In the same way that I imagine people hate Toyota, Facebook, or the United States because they're the biggest earners in their particular field, people have always had a hard-on for wanting to bring down Microsoft. Though Microsoft has given people plenty of chips for their shoulders, a recent study seems to prove something to the internet-intelligentsia that Microsoft didn't see coming. According to a recent study by an independent company called AptiQuant Psychometric Consulting Co., there are significant deviations in IQ between individuals depending on the internet browser they elect to use. The study shows that Internet Explorer users have substantially lower IQs than the other internet browsers, with niche browsers like Camino and Opera at the upper end (My own Chrome landed right in the middle). The company did this by offering free IQ tests to over 100,000 individuals, noting which browser they were using in order to take the test. Sounds pretty legit, right?

     Well, it wasn't. AptiQuant was found to be a false company, and the six page report? A complete hoax. However, the falsified research only came to like after dozens of bloggers and cannibal-blogs had made it a huge web presence. Nearly every online tech report out there cited the article, and it seemed that bloggers everywhere were relishing in the knowledge that all of their pre-conceived notions about the largest internet browser community in the world had been justified...until they weren't. Even a blog on the BBC news site reported on the study, though they've replaced the link with a blurb on how Internet Explorer users are "outraged" by the hoax. Several other larger news outlets (CNN, Forbes, PCWorld, etc.) reported on th e "study" as well. Road Runner, an oft-utilized east coast internet provider not only posted the results of the study, but solicited outside analysis of the results. MacWorld UK restated the study's claim, "But if you ever want to argue that Internet Explorer 6 users are too stupid to upgrade, at least now you've got some empirical evidence."

     What's even more entertaining than the reportage is the blogosphere commentariat's reaction. Every repressed Microsoft and Internet Explorer frustration was vented with seemingly divine justification. The rank stench of el-IT-ism was pungent in cyberspace. Individuals railed against the prevalence of Internet Explorer in a world where "so many better options are available for free!" Of course, many came to IE's aid, acknowledging the Internet Explorer is the default browser for the vast majority of internet users around the world. Depending on one's footprint in the digital world and their use of online resources, IE may just stay the standard, justifiably bringing down the "average IQ" closer to the mean. The study may have been a hoax, but the debate that it sparked is a very real on indeed, with people on both sides of an aging browser that continues to lose market share.

     Though no one is certain yet who was behind the hoax, AptiQuant was revealed to have been a shell company opened up only a month ago (over a year after the study was supposedly initiated) with employee thumbnail pictures lifted from an online French company, Central North. I'll admit that when I first saw the study I was intrigued, though the tenor of the study's writing is a bit more dorm-room than your average academic research. In retrospect, the idea of attaching something as superficial as an IQ number is a bit of an antiquated move considering the medium being researched. Very few people give any credibility or attention to IQ's anymore; not even in education where testing has become somewhat of a national fixation. Regardless, it certainly got everyone's attention. What remains to be seen is whether the perpetrator of this hoax was after Microsoft's reputation, or the credibility of the online news cycle. Either way, the blogosphere and associated news cycle came out looking like the idiots on this one.