CMOR (Council on Marketing and Opinion Research)

Survey and Opinion Research

State Regulation of Online Behavioral Advertising
Summary: Legislators are reacting to concerns voiced by consumers about their activities online being tracked for the purposes of delivering relevant advertising – including the use of cookies.

Malicious Software: Spyware, Adware and Malware
Summary: In the normal course of computer use, data is exchanged with remote servers. Usually bundled with free programs or surreptitiously downloaded onto a computer, programs known as “spyware” gather and report information about a computer user without the user's consent or knowledge. Similar applications called “adware” deliver pop-up advertisements; programs called “malware” alter personal computer settings and can significantly harm a computer.   Conversely, cookies, which are small, innocuous text strings downloaded from Web sites into temporary folders, track users anonymously and may save provided information, login information, for a user's benefit.

Automated and Recorded Voice Polling and Political “Robocalls”
Summary: Consumer concern about annoying or un- or mis-identified automated political calls (aka, “robocalls”), especially in a presidential election year, has driven some legislators and regulators to seek to curtail such calls. Legislation intended to protect consumers from unwanted automated calls (by requiring extra disclosures or adding such calls to a state or national Do Not Call Registry) may inadvertently circumscribe legitimate survey and opinion research calls (which merely seek to elicit public opinion about candidates, issues, and policies).

Online Behavioral Advertising
Summary: Regulators and policymakers are reacting to concerns voiced by consumers about their activities online being tracked for the purposes of delivering relevant advertising – including the use of cookies.

H.R. 275 – The Global Online Freedom Act
Summary: The Global Online Freedom Act (H.R. 275) would prohibit U.S. businesses from keeping any personally identifiable information (PII) within an “Internet-restricting country” or providing PII to officials of such a country.

Emergency Funding for the 2010 Census
Summary: The decennial census is the premier source of demographic and economic data on every facet of our nation’s population and communities. It provides data used by federal and state agencies to determine the allocation of hundreds of billions of dollars in government funding and by the private sector to inform key investment and other business decisions. Further, census population numbers are used to apportion seats in Congress, influencing the foundation of our democracy.

Research Incentives for Healthcare Professionals
Summary: Concern about pharmaceutical and medical device companies gaining influence with health care professionals through various kinds of “gifts” has driven interest in Congress and state legislatures in either: (1) requiring the reporting of such “gifts”; or (2) banning all such gifts over a certain dollar amount (usually $25-50). While some legislation exempts incentives/honoraria for participation in marketing research studies, most bills unfortunately include this common research practice in their definitions of “gifts”.   When not banning incentives outright, these bills require various different kinds of disclosure, from simply the aggregate amount of money spent on “marketing” to healthcare providers, to full personally identifiable information about every healthcare professional that receives any gift or money from a pharmaceutical or medical device company.

Funding for the U.S. Census
Summary: The Census Bureau is the premier source of demographic and economic data on every facet of our nation’s population and communities. The agency produces annual data that are used by federal and state agencies to determine the allocation of hundreds of billions of dollars in government funding and by the private sector to inform key investment and other business decisions. Further, census population numbers are used to apportion seats in Congress, influencing the foundation of our democracy.

Wireless Service Taxes
Summary: One-in-six Americans have abandoned their landlines for their cellular phones, according to June 2007 NCHS data. A further one-in-eight Americans receive all or almost all calls on their cellular phones despite having a landline in the home. Wireless costs have dropped nearly 80 percent over the last 10 years, but the typical wireless consumer now faces over 15 percent on average in taxes, fees and surcharges on his or her wireless service, more than twice the average tax rate for other goods and services in this country.

Benefits of Physicians’ Participation in Pharmaceutical & Medical Device Marketing Research
Summary: A Great Value to the Public & Patients

Universal Service Fees and Telephone Research
Summary:     The Universal Service fee (USF) funds a variety of useful programs for rural and low-income telecommunications, paid for by fees assessed on telecom companies, which the companies then pass through to telephone users. The USF “Contribution Factor”, which is the percentage of interstate end-user revenue that telecom companies must pay, changes quarterly depending on the needs of the programs, as determined by the Universal Service Administrator's quarterly filings with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In the 2nd quarter of 2000 the Universal Service Fee was 5.7%, but has since grown to 11.3% (in the 2nd quarter of 2008).