Daily Research News Online no. 3309 - CMOR and CASRO � A Difference of Opinion

CMOR and CASRO � A Difference of Opinion

August 3 2004

The Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) has reluctantly decided to part company with the Council for Marketing and Opinion Research (CMOR), originally set up to co-ordinate the industry's approach on such matters, due to irreconcilable differences in approach to legislation affecting MR.

Simon Chadwick, most recently CEO of NOP World, was interviewed via e-mail by Michael Kenyon, MrWeb's Director of US Operations. Michael began by mentioning a meeting of the Research Industry Leaders Forum (RILF) in Florida many years ago, which both attended. The meeting agreed on the potential for governmental legislation to create obstacles to the future of MR in the US, and by its end, individuals made financial pledges to develop an undefined organization to address what was identified as the top priority for the MR industry. The resulting body, CMOR, was tasked both with promoting positive legislation and preventing restrictive legislation impacting MR, and with improving respondent cooperation in research.

SC:		I share your recollection of the foundation of CMOR in 1992 - I was indeed there and was a very early supporter, signing a financial pledge there and then. Since that time, I have continued to be a strong supporter of the organization - I have served on the Board for most of the organization's existence and NOP World is the only company contributing at the topmost level ($50,000 a year). Given this, you will understand that things must have gotten pretty serious for me to decide - alongside my other CASRO Board members - that it would be best if CASRO were to cease its membership of CMOR. (By the way, CASRO is not the first of the four founding associations to cease being a member - the AMA left the organization some 4 years ago, if memory serves).

MK:		What are the primary reasons for CASRO decision (to resign from CMOR)? Was there any discussion of possible compromises / re-wording or re-positioning to suit both sides, and if there was what were the consequences?

SC:		The primary reason for CASRO leaving CMOR was a fundamental disagreement between the two organizations about the strategies and tactics involving the industry's relations with regulators and government. Under advice from legal counsel and from top legislators, CASRO has been very careful to argue that our interactions with the public (in any data collection mode) do not amount to “commercial speech”. That is because we do not advertise, promote or sell anything in our conversations with the public and other respondents. Why is this important? Because regulations and legislation like that which gave rise to the Do Not Call Registry have as their purview commercial speech. Essentially, if speech is commercial, but is not to be covered by these regulations, organizations using such speech need to fight for exemption. This is what applies, for example, to fund-raisers and charities. In the past, both CASRO and CMOR used to use the expression that survey research was implicitly exempt from such regulations – i.e. it was not mentioned in the Act or the Rules. However, this implied that we were commercial speech, which could have potentially disastrous consequences (see below). So we took the advice we were given and started to urge our members and the industry (including CMOR) as a whole to describe survey research as not covered or not included. And why is this so important? Because despite the Appeal Court’s ruling on the constitutionality of the DNC Registry as currently set up, the federal rule is not pre-emptive of state rules. The battle is now moving from the federal level to the states, where many politicians are running on DNC as a platform – a good example is the Missouri AG who ran on the basis that he would draft the State’s DNC rules much more tightly than the federal ones by going after the exemptions. So, think about it: if you are an exemption (because you classify as commercial speech), you set yourself up as a prime target for ambitious politicians to catch you in the snare of the state regulations. Where the survey research industry is concerned, that is potentially disastrous, since now we could be faced with the possibility that we are confined by DNC registers in some states but not others – try making a national sample on that basis!

MK:		What would you say to the charge that CASRO’s position is more likely to sound like semantics to the general public / legislators who are not MR specialists? Is it possible that CMOR was just acknowledging the impossibility of distinguishing research from commercial activity in the minds of others, therefore being more practical?

SC:		These are not mere semantics – these distinctions are very real in the world of law and rule-making and a slip-up could land the industry as a whole in a heck of a mess. Which is why, when it came to the DNS (Do Not Spam) Registry and the CAN-SPAM Act, we were very particular once again to assert that we are not commercial speech and therefore not covered. On DNC, CMOR had joined with CASRO and AAPOR arguing exactly that. However, in the interim, it was still pushing the “implicitly exempt” argument on its website and in missives to the industry, despite CASRO’s pleas not to. And then, very startlingly, on DNS – over CASRO’s explicit opposition – CMOR submitted a comment to the government that stated that we were commercial speech and asking for explicit exemption! This cut the legs out from under all the argumentation that the industry had used on DNC and could seriously weaken the industry’s position in the future. As you know, the CASRO governmental affairs team is very highly experienced – Diane Bowers led both CASRO and CMOR for many years; Jim Robinson is a very seasoned political operative in both state and national politics; and Duane Berlin, our General Counsel, probably knows more about the status of the research industry and the law than anyone else, period. So these three people convened a conference call with Brian Dautch (CMOR’s new Government Affairs Director) and Larry Hadcock, (the MRA’s new Executive Director, to whom Brian reports) and asked them very urgently to withdraw their comment. While they promised to consider the question, the CMOR Executive Committee ultimately turned our request down. From our perspective – the perspective of the association whose remit it is to protect the business and businesses of research – this was a colossal error. To our minds, the CMOR position on this and other issues are detrimental to the research industry as a whole – and certainly to our members. We could not, in all conscience, continue membership in an organization that, for whatever reason, was supporting positions that we felt could endanger our members’ livelihoods.

MK:		Does CASRO see its Government and Legal Affairs committee competing with CMOR for a role in representing the best interests of the MR industry or will CASRO approach government and legal affairs differently from CMOR?

SC:		CASRO does not see itself competing with CMOR in any respect. We have a different view than CMOR does and will express that view to government – this is not an unusual scenario in industries with diverse constituencies. Please also remember that CASRO has been active in governmental and legislative affairs for many years even when it was a member of CMOR – we set up our acclaimed 3P Privacy program to help members and non-members comply with a whole set of privacy laws; we published our EU Handbook to help companies doing business in the EU from a legal point of view; and we were the leading association to put together the Research Alliance (CASRO, CMOR, MRA and AAPOR) to fight DNC. In many ways, CMOR and CASRO have been complementary and we hope that will continue. In addition, we have pledged openly and to the Executive Committees of CMOR and the MRA that we would keep all communications open between the government and legislative affairs branches of the two organizations and would inform them well in advance of any initiatives we planned to take. Where possible, we would hope to work in concert with them.

MK:		When CASRO tackles government and legal affairs, are your Members likely to miss CMOR’s inclusion of organizations that use research?

SC:		It is always good to have research users and providers involved on the same side and we will continue to seek to do so through trying to find common ground with both CMOR and the ARF.

MK:		Will CASRO play a separate role in improving respondent co-operation in research?

SC:		No – CASRO will continue to support CMOR and the ARF in their respondent cooperation efforts.

MK:		Is CASRO likely to informally work with CMOR on legislative and respondent co-operation issues to avoid duplication of efforts?

SC:		Yes.

MK:		Are there changes that CMOR should make that would motivate CASRO to consider rejoining CMOR in the future?

SC:		Were CMOR to change its position on the fundamental issues that separate us, it is possible that we would consider rejoining at some stage in the future. However, it is much too early at this point to be thinking of that.

MK:		‘Whoever is right, the fact that the industry can’t present a united voice will only undermine the strength of its case(s) regarding legislation’. Discuss :)

SC:		As you know, I have been an advocate of a unified voice for a long time. Indeed, it was I who brought the associations together at the beginning of last year – a process out of which was born the Partnership. CASRO decided not to join the Partnership because its Board was not convinced about the long-term objective of merger – that said, CASRO has been a leader in trying to put together industry positions, alliances and standards to which all can adhere. A very recent example is where CASRO paid over $7,000 to join the American National Standards Institute and become the American representative on the ISO Committee that is drafting a new global ISO standard for market research. We invited other associations to join with us in this work and I am glad to say that both AAPOR and the American Statistical Association have done so. However, in an industry in which there are many constituencies, it is not always possible that a single unified voice will be found. A very good example was the Research Alliance, which the ARF – a member of the Partnership – felt it could not join despite MRA and CMOR doing so. Why? Because its members include advertisers and direct marketers who felt that their interests lay elsewhere on the DNC issue. Does not having a unified voice damage us with regard to legislation and legislators? Obviously, it would be preferable to have one voice, but it is not unusual for industries to have a number of voices which sometimes disagree and legislators are used to that.