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Coding error leads to uneven EU browser ballot distribution
arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/03/coding-error-leads-to-uneven-eu-browser-ballot-distribution.ars, posted 2010 by peter in conspiracy development eu humor microsoft windows
The Windows Browser Ballot, the browser selection screen that is being offered to Windows users in Europe starting this month, is already coming under fire. Slovakian IT news site DSL.sk decided to test the ballot and found that its distribution was very peculiar, with Internet Explorer appearing in the rightmost position almost 50 percent of the time when the ballot was viewed from within IE.
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This browser ballot, as simple as it is, has been months in the making. The decision to do the randomization client-side, where it depends on the web browser, rather than server-side, where it would be consistent for all users, is a little surprising. But most remarkable at all is that no one responsible for signing off and saying "that's an acceptable response to the Competition Commission's complaint" bothered to do this testing. If this browser ballot is important then surely its implementation should be a high quality one?