Microsoft and The Community

As you know, eBay is all about the Community. Thanks to the great feedback system, millions of transactions are executed online in confidence between basically total strangers. It is no surprise then that eBay was one of the first to introduce a rating system that is designed to combat one of the most malicious plagues of the internet: phishing (people trying to steal information from you by sending you fake emails) and setting up spoof sites to increase the credibility of it.

eBay introduced the eBay Toolbar with a spoof site warning system that tells you with green colors that you are safely on eBay, or, with a red warning color, that the eBay site look-a-like is in fact a transmoldavian website eager for your credit card number and nothing else. The eBay Toolbar can make this distinction because a certain number of eBay members have marked that malicious site a spoof site, and so the eBay Toolbar can warn the other eBay members.

The problem is that the internet is bigger than the big e-commerce players who can build their own toolbar (and assume that enough people will actually install it). At the same time, research performed by Microsoft shows that in the U.S., 25 % of their respondents has STOPPED buying online last year, and another 20 % has cut back their online spendings. The reason for this unfavorable trend is of course the perceived increased insecurity of buying online.


Because just managing the perception will not change the reality, somebody needs to step in to provide a solution for the wider internet. That is why Bill Gates introduced the new Internet Explorer 7 at the Mix 06 conference. The new IE7 includes vital new tools for reputation management. You can watch the keynote speech, followed by a detailed introduction to the new IE7, online ( click here), but just know that it is a long video (take some popcorn with you).

IE7 will introduce the power of the community to the wider internet with the use of phishing filters similar in concept to the ones used for the eBay Toolbar (IE7 will use a phishing list that can be updated dynamically with community feedback). IE7 will also use more precise security certificates, with information that certifies the actual site owner, not just the security of the data pipeline. As a real innovation, the introduction of infocards may also be a game-changer, if it gets adopted of course by the internet community (infocards enable the authentification of users linked to specific user profiles and their associated rights -like membership cards-, as opposed to the current password and username manager).

All this is important because the biggest pool of spoof victims will probably be among those users who just use the default browser and don't care or know about downloading other online tools or programs. These are also the people who will talk the most about their online shopping experience with friends, family or colleagues, and so have the highest impact on the trust in online trading (believe me, word-of-mouth cannot beat those forums preferred by us -net addicts-, or an ad campaign preferred by us -marketeers-). If the internet wants to continue to grow as an advertising medium, then the addition of community-based reputation tools can help to maintain or increase the vital climate of trust.