Search Engines/IP restrictions/policy changes

[Charles Scott]

On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Brandon Ross wrote:

> > * What about non-HTTP/1.1 compliant browsers?
> 
> They just need an upgrade.  It should be easy enough to identify a
> non-compliant browser and send an informational page sending the user to
> an upgrade site.

Brandon:
  One thing to keep in mind here is that the relationship between an ISP
and a dial-in customer is very different than between a Web provider and
those browsing their sites. In the case of the dial-in user, there is only
one person to fix. The Web provider needs to deal with everyone who can't
properly access or use the Web site. 
  It's also a necessity that an ISP provide technical support for dial-in
customers to ensure they can connect to and use the Internet. The Web
provider is not in a position to provide a level of technical support to
Web site users that would be required for browser updates. 
  In addition, while the Web site can suggest that a user update their
browser, there are a large number of very non-technical users who either
won't or simply can't deal with updating their browsers and because they
are so non-technical they would tend to blame whomever suggested they make
a change if something goes wrong with the update. 
  The most important thing is the perspective of the Web site owner. In
many cases site owners don't particularly care if 5% or 10% of users can't
use their site and in some cases where the site uses special plug-in's or
advanced browser features they may be happy with only 50% of users being
able to appreciate their site. However, and believe me I know from
experience, the owners of commercial and E-Commerce sites can absolutely
pannic when they hear of a single user who can't access and use their
site. I don't know what the percentages of old browsers in use across the
network are (perhaps someone can point us to some guess of 1.0 browsers),
but I do know that we see some pretty old ones come into our sites.
  For these reasons, some Web site owners are anal about compatibiltiy.
Obviously at some point everyone will have to accept some problems with
clueless users who will never update their browsers and I'd think the
pecentages of those users may depend somewhat on the type of the site. It
would seem that the Web provider and site owner are in a better position
to make this decision based on their needs and those of their users.
  (Taking another step up the soapbox)
  So, it seems that every aspect of this whole debate is more complex than
it may seem on the surface because everyone has their own limitations,
needs and expectations. It brings me to the thought, as things get ever
more complex, that IP conservation needs to be handled more and more on an
individual bases in cooperation with those who are providing the
allocations. I guess this is contrary to a my earlier comments about ARIN
providing more detail on Web hosting exceptions and is contrary to the
direction of making more specific policy regarding address utilization. I
wonder if the overall policy was redirected toward a flexible and
cooperative realationship between providers and consumers of IP address
space if it would be possible to receive more cooperation in conserving
addresses. Knowing how much work and detail can be required to verify
compliance with specific utilization policy it would seem that a similar
amount of time interactively working the situation, and what can and can't
be done in a particular case, could be more productive.

Chuck Scott