Re: Marketscore and Higher Ed

[Rodney Petersen <rpetersen () EDUCAUSE EDU>]

In response to this recent thread, I wanted to report that EDUCAUSE
staff have attempted to reach out to ComScore personnel who have
reported their attempts (which we cannot verify) to make higher
education "more aware of the nature of their products and services."  We
have also placed inquiries with the Federal Trade Commission regarding
the status of consumer complaints and whether or not this is a violation
of federal law as a deceptive trade practice.  Finally, we have compiled
a Resource Page on Spyware & Adware at
http://www.educause.edu/Browse/645?PARENT_ID=741, which includes links
on the right hand column to University Responses to MarketScore.

We will continue to study the legal, policy, and technical options
through the efforts of our D.C. office and the working groups of the
Security Task Force.  We also appreciate the insights and expertise that
many of you have shared to date.  Please let me know if you have any
further questions.

-Rodney

-------------------------------------------------- 
Rodney J. Petersen
Policy Analyst & Security Task Force Coordinator

EDUCAUSE 
1150 18th Street, N.W., Suite 1010
Washington, D.C.  20036
(202) 331-5368 / (202) 872-4200 
(202) 872-4318 (FAX) 
EDUCAUSE/Internet2 Security Task Force
www.educause.edu/security 
-------------------------------------------------- 

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen D. Franklin [mailto:franklin () UCI EDU] 
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 4:33 PM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Marketscore and Higher Ed

> Hello,
> This is an interesting article about Marketscore.  The VP of 
> marketscore is apparently taking issue with higher education.
...
[ http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5494004.html ] ...
> Particularly, see this part on the first page
>
> "There's a small group of people in universities who've taken it upon 
> themselves to take an issue with our software," said Dan Hess, senior 
> vice president of industry analysis at ComScore. "We're trying to make

> them fully aware of the nature of our (products and services). It's a 
> completely voluntary program."

Am I the only one who was concerned/upset by the first sentence after
the bold-face synopsis?
  "ComScore Networks' Marketscore application is installed on more than
  1 million PCs in the United States, forming the backbone of a
  well-regarded research service used by Fortune 500 companies,
  universities and media outlets, including CNET News.com."

Seems to me that Marketscore exists because these (reputable) folks pay
for what it produces.  Perhaps higher education has a responsibility
(opportunity) to do some security awareness training for the folks
(apparently even some universities) who are footing the bill for
Marketscore.  Might this be something that EDUCAUSE could help with?

-- sdf

Stephen D. Franklin
Network & Academic Computing Services
University of California
Irvine, California 92697-2225
E-mail: franklin () uci edu

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