Market Research Regulation in 2010
Posted by Jeffrey Henning on Wed, Nov 04, 2009
At the
MRA First Outlook Conference, Howard Feinberg (
@hfienberg), director of government affairs of the Market Research Association, presented "Regulation Over the Horizon: Emerging Research Technologies & Modes and the Legal & Privacy Hurdles". Howard covered six broad trends that have implications for the future of market-research regulation.
- Online behavioral tracking - FTC proposes self-regulatory standards, which means "you need to regulate yourselves, or we will do it for you". Facebook recently settled a lawsuit about Beacon, which was considered to be in violation of established, offline privacy laws. Public opinion about behavioral tracking is mixed: users prefer free web content, paid for by ads, to subscription websites and are aware that information about their web browsing is collected, but are disturbed by the "creepiness" factor when they are unsure about what information is collected or how it is disseminated. In a recent survey, 92% of respondents felt that there should be a law requiring websites and ad servers to delete all information about them upon request.
- Location and behavioral data - A little appreciated downside of our connectivity is that we've given up locational privacy, as we are tracked by our cellphones and GPS devices in our cars (if you know someone's home and work address you can identify their GPS data stream); sites like Google Latitude and Loopt provide information about where opt-in users are in real time. Locational data is not just about where you go, since those locations demonstrate associations - "political, religious, amicable and amorous, to name only a few," according to a New York State Court of Appeals ruling in May. Even with GPS off, phones can triangulate location from cell towers. Other developments that provide the MR industry great opportunities for observational research from data aggregation:
- Car insurance companies in California were recently given approval to charge rates based on travel patterns and mileage.
- Feinberg joked about RFID tagging of research participants, pointing out that RFID-tagged passports are now used at U.S. border crossings.
- A smart grid for power management of networked appliances and HVAC systems could provide insight into intimate consumer usage of appliances.
- UK billboards photograph license-plate numbers to look up the make and model of the vehicle, showing an ad for the exact motor oil required by that vehicle.
- Social media - Scraping social media is limited by concerns about data quality, which prompts questions about who these people really are. From an ethical standpoint, are users aware that you are watching, listening, reading, analyzing their output? Teens and tweens are often naïve about the privacy of their data. New laws are regulating social networks, without defining social networks; this could have implications for researchers, if online focus groups and online research communities become classified and regulated as social networks. [See Social Networks vs. Online Communities vs. Panels for my definition.]
- Respondent authentication -One survey found that web users were open to authentication by trusted vendors. No U.S. law currently governs digital fingerprinting, which is used by many panels for respondent authentication. In Europe, an IP address may constitute protected PII (Personally Identifiable Information).
- Cloud computing - The provision of data through servers accessible over the Internet raises risks for data security; Howard advised researchers to make certain to download and backup data stored on such systems. How do international data transfer laws relate to cloud computing? This is yet to be decided.
- Ethical and legal initiatives - For self-regulation of the industry, researchers are urged to provide transparency and consumer control over data, with limits on data retention. A standard practice, widely adopted, is get consumer consent whenever a privacy policy is changed. An additional practice is to get consent for using "sensitive" data. Best practices for location-based services include providing notice, requesting consent and implementing safeguards. For research authentication, notice, consent and efficiency. U.S. researchers should seek to follow the FTC's Fair Information Practice Principles.
Clearly, researchers prefer self-regulation to external regulation and Howard encourages researchers to work with him to shape best practices and influence legislation.
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