[thechat] Investigation - opinions?

John Handelaar john at userfrenzy.com
Wed Jun 6 07:26:57 CDT 2001


Hi folks

Background:
The IE cross-site cookie story at http://www.newmediawhore.com,
which says (among other things) that MSN locates you by querying
your browser language setting.

The Thing That Just Occurred To Me:
IE5 *never* gets the language string wrong because it pulls
the data directly out of the OS regional/language/keyboard
settings.

The Question:
Why doesn't anyone else use this technique?  NS6/Mozilla
doesn't, but more importantly, I've never seen it done
in a software installer either (except with Office) -
I always get US English as the default.

The Suspicion (and Potential Article #2):
It's an undocumented OS function call.


In true journalistic fashion, I seek to destroy the article
before I have to bother writing it, by asking for examples
of why the Question or Suspicion might be in error.

Fire away...

------------------------------------------
John Handelaar

T +44 20 7209 4117       M +44 7930 681789
F +44 870 169 7657   E john at userfrenzy.com
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