Published: 2006-03-29
The site, which requires a Microsoft Passport login (such as a Hotmail login), has a large page of Terms and Conditions that must be agreed upon before bugs can be submitted. First announced on Microsoft's IE Weblog, the site is intended to provide a public way for people to give feedback and provide bug reports, for free, to the software giant. Submitters are able to post bugs and mark them as either public or private.
"Many customers have asked us about having a better way to enter IE bugs. It is asked, 'Why don't you have Bugzilla like Firefox or other groups do?' We haven't always had a good answer, except it is something that the IE team has never done before," writes Microsoft's Al Billings. Only IE 7 bug reports are requested, and no compensation is provided to researchers who submit bugs.
The research-for-free approach by the $280 Billion dollar software giant contrasts the work by iDefense and 3Com & TippingPoint who pay small amounts of money to researchers who report new bugs. Additionally, the Terms and Conditions of the Microsoft site state that the submitter is considered to, "warrant and represent that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to your Submission as described in these Terms of Use including, without limitation, all the rights necessary for you to provide, post, upload, input or submit the Submissions."
Microsoft's current IE 7 browser is expected to be released along with the forthcoming Windows Vista operated system at some point in 2007. The IE 7 browser is currently available in an early beta release. The announcement follows three more critical bugs in IE 6 announced last week that remain unpatched by Microsoft at the time of this report. Workaround patches have been provided by other companies in the interim, as highly vulnerable Microsoft customers wait for an official fix.
Posted by: Kelly Martin
