Microsoft back down on IE8 $10,000 competition

David M Williams
Saturday, 20 June 2009 09:16

Business IT - Technology

Internet Explorer 8 could net you $10,000, but cost you your soul, judging by the feedback from certain sectors to Microsoft’s IE8-only competition. Microsoft has paid attention and now the "ten grand is buried here" competition no longer requires Internet Explorer be used.

Seeking to raise awareness, and use, of Internet Explorer 8 Microsoft announced a competition that promised $10,000 cash.

Microsoft said “We’ve buried $10,000 somewhere on the internet and the first one to find it, gets to keep it.

Those who have Internet Explorer 8 can follow @tengrand_IE8 on Twitter and www.tengrandisburiedhere.com for daily clues that point you to the buried loot.”

The clues are being released at random times since yesterday, June 19th with one available at the time of writing.

Originally, the key requirement was that Internet Explorer 8 had to be used, because the ten grand is found "within a cleverly concealed webpage" that was to be viewable only with Internet Explorer 8.

Linux mailing lists, known for their commitment to open source software and, of course, the Linux operating system for which there is no Internet Explorer browser, began buzzing with opinion and comment.

Some posters questioned the legality of such a competition which struck them as fundamentally anti-competitive with the implicit requirement that Microsoft Windows be used to locate the special web page.

Others were intrigued by the technical ramifications and whether Microsoft had implemented non-standard Web extensions which meant the secret site would only render correctly in Internet Explorer 8 while others mused it was probably some simple scripting that displayed different versions of the web page depending on the browser used.

More zealous types proposed the Linux community band together to win the contest then use the prize to fund a newspaper advertisement advocating open source software such as Linux and the Firefox browser.

Another point of contention was a line in the contest FAQ which implied users of other web browsers ought to “get lost.”

It seems Microsoft have heard the response and adjusted their rules so that the Internet Explorer 8 only constraint has been removed (although the Twitter history still records the comment, “the only way to find it is to use Internet Explorer 8.”)

The four rules for the promotion have been halved and there is no longer any reference to getting rid of your current browser, downloading IE8 or the exhortation to get lost.

On this latter point, Microsoft claim the “get lost” has been misinterpreted and their meaning was simply that if people were not using IE8 they would become “lost” in the competition because they could not view the secret site.

Nevertheless, that text has been removed as has the IE8-only nature of the secret site, wherever it may be.