ESOMAR Rolls Out Mobile Framework

Now that contacting the mobile-only demographic is becoming a core sampling issue (23% of all households in the US and rising) ESOMAR has published guidelines on research via mobile phone.

The guidelines are available for download and do not cover individual methodologies but address the legal, ethical, and practical considerations of interviewing which already exist for other media and adapt them for mobile phone research.

The guidelines are essentially about voice calls and do not deal with the increasing volume of research by SMS or connection via mobile to the web.

Topics covered include unsolicited calls, hours of calling, respondent safety and confidentiality as well as compensation for costs that might be incurred by the person being called. In other words all the issues which need to be considered when phoning landlines.

The authors regard the guidelines as a work in progress and a 'framework for a subsequent series of FAQs that will be developed as this technology evolves noting that mobile communication laws and regulations are still evolving'.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.