Tax authorities in Israel

[Oleg Goldshmidt]

Stan Goodman <stan.goodman at hashkedim.com> writes:

> The phrase "work with various browsers" is a copout, because it
> makes it sound as though every browser needs special attention. If
> the phrase were substituted by "work with any browser that adheres
> to industry standards", there would be a different face on it.

Actually, every browser does need special attention when it comes to
testing. That's not much of an excuse, though.
 
> As it stands, it is scandalous: the guidelines for government
> standards say merely that you can adhere to standards if you like,
> but don't take that too seriously.

Many people do not realize that *all* standards are voluntary and
optional. There is no law (anywhere, not just in Israel) that mandates
adherence to standards. A customer, e.g., the Israeli government, may
require that a vendor's offering complies with standard ABC or not -
that's (i.e., in tenders, bids, contracts) where it begins and ends.

The issue in my mind is not standards proper, but the expectation that
the government facilities (especially since the government strives to
be "available", as in "memshal zamin") should be accessible by
citizens without a dependency on a particular (expensive) commercial
product. Adhering to web standards is a means to achieve this state,
not an end in itself.

There is another little "feature" on gov.il sites that I find
scandalous. Making the web sites portable, and thus widely accessible,
takes too much effort (read: resources, money), but they did find
resources for this:

http://www.gov.il/firstgov/special/iPhoneGov.htm

This looks like inappropriate use of my tax money to me.

-- 
Oleg Goldshmidt | pub at goldshmidt.org