Peanut Labs Aims to Purge Bogus Response

In the US, Peanut Labs - which provides market researchers with access to members of social networking sites - has developed patent-pending software which it hopes will help eliminate fraudulent online responses. The system blocks any respondent who takes too many surveys within a set time-period.

The problem of duplicate responses was highlighted in 2005 when comScore reported that less than 1% of Internet survey takers accounted for 30% of all surveys taken.

To counter this, Peanut Labs has designed OptimusID; which builds a respondent's survey-specific behavioural history by assigning a digital 'fingerprint' to their computer. The system blocks anyone who uses multiple e-mail addresses from taking surveys on the same computer, and even if they delete their cookies or change IP addresses, it can still recognize habitually 'bad' respondents.

'Despite the best efforts of the market research industry, bad respondents continue to skew data quality,' said COO Ali Moiz. 'OptimusID can now filter out fraud, ultimately meaning substantially better market research data quality leading to better advertising and marketing decisions.'

The system - which is currently being tested by more than 20 Honomichl top 50 market research firms, as well as brands from the banking, gaming, packaged goods and entertainment industries - should be generally available by mid-spring.

Peanut Labs is also testing its Respondent Rehab Database, which flags up survey takers who speed through surveys, who straight-line, lie or provide the minimum answers to questions.

In February, the company secured $3.2m funding to develop its sampling technology, which is targeted at the 13- to 25-year-old demographic known as Gen-Y (www.mrweb.com/drno/news7977.htm ).

Web site: www.peanutlabs.com .

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

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