Doing the Microsoft Shuffle: Algorithm Fail in Browser Ballot

Introduction

The story first hit in last week on the Slovakian tech site DSL.sk.  Since I am not linguistically equipped to follow the Slovakian tech scene, I didn%u2019t hear about the story until it was brought up in English on TechCrunch.  The gist of these reports is this: DSL.sk did a test of the %u201Cballot%u201D screen at www.browserchoice.eu, used in Microsoft Windows 7 to prompt the user to install a browser.  It was a Microsoft concession to the EU, to provide a randomized ballot screen for users to select a browser.  However, the DSL.sk test suggested that the ordering of the browsers was far from random.