ITinfo: Web Browser Certificates to Expire

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E-Commerce Sites To Suffer Hit

Browser but will hurt online sales

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Web Browser Certificates to Expire

by Dave Murphy
ISSN 1535-3613

So you think you're fully Y2K compliant? Well get a load of this.

As of midnight, January 1st, you and a few million of your closest friends won't be able to finish any e-commerce transactions. No more ordering warm winter socks from your favorite catalog company, no more extra, after-the-holiday gifts. The problem isn't exactly Y2K-related, but another gotcha caused by time's onward march.

At midnight tomorrow, millions of Internet users will find that their "Certificate Authority" certificate has expired. This means their favorite web browser will create an error message on encrypted e-commerce websites (and all reputable e-commerce sites are encrypted).

The problem will affect all Netscape Navigator versions older than 4.06 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.5 on the Mac. The error messages will report the certificate has expired or your computer has the wrong date. Actually, it's no big deal for the technically astute. Your e-commerce transaction will still be secure. But millions of typical computer users will assume the message means worse and cancel their transactions.

This will hurt e-commerce sales. So if you're an e-tailer, you better learn all you can about this certificate expiration and post a message on your site to help your customers buy from you.

You can fix the expiration glitch by downloading the most recent version of your favorite browser.

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http://itrain.org/itinfo/1999/it991230.html
updated December 30, 1999