Internet Explorer 7 launched in October 2006, and since then a lot has happened. Specifically, Microsoft has launched IE8 and IE9 and is in the process of launching IE10. Competitors have also been busy – Firefox has updated their browser almost a dozen times and Google launched and grew Chrome into a major player in the browser market.

Basically, there are no good reasons to be running IE7 when there are so many good browser choices out there, including IE9 and soon IE10. On the other hand, IE7 has so many weird glitches and problems that supporting it is expensive for many web developers. But how do you convince those remaining stragglers that now is a good time to finally upgrade their ancient browser?

Australia’s Kogan Technologies thinks they’ve come up with a way. They’re a major online electronics retailer, and they’re fed up trying to support IE7. They want their users to either upgrade or else pay up for the right to continue using IE7. Starting today, Kogan will begin charging a 6.8% tax on all transactions from people using IE7 as their browser. You can read more about their thinking here.

So what do you think? Is this a good way to get users to upgrade? Would you charge a tax or make life difficult for paying users of your product in order to encourage them to upgrade their browser? Is IE7 really that expensive to support? Sound off below.

(via TechCrunch)