The IAB, in conjunction with the Media Rating Council (MRC), is developing what it calls Audience Measurement Guidelines, which will help define unique visitors, page views and time spent on a given site.

Toward completion of the guidelines, the IAB has established the Research Advisory Board.

The guidelines are expected to cover the impact of cookie deletion, international traffic and spiders upon measuring respective audiences, in addition to measurement standards and options. This may be the first time industry guidelines have existed for audience measurement.

The IAB's newly-formed Research Advisory Board will help define cross-industry efforts and educate professionals about issues in this sector.

The Board is composed of:

Keith Berkelhamer, CNN.com
Dr. Thomas Evans, ESPN.com
Betsy Frank, Time Inc.
Jonathan Gibs, Weather.com
Corey Jeffrey, MTV Networks
Stephen Kim, MSN
Scott McDonald, Condé Nast
Dan Murphy, Univision Online
Bruce Rogers, Forbes.com
Barbara Rice, ex-officio

The IAB has long championed uniform standards for audience measurement. In response to an open letter demanding measurement transparency, sent to both Nielsen//NetRatings and comScore in April, Nielsen began the full audit and accreditation process with the MRC. comScore committed to finalizing a timeline for its own audit, but expressed confidence that its figures would stand up to scrutiny.