Microsoft’s next-gen browser, Internet Explorer 7, will apparently only support well-formed XML-based RSS feeds. This may seem like a good step towards valid code usage on the net but if Microsoft’s going to be the one deciding what is “well-formed XML,” we are going to be in for a wild ride. If Microsoft has their way, I’m pretty sure not even FeedBurner feeds will validate as well-formed. Overall, I think the move to usher in an RSS standard is a good thing, I’m just a little skeptical when Microsoft tries to start the standard. I mean, they made Windows Anti-Spyware, recently named “Windows Defender” that would erroneously delete software it thought was bad.

You can read the original article on the Microsoft Team RSS Blog. I also recommend taking a look at Roger Johansson’s take on this tidbit.

Our years of experience in with HTML in Internet Explorer have taught us the long-term pain that results from being too liberal with what you accept from others. Hence, we’ve adopted the following overriding principle for IE 7 and RSS platform in Windows Vista:

We will only support feeds that are well-formed XML.

Update: Here’s the article on Digg.