Comscore recognized for demonstrating leadership in brand protection, online security, and privacy best practices
RESTON, VA, June 5, 2013 – Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today announced that the company has been named to the Online Trust Alliance (OTA) 2013 Online Trust Honor Roll for demonstrating exceptional data protection, privacy and security in an effort to better protect their customers and brand.
OTA, a nonprofit organization that works collaboratively with industry leaders to enhance online trust, completed comprehensive audits analyzing more than 750 domains and privacy policies, approximately 10,000 web pages and more than 500 million emails for this report. The composite analysis included over a dozen attributes focusing on 1) site & server security, 2) domain, brand, email and consumer protection, and 3) privacy policy and practices. In addition to the in-depth analysis of their web sites, Domain Name Systems (DNS), outbound emails, and public records were analyzed for recent data breach incidents and FTC settlements. Key sectors audited include the Internet Retailer 500, FDIC 100, Top 50 Social Sites as well as OTA members.
“Strong privacy practices are at the core of all Comscore operations,” said Chris Lin, Chief Privacy Officer at Comscore. “We’re proud to be part of the OTA Online Trust Honor Roll, and will continue to participate in conversations with organizations such as OTA about evolving best practices when it comes to privacy and data protection.”
“Consumers are trading billions of pieces of personal data in exchange for desired services. They rely on the integrity of the businesses collecting and storing this information to protect them,” said Craig Spiezle, president and executive director of the Online Trust Alliance. “We are very pleased with the voluntary level of adoption many consumer-facing websites implemented this year that went above and beyond baseline compliance.”
Nearly a third of the companies reviewed made the Honor Roll, including Comscore. The report indicates that company size and/or sales are not true measures of the level of security and privacy a company implements. “All companies are equally evaluated by the same criterion regardless of size. We have seen large e-retailers with significant sales fail to make the Honor Roll; conversely we have seen small to mid-size companies taking top grades,” said Spiezle.
Started in 2005 as an effort to drive adoption of best practices, the objectives of the Honor Roll are to 1) recognize leadership and commitment to best practices which aid in the protection of online trust and confidence in online services, 2) Enable businesses to enhance their security, data protection and privacy practices, 3) Move from compliance to stewardship, demonstrating support of meaningful self-regulation, and 4) Promote security & privacy as part of a company’s brand promise and value proposition.
Being named to the 2013 Honor Roll is a significant achievement considering the large number of companies that received failing marks for inadequate privacy policies or data collection practices (35%), inadequate domain and consumer protection (22%), and non-secure websites (11%).
To review the full 2013 Honor Roll report, visit: https://otalliance.org/2013honorroll.html
About ComscoreComscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in digital measurement and analytics, delivering insights on consumers’ web, mobile and TV behavior that enable clients to maximize the value of their digital investments. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.
About The Online Trust AllianceThe Online Trust Alliance (OTA) is a non-profit with the mission to enhance online trust, while promoting innovation and the vitality of the internet. Our goal is to help educate businesses, policy makers and stakeholders while developing and advancing best practices and tools to enhance the protection of users' security, privacy and identity. OTA supports collaborative public-private partnerships, benchmark reporting, meaningful self-regulation and data stewardship.
Contact:Kate DreyerComscore, Inc. +1 (571) 306-6447press@comscore.com