Remember how the story ends

Nielsen Online has made a positive step toward winning accreditation from the Media Rating Council (MRC).

Last year, in response to myriad complaints from web publishers, the Interactive Advertising Bureau demanded that Nielsen and comScore, the two largest internet audience measurement services, submit to a Media Rating Council audit. The audit will ideally improve the accuracy of their traffic data reports, whose results sometimes vary, by forcing the companies to be more transparent about how they measure data.

Nielsen submitted to the audit in May 2007. Yesterday it reported that the MRC had completed a full inspection of its NetSight online metering technology, in addition to the editing process it uses to estimate audience size for websites.

Getting this far has been costly and taxing — but it isn't nearly over. "We are less than halfway through the audit process for either organization," admitted MRC Executive Director George Ivie, who nonetheless confirmed that completed inspections of Nielsen's NetSight meter and processing system marked "important progress."

The MRC audit for comScore's online metering system was completed in December 2007. (The company began its pre-audit process in August 2006, however.)

"The second phase of our audit, on enumeration, is finishing up right now, and we're already into the third phase, the panel," boasted comScore Chief Research Officer Josh Chasin, snarkily adding, "We've always cautioned that the audit process is not a race, and we do not see it as a race.

"But I daresay that if it was a race, it looks like we are ahead."