative browser – while, of course, excluding all of the Macs with their default Safari browsers that are almost certainly on these creatives’ desks and in their backpacks.
The coup de grace is that in order for any taxpayers to object, the U.S. Copyright Office is so antiquated that they require original comments and five copies should be mailed to Copyright GC/ I&R, P.O. Box 70400, Southwest Station, Washington, D.C. 20024-0400. Our only guess if that they couldn’t figure out how to make a simple online comment form work at all (or a copier, for that matter). Perhaps they didn’t want to make an online comment form, so they wouldn’t have to hear what idiots they are from thousands of people that are sick and tired of idiots who design websites for a single browser especially when they are paying for such idiocy with their tax dollars.
These poor idiots will need a slogan. We have a suggestion: “Use the world’s most insecure browser to secure your copyright!”
Oh, look, more ways to contact: David O. Carson, General Counsel, or Charlotte Douglass, Principal Legal Advisor, P.O. Box 70400, Washington, DC 20024-0400, Telephone (202) 707-8380. Fax: (202) 707-8366.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Survey identifies strong demand for Macintosh and Firefox web conferencing support – August 11, 2005
Using Apple’s Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger’s included fax capabiltes – July 22, 2005
Security report shows Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was unsafe for all but seven days of 2004 – March 22, 2005
Penn State’s IT Services recommends dumping Microsoft Internet Explorer immediately – December 09, 2004
Security expert: Don’t use Microsoft Windows, Office, Outlook, Internet Explorer – December 09, 2004
German Federal Office for Information Security: Internet users should ditch Internet Explorer – September 13, 2004
Web Standards Project: Abandon Microsoft Internet Explorer and ‘Browse Happy’ – August 25, 2004
Security expert: Microsoft Internet Explorer ‘just cannot be trusted, use alternate browser’ – July 02, 2004
Security firm warns of new Internet Explorer flaw, advises ‘use a different browser’ – July 01, 2004
Microsoft axes Internet Explorer for Mac – June 13, 2003
As someone asked earlier, wouldn’t a browser that reports itself as being IE, such as Opera, be able to use an IE-only site?
Linuxlover
“… IE popularized the ability to get to a web site by typing in just the middle portion (“google”)…”
Actually, I think Netscape did that WAAAAYYY before IE. Don’t give IE that much credit. Anyone else want to confirm what I remember. I remember IE being way too stupid to do that and I would show people how to do this in Netscape. IE 6 here still can’t go to Google.com when I put in “google”…it goes to search.msn.com. WTF!
NSN – all of your comments are absolutley correct.
Coolfactor – you are way wrong.
i am now convinced that bill gates is the antichrist.
“Actually, I think Netscape did that WAAAAYYY before I”
Yes NSN, you are correct. Netscape had this capability, pretty much out of the gate. Way before IE existed.
However, using IE ona PC, I find that you still have to type the “.com”
Actually, their new proposed policy violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to the U.S. Department of Justice Policy Ruling on Accessability of Websites (10 NDLR 240, see http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/foia/tal712.txt), government agencies are required to make their websites accessable to persons with visual disabilites. (Indeed, many people who use the web are partially or fully blind.) In particular, government web sites must be compatible with screen reading programs and text-to-speech technology, which Internet Explorer DOES NOT support. Therefore, any agency which requires Internet Explorer to view its websites violates the ADA.
Following up on Disabled’s post, I believe the section of the Rehabilitation Act that requires this is:
29 U.S.C. § 794d
I got this from the executive summary of a report from the Justice Department’s website:
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/508/report2/index.htm
Everyone should feel free to remind the Copyright Office of this requirement.
Anyone thinking about limiting their website to only allowing specific web browsers, should take a serious look at http://www.anybrowser.org/ http://www.w3.org/ and http://www.webstandards.org/
Developing a crossplatform webpage is simple. Anyone who can’t figure out how to do it needs to only learn how to program in HTML.
Goat,
Firefox on the Mac is a (MW) totalsuckfest. Use Camino, or plunk down the $30 for OmniWeb.
Anyone still using IE in 2005 is a complete idiot.
Anyone *designing* for IE in 2005 is an active menace
to the entire Internet and should be banned for life.
When standards lowering event like selecting Siebel’s product occurs which is most responsible the company who created and sold the minimum performance product or the person who signed the acceptance of such product?
Sieble will continue lower the bar as long as they can sell the product.
The government employee who OK’d the sale will probably not be challenged on the worthiness of Siebel’s product so that person will continue to select minimum performance for the tax dollar spent and think they are doing a good job.
All the while we the public will watch the performance standard bar being lowered even further with no corrections in sight. Only work with one browser! What were they thinking?
Jim
And to top off all this lunacy, The comments (original + five copies) must be in their hot little hands no later than August 22. That’s eleven days folks (ten days if you see this post on Friday)! Furthermore, two weekends chew into that alloted time even more.
The original statement was posted in the Federal Register on 8/4/05 – not exactly front page news. I personally can’t think of many people (myself included) that would come across this in the course of a normal day. Good grief, CNET didn’t write a story on this for a full week after the original posting. I get a distinct impression that the people in the U.S. Copyright Office didn’t want this announcement to get noticed.
I can just hear them saying to the boss, “Gee, no comments…I guess everyone likes the idea”!
“Firefox on the Mac is a (MW) totalsuckfest. Use Camino, or plunk down the $30 for OmniWeb.”
Actually, the latest version of Firefox (with the default theme) on the Mac is looking pretty good anymore. It used to suck, but not anymore.
Camino is good too.
Good too is the latest version of iCab, which now supports CSS2 properly (and thus fixes most of the problems iCab had in rendering pages).
I know iCab can spoof other browsers, and i think Camino and Firefox can too, if i’m not mistaken. I’ve used iCab before to gain access to sites which lockout non-IE browsers. But i don’t like using spoofing; you shouldn’t have to use spoofing to surf a site!
Any site so designed as to require a specific browser is poorly designed and doesn’t comply with HTML standards. There is no excuse for such lame-assed web design.
I think the ADA angle is a good one. Mention it when you write your Senators and Congressmen. Nip this idiocy in the bud.
We use Siebel at my work and , can I say, IT SUCKS.
The best way to make sure they support ‘browser independent’ access to their sites is to leverage the ADA requirements and contact your Congressman & Senator about the lack of ADA support.
I work for a Fortune 50 company and the IT department doesn’t even pretend to know what a Mac is. Microsoft is their bread & butter. We have several hundred Macs but we all maintain them ourselves. We can even accomplish things the PCs can’t because IT has them so locked down to prevent viruses and tampering, people can’t get their jobs done. We Mac folks are our own Admins and solve our own, and each others problems in minutes, not days or weeks relying on I.T.