It's a week of milestones. A few days ago I mentioned that over 70% of client systems were on EV-aware browsers. And according to the latest numbers from Netcraft, as of this month over 10,000 Web sites are using Extended Validation SSL Certificates.

We've just discovered and published the latest example of an online business measuring the effect of Extended Validation SSL on its key metrics. In this case it's Australian electronics retailer Kogan. Kogan compared transaction rates between site visitors who saw green address bars while shopping on the site and those who did not and saw a 30% increase in completed sales among the EV-enabled purchasers. The Kogan research brings the total number of businesses we've found who have measured their transactions with an without green address bars to 22. These businesses span more verticals than simply online retail. They include banking, travel, insurance, and and loan sites across four continents. Some day soon I may take a little time to do a writeup of all these measurements. For now we maintain...

Apologies for being late to the party on this one, but I have recently come to the realization that social networking friendly browser Flock has had EV support for a while, probably since October 15. I didn't get the word before now, most likely because I'm an old guy.

In the wake of the IRS's stated requirement for Extended Validation SSL on all online tax filing sites, we've just seen deployment of EV SSL on H & R Block's TaxCut online filing application. In the past few years tax-based phishing attacks plagued would-be online filers, and last year at least one tax site (FileYourTaxes) looked to EV to help protect its user base. This year over 60% of the PCs on the Internet are EV aware, so I'm hopeful that this requirement will significantly reduce the effect of these attacks.