Re: Marketscore and Higher Ed

["Stephen D. Franklin" <franklin () UCI EDU>]

> 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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