Great news from the IE Blog:

"Microsoft has now licensed the technologies from Eolas, removing  the "click to activate" requirement in Internet Explorer. Because of this, we're removing the "click to activate" behavior from Internet Explorer! It's important (and cool) to note that this change will require no modifications to existing webpages, and no new actions for developers creating new pages. We are simply reverting to the old behavior. Once Internet Explorer is updated, all pages that currently require "click to activate" will no longer require the control to be activated. They'll just work."

Cool but.. When?

"The first chance will be with an optional preview release, called the Internet Explorer Automatic Component Activation Preview, available in December 2007 via the Microsoft Download Center. Additionally this change will be made part of the next pre-release versions of Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3. After giving people enough time to prepare for this change, we'll roll this behavior into the IE Cumulative Update in April 2008, and all customers who install the update will get the change."

See also: Information for Developers about Internet Explorer on MSDN that will be updated in the coming weeks: stay tuned!