Joy Viren Murphy owns a small business selling handmade Christmas stockings. Working from the attic of her home, she makes a couple of thousand stockings a year. However, her business is facing a new, high-tech problem, thanks to Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 7 Web browser.

Riva Richmond of the Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 Web browser may cause problems for small businesses. IE7 has a security feature that will turn Web-address bars green and show owners’ identities when consumers visit secure sites from businesses that have been deemed legitimate. The color change feature is expected to help reduce fraud, lift trust and boost e-commerce. However, it concerns small businesses and individual entrepreneurs, as consumers may pass their sites by if they don’t have the safe green bar.

Microsoft argues that green should not be considered a seal of approval, but rather a sign that the site owner is a legitimate business. The display of company names in the bar will allow consumers to confirm that they are on the site they intended to visit.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 22nd, 2006 at 8:43 pm and is filed under ID Theft Prevention, Microsoft, Phishing, Wall Street Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.