MSN AdCenter Bungles Tracking for Customers in Firefox
We've covered MSN AdCenter isn't compatible with Firefox for Advertisers however Danny Sullivan is reporting MSN AdCenter shows false security warnings for users making purchases with Firefox
... the kicker is that the conversion tracking is not compliant either. Therefore, any merchant using the conversion tracking script will run into problems with their Firefox customers.
When they purchase something, they will be told that the merchant is pretending to be r.microsoft.com. Needless to say, this will be a problem for at least 10% of a merchant's customers.
We called MSN and spoke to them. Their official solution is that we should switch all our customer service reps to IE6 and alert our customers that they should only use IE6 to purchase from us. Hmm, that doesn't sound like a practical solution to me.
You can get the full details complete with screenshots of the warning message on the SEW blog. C'mon MSN let's step up to the plate on this one, bite the bullet and get rid of the IE dependency, ok
it's also a trust issue
On the face of it the above reports sounds silly, because of course the quick answer given (use IE) doesn't jive with 10% of all browser installations not pretending to be IE (and who knows what larger % of actual Internet users not actually using IE). But the bigger story might be the trust issue: can we trust Microsoft for general solutions (like AdServing) if they *might* still be planning to subvert it to support their bigger monopolistic OS/Desktop mission?
I am all in favor of M$ joining the real world (finally) and helping us webmasters make money serving ads and customers. I am just about willing to accept that MSN really is intended to be a search engine, and AdCenter really is intended to be a competitor to AdSense. But when they make statements like this about using IE, the tin foil hat starts to vibrate and I start to wonder if it's still just another product intended to either pre-empt competition or sell copies of Office or prevent Windows piracy or some other archaic attempt to preserve the satus quo for Windows and M$.
Right. They can't be
Right. They can't be serious, or functioning out here in the real marketing world, especially when they're having problems with the AdCenter and one of their own browsers, let alone Firefox or other browsers that real people might use.
I was thinking of checking this out, but it doesn't seem ready for prime time ... I'm not anti-Microsoft, but I'm not about to hobble marketing efforts in order to support these kinds of myopic issues.
Ignoring Firefox Users
I had problems registering for AdCenter yesterday...was told my browser was not compatable. As I write this I am trying to log into my account and can't...using FF. It just hangs...doesn't load anything.
I am not sure, but I think I was able to log into my account yesterday using the "IE Tab" extension in FF.
Anyway, MS is crazy to force people to use IE......
One other thing....slightly off-topic.....but the conversion code includes a link to MSN AdCenter. I think this too....is ridiculous. The conversion code is supposed to help me track, not help them reach more potential advertisers.