Audits urged on gauges of Internet users

The Interactive Advertising Bureau raised fresh concerns Friday about the measurement of Internet users’ behavior and called for two leading market research firms to submit to audits.

The trade group’s complaints about Web audience ratings issued by ComScore Inc. and Nielsen//NetRatings come as advertisers shift increasing amounts of money into online media.

That shift has made precise measurements of how and where users spend time on the Web more important, and ComScore and Nielsen//NetRatings issue the most closely watched audience data.

Audience measurement can be a topic of controversy across all types of media. In TV, for example, Nielsen Media Research will soon introduce ratings that track how many people stay tuned to commercials, after critics said measuring only a show’s audience gave an inaccurate picture of viewing habits.

“We simply cannot let the Internet, the most accountable medium ever invented, fall into the same bad customs that have hindered older media and angered advertisers for decades,” Randall Rothenberg, the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s chief executive, wrote in a letter to ComScore and Nielsen//NetRatings that was released Friday.

He urged ComScore and Nielsen//NetRatings to let Media Rating Council, a third party, audit how audiences are gauged.