Top Market Research Agencies Announce Launch Of Research Choices

Editor’s Note: This is a great step forward and we here at GreenBook commend all involved for their leadership in launching Research Choices and encourage all of our readers to engage with this important new initiative.

Top market research agencies comScore, GfK, Kantar, and Nielsen announced today the launch of a joint initiative to boost transparency and choice for online audience measurement research.

Both the US Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission have consistently called for all sectors to raise consumer awareness and understanding of online data collection practices and facilitate access to existing choice mechanisms.

This joint initiative and the associated portal are being facilitated by ESOMAR, the World Association for Market, Social, and Opinion Research at the behest of the founding Research Choices participants.

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.

When completed, 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.

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.