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How a change in Cookie laws could benefit online panel providers

3rd February, 2012

The Research online methods conference held last week was the sixth of its kind and may be the last. Not because it lacked relevance or value but because its subject matter has ceased to be niche. For a large percentage of its practitioners, especially those using or selling panel, online IS market research.

At this year’s conference the two main threads seemed almost to belong to two separate gatherings: on the one hand the papers and discussions about online panels and surveys, their usage and the law concerning them; and on the other technologically and methodologically ‘new’ sources of insight such as crowdsourcing and neuromarketing. However by far the most interesting item on the agenda was ‘Panel: Recommendations for effective and ethical passive data measurement’. In his role as Chair Ray Poynter of Vision Critical announced that each one of the panel panellists would say what aspect of online surveying kept them awake at night and then there would be a Q&A.

The panellist were Arno Hummerston, MD of Client Services, at German digital and media specialists Nurago; Barry Ryan, Standards and Policy Manager at the MRS; and Tom Ewing, Digital Culture Officer at UK based online agency BrainJuicer.

Hummerston started off with the topic which was going to be the subject of most of the subsequent debate: how ready the industry was for the implementation of the EU Cookie Directive on May 25th this year. He outlined his concern about the lack of awareness even within his own organization of the change to the law which will mean that all web sites will have to ask for informed, opt-in consent to the placement of cookies. He listed some of the ramifications of this for researchers such as not being able to track customers across sites and not being able to link data back to individuals. He also mentioned the problem TNS Gallup had last year when members of its Webprofil panel in Denmark complained that they had not been informed in enough detail about how the data which the company had gathered through the use of cookies, was being collected. Webprofil had to be shut down. All the panellists agreed that TNS was not doing anything wrong, that the news story had just been a perception on the part of the public and the press of wrong doing. Hummerston wondered what would happen to the companies which were genuinely ‘playing fast and loose, while watching people on the internet without consent’ and whether that would ‘taint what the good guys do’.

Barry Ryan agreed with Hummerston and said that the law in this area was so difficult for us because things that we understand perfectly to be right or wrong in real life could become distorted online. He said that online ‘we have no moral compass’ that real life is ‘not the Matrix’ and ‘we don’t live in the world of data’ but ‘online, in the Matrix, everything is data’. He also pointed out that at the moment the UK data protection laws were they most benign and pragmatic in Europe but in three years time our current DP act will be repealed and replaced by EU laws which could best be described as ‘more German’.

Tom Ewing probably reflected the opinion of lots of the audience when he wondered how much trouble non compliers would be in and whether we were just looking at a ‘slap on the wrist’. This was countered by Hummerston who said ‘I’m not worried about the law I’m worried about the press.’

There was a great deal of discussion on how much consent can be expected from the customers with the consensus being that sites like Amazon wouldn’t have to worry but that others might expect opt-in in single figures or even lower. Mention was made in this context of the pitiful experience of the ICO who saw its own recorded web footfall <13867>plunge to 10% when it implemented the directive last summer.

....and this is to say what about online panel? Well according to Hummerston all this is ‘brilliant news for panels’. Much has been written recently about panels going out of fashion or being supplanted by social recruitment sampling or companies just not sampling at all. The good news is that sample providers are in an excellent position to capitalise on the fact that all their respondents are (at a minimum) opted-in, and made aware of the conditions pertaining to the collection and the storage of their data. Panel providers have been through all the hoops already and should be looking forward to a rush of new business on or around the 25th of May.

Of course there are other companies looking at ways around the new legislation. At the end of last month we ran a <14931>story about two different companies who are looking at software solutions which could in some cases substitute for the use of Cookies.

So it looks like panel providers have everything to play for and this summer may be make or break for them and any other provider who can circumnavigate what looks like the trickiest piece of EU legislation yet aimed at our industry.

Teresa Lynch

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