Internet Marketing Research

Yesterday we reported that there has been a growth in the contact center surveying/feedback and analytics market. Today, as I found in this article from The Gazette, the market research industry is experiencing an overall growth globally. In this past year the industry has increased by 5% and the business volume was roughly $28 billion. Much of this growth has been attributed to the advent of the Internet, and more recently its increasing use within this market space. As Jean-Marc Lger, president of Montreal-based Lger Marketing, has said:

"In the 1970s, the question was what consumers were buying; in the 1980s, it was why they were buying it; in the 1990s, it was how they were buying it; and today the question is: what if? We've moved to a much more predictive model."

Internet has provided the ability to answer this latest question in real time. As with many new tools, the use of the Internet in marketing research has raised some ethics and validity questions. Some are saying that with the Internet, making sure that samples are random become harder, and also people maybe tempted to abuse data confidentiality and privacy standards. What are your thoughts? Do you think that the Internet is a blessing or a curse for this industry?