'Researchware' watches where you click

Detected by anti-spyware software
ComScore's explanations haven’t satisfied everyone.  Along with bank offering online services, several universities have also cried foul at Marketscore. The University of Toronto issued a warning to students earlier this year about the service, claiming it can actually peek inside secure transactions, creating a risk that sensitive data can be stolen, even if the user believes the data is being transmitted in encrypted form.

"They have unencrypted access to their users' secure transaction information. If your computer has Marketscore software installed, all your SSL secured transactions — banking, purchasing, passwords or personal record access information is available unencrypted to the Marketscore organization," the university says on its Web site.

The firm must decrypt the information to find what's there and conduct its research, the school claims.

ComScore officials said the sensitive data is never at risk.

"We establish two secure communications. One with you, and one with the bank," Lin said.

Anti-spyware firms confused
Antivirus firms and other companies that sell anti-spyware products don’t quite know how to treat researchware. Symantec, for example, designates the program as spyware on its Web site.

Symantec spokesman David Cole refused to comment on Marketscore. He did say the antivirus industry was considering a new designation for researchware products. Computer Associates already has done so -- it calls Marketscore "trackware."

“The landscape is changing very quickly. We’re talking to other vendors about this,” Symantec's Cole said. “It’s a really challenging environment right now.”

That’s why ComScore created the term researchware, Lin said.  She believes one critical distinction between malicious spyware and honest researchware is the ease of removal. 

“There is a dramatic difference between software that obtains your consent and software that doesn’t. We wanted to create a distinction between software that is out there tracking you, popping up ads without your knowledge, and software that conscientiously obtains consent,” she said. 

The marketing industry doesn’t know what to make of researchware yet, either.  Dwayne Berlin, general counsel of The Council of American Survey Research Organizations, said his organization has yet to take a position on the software.

“There's no official meaning to the term. ... It's really something we're in the process of learning about ourselves,” he said. “Observational research is extremely legitimate. But we need to make sure industry codes fit the new methods.”

Powerful research tool
Not only is observational research legitimate, it is powerful, all sides agree.  Thanks to MarketScore, ComScore can provide incredibly detailed consumer research to its clients, which ironically include online banks. In traditional surveys, filled out by consumers on their own, people tend to distort and mis-report their behavior and preferences. MarketScore allows researchers to watch consumers in their native environments, making real-life choices. 

The firm isn’t interested in the personal data, Lin said.  Instead, it wants to observe usage trends.

“The fact that you are online banking, for example,” she said, “And are you interested in mortgages or are you interested in bill pay? Which services do you find useful? Are you going to just take a look at the account or are you really going to do something active?”

But even absent security issues, privacy advocates wonder if it’s possible for consumers to make an informed choice when they elect to trade so much information for a small benefit like faster Internet service or virus protection.

“I would claim that even the most interested and informed individual cannot forecast the implications of this deal,” said Alessandro Acquisti, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who studies the economics of privacy.

“This is why: Customers are entering a contract in which they are selling away their future behavior and information without knowing in advance what that behavior and that information will be ... They cannot predict what kind of information will be gathered, how it will be used, and therefore how valuable it may be, or how damaging it could be to the customer.”

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