Informational and education portal increases transparency and choice for online audience measurement
By ESOMAR
Today is international Data Privacy day, the 10th edition of this international initiative aimed at raising awareness on respecting privacy, safeguarding data and enabling trust.
On this particular day, top market research agencies comScore, GfK, Kantar, and Nielsen are happy to announce the launch of the joint initiative Research Choices to boost transparency and choice for online audience research.
The joint project and portal, supported by ESOMAR, are an answer to the recent consistent calls by the US Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission for all sectors to raise consumer awareness and understanding of online data collection practices and facilitate access to existing choice mechanisms.
The web-based portal, accessible online at http://researchchoices.org, will provide the general public educational content initially demonstrating how online audience measurement research and online market research generally is conducted as well as highlighting participating companies’ privacy policies and tools to exercise opt-out and choice.
Matthias Hartmann, CEO of GfK, comments: “The trust of our clients and participants of research projects is a core value for GfK. Strictly adhering to all data privacy regulations and respecting consumers’ intent goes without saying for us. The new Research Choices initiative is a big step forward to bringing more transparency to our research methods and to providing an easy option for consumers to decide on their participation in online audience measurement research.”
“I welcome the launch of Research Choices, as the first world-wide and industry-wide initiative designed to reiterate our profession’s undertakings, and its self-regulatory strength. Initially focusing on the audience measurement sector, it is the sector’s hope and intention to progressively broaden the service to cover all digital research activities,” said Laurent Flores, ESOMAR President.
Further development of the portal will be spearheaded by the Research Choices partnership. The partnership is open to all responsible research organisations that are members of a national or international research association subscribing to the ICC/ESOMAR Code or an equivalent national ethical code for market, opinion, or social research.
The Research Choices initiative will complement the full range of other initiatives by all research associations and federations globally to renew trust and confidence in market, opinion, and social research strengthening public awareness of responsible research and its continued commitment to inform decision-makers whilst preserving the anonymity of research participants.
Research Choices is now online at http://researchchoices.org.
For more information, info@researchchoices.org.
Please note, that at this early stage in its launch, the website is live but under development.
