MR software and panels provider GMI has launched an initiative aiming to protect the online research industry from fraudulent panelists. PureSample.com offers online MR firms the opportunity to match panelists against a database of ‘known offenders’, and report offenders of their own.
Uncertainty about sample quality, partly due to fraud on the part of respondents and the difficulty of spotting such cases, is one of the factors holding back online research from even faster growth. GMI (Global Market Insite) hopes to boost confidence in online samples as well as making research more efficient.
Founder and CEO Rob Monster told DRNO GMI would be promoting PureSample to other panel providers, and hoped they would accept the spirit in which it had been created, a site for the good of all those working in the sector. Monster says GMI is ‘passionate about preserving the integrity of online panels. Fraudulent respondent activity has the potential to dilute the credibility of the entire online market research industry in the eyes of both clients and the general public.’
PureSample offers users the chance to match up their panelists against the offenders database, entering one or more email addresses into the site’s search engine and viewing a fraud score for each address, plus an exportable report. Any score greater than nought indicates that the panelist has already been reported.
