marc said:
Once again this is irrelevant. If the monopoly is in 1 sector or multi, it makes no difference. They can simply fudge the sectors that are monopolized and no one will know the difference since those who are only interested in other sectors will not know the difference since they don’t even get the data for the monopolized sectors to begin with. These free sites are about as much competition to NPD as BEOS is to Windows. Money is also irrelevant. Plenty of folks make money. It doesn’t mean they do good work or that we should trust them just because they have some high position somewhere in a billion dollar company. Again, look at any company that has done something illegal and all the lawsuits being thrown around at everything. <- This is why we have the saying "buyer beware.” It’s not a conspiracy theory. It is just means your should use your head and not just trust because someone has a nice suit on.
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Actually plenty of people will know. For one it's a big company. Unless they get everyone to go in on it and "hush up" there is a good chance people are going to be looking at the final numbers and notice that datasets are off from what they've processed or from what they've found. Then you've got the fact that every company who's been caught doing something illegal, has well... been caught. There is always a trail when you just arbitrairly change numbers.
Besides which. This isn't Enron or anything. This isn't advertising, this is marketing research. You don't see your product as an independent marketing researcher you sell your credibility. Which means telling the truth even when you know it's going to piss off the people paying you.
You piss off the people paying you now, you lose a few customers. You fake numbers, you lose your entire career.
That's just one of many reasons why they arn't just screwing with their numbers for the heck of it.
