I am most concerned about what these actions will mean on our ability to enforce attribution issues such as sales tax and IP royalties. I fear a day when the Internet enables a lingua franca other than English, and frictionless commerce obsolesces American led supply chains and by extension, the municipalities that relied on them.

There is constant, inexorable pressure by foreign governments to open up the Internet’s plumbing. Why? Sovereignity, for one. While Iran and China are probably the most “out there” in terms of buying certain software packages that make it easier for them to portray their, ah, unique perspective via the Internet, their interests to control the message in the name of ‘national security’ are mirrored by just about every government out there.

The things that we think of as “exciting” and leading to “greater autonomy” may actually have a paradoxical, chilling effect. Within a day of the time you probably wrote this post, ICANN chief executive Rod Beckstrom set DNS down an path that separates the Internet as we know it — ruled by English law, driven by the spirit of American entrepreneurism — towards a world where there are multiple masters; where many can say ‘no’ and precious few are in a position to say ‘yes’.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h5F9quEu35trhlSx_4zHYylf-OEQ

The funniest aspect of the NYT anonymity explanation: the sources wouldn’t speak out because they didn’t see “any personal gain,” as if “professional gain” might have swayed them to go on the record.

Thanks for your reply with its valuable perspective on the practices of other syndicated research firms. A couple of reactions:

“Just a comment on hypothesis testing. In my experience as an analyst rarely were survey data designed this way”
- At Jupiter, at least, it wasn’t universally done nor was it rare. Hypothesis-driven design was our methodology and I believe we tended to get more usable data when a hypothesis was top of mind during design time.

“Important hypotheses are often tested using archival data collected for non-research purposes.”
- At Jupiter this happened to a limited degree because of infrequent use of historical data and very limited supplies of current-year data. In principal, every single survey question was tagged with one or more specific research reports (and associate key questions) it was supporting.

“Often times assertions are made that cannot be reasonably supported by the available data.”
- I would never knowingly publish research that made unsupported assertions. A sound research QA process ought to catch and prevent that from happening. Doubtless, the occasionally flimsy assertion will have slipped through the cracks, I suspect. I won’t speak for the output of other research firms.

“often syndicated research is opinion masquerading as fact”
- Well, I’d think that the data is the data. But the analysis is the analysis. And the assertions are another thing entirely. At client organizations, people in a variety of different roles with different skills might make use of syndicated research. To market researchers, or people with deep quantitative and technical skills, syndicated research may seem insufficiently rigorous. Meanwhile, to business decision makers, the same piece can seem overly freighted with numbers and stingy on business implications.

Just as it takes skills to design and conduct research, it takes skill to use it effectively. As you say, “in the wrong hands can be used very poorly.”

Thanks for writing.

I believe that in public policy, where the stakes can be very high and the impacts of decisions tend to be widely felt, I am more comfortable with a humble expert than his or her cocksure opposite.

Thanks for your thoughtful comment.

What I do think is worth pursuing are ideas about the limitations knowledge. This is particularly crucial in areas where the impacts of decisions, be they those of GW Bush or Ben Bernanke, are felt among many people. In our deliberations about major issues, we should be deeply skeptical of presidents deeming themselves to be “the decider” or economists celebrating their role in creating “The Great Moderation”. All of this is to say, these are always political/moral/philosophical questions.

*-I use strawman here since every Econ PhD seems to use it in their defense of their profession. I think there has to be some class that teaches them to do that. I also think economics can only use that argument against all critics if it is willing to disavow any claim of an orthodoxy.