Nice to see people getting confused about the great Microsoft Censorship monster.

I'm with the pro-security people here. Microsoft aren't imposing anything other than common sense security procedures here, but to protect people, not their assets.

Microsoft aren't asking us to have multi-point locks on our sheds, they're trying to protect us so that when we buy off Amazon, we know Amazon have multi-point locks on their website and not a christmas-cracker padlock.

It makes perfect sense- so Deadly Earnest can carry on having no SSL (and nothing that needs it) on their website, but if you deem your website needs SSL then MS are just making sure it's strong enough. Example: I saw a review on Amazon UK the other week written by someone complaining that they had a nightmare time getting their self-signed OWA cert to work on a Lumia 900. Of course. Self-signing goes against all the principles of a secure web because there's no chain of trust. It wasn't the Lumia at fault but the certificate.

People accept security impositions in every sphere of life, but as soon as evil MS try to do anything they're...well, evil-er. Think about it: what's your car's M.O.T. test for? Security (in a safety context). To protect you and everyone else on the road by making sure your car meets minimum safety standards. Why do you have a username and password to log onto the work's network? To protect you from other people masquerading as you and getting you in to trouble. Why do UK banknotes have such complex security features? To protect you (and the UK economy) from using fraudulent money. I don't see this as any different- MS aren't forcing me to do anything, just protecting me from sites that might not be trustworthy (and I don't think they'll ever require SSL full stop because most web content doesn't need it).