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comScore Responds To The IAB
In case anyone didn't know, I am a longtime investor and board member of comScore. I am a huge fan of this company which does the best job of measuring the Internet of any company that has tried. It's a tough job because many people think that the Internet is perfectly measurable. Some aspects of it are. Others are not.
Anyway, last week the new president of the IAB fired off a public letter to comScore and Nielsen, the two leading internet measurement firms, seeking a third party audit of their measurement systems. Valleywag had the story up mid/late last week.
Everyone who covered this in the media was hoping for a fight. But as evidenced by this press release issued by comScore yesterday, it looks like comScore is going to cooperate with the IAB. Here's a quote from Magid Abraham, CEO of comScore:
“I want to assure the IAB members that comScore is committed to the digital media industry and strives to provide, to the best of its abilities, accurate and unbiased measurement. We look forward to working with the IAB and the rest of the industry on establishing measurement standards for all participants.”
Comments (2) | Posted April 24, 2007 in Venture Capital and Technology
Comments
Perhaps I spent too much time in politics when I was younger, but reading the full response from comScore suggested to me that it was a very qualified acceptance of the IAB challenge with lots of wiggle room. I don’t disagree with that, mind you. There has to be a healthy balance between transparency and confidential business processes.
Fundamentally, the best way for disgruntled IAB members to combat panel-based stats that they object to is to simply release their raw server logs for public inspection. I find that unlikely, yet the IAB seems to want companies like comScore and IAB to effectively do the same thing.
Panel-based solutions are never perfect and companies like comScore and Nielsen will compete with each other to see which one ends up being perceived as more accurate. Until/unless web sites submit to complete and impartial third party log file review, all public numbers will necessarily be estimations.
Posted by: Chip Griffin | Apr 24, 2007 9:20:07 AM
I'm sort of with Chip on that one -- the first read through the excerpt just suggested to me that the answer was more, "we're going to work together on our terms which doesn't necessarily imply an independent third-party audit of our stats vs. theirs..."
There's cooperation -- but I'd view that differently than collaboration.
Posted by: Justin Ward | Apr 24, 2007 10:36:20 AM
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