Blacklist: Market research suffers from Swisscom blackout
Opinion research institutes are annoyed because Swisscom blacklists them from dubious callers. Surveys are thus made more difficult or even prevented.
As the SonntagsZeitung writes in its current issue, the call filter that Swisscom has been offering for around a year is actually designed to prevent dubious advertising calls. However, the blacklist kept by Swisscom also includes renowned opinion research institutes such as Demoscope and GFS Bern. The fact that Swisscom customers are less likely to be reached leads to a systematic error, says Stefan Klug of Demoscope. The reason: Swisscom customers form a specific group of people, since the proportion of higher earners, for example, is greater with this provider than with competitors. The result is distorted results in scientific surveys.
The Swiss Market and Social Research Association protests against Swisscom's action and demands that institutes that adhere to the association's rules do not end up on the list. Swisscom, in turn, counters that this is not the case anyway - there are no known cases in which the call filter has blocked research companies that have adhered to the rules - for example, no calls after 9 p.m., says a spokesperson to the SonntagsZeitung. However, there are customers who individually block numbers from survey institutes with an individual filter.
Intransparent catalog of criteria
In practice, however, the handling is not as transparent as Swisscom makes it out to be. Institutions are blacklisted on the basis of a complex algorithm that uses more than 100 criteria. However, Swisscom keeps the criteria secret. The list is dynamic, and the software continuously defines which numbers are blocked.
This uncertainty as to whether one is currently blocked makes matters worse, says Andreas Schaub of GFS Zurich. This makes it impossible to calculate the systematic error in a makeshift way.
Market researchers are also bothered by the fact that Swisscom grants special status to the Federal Statistical Office. Its surveys are given privileged treatment by the filters. The criticism is that this creates a monopoly for high-quality surveys.
Customers don't seem to care about Swisscom's questionable filter policy. They love the call filter: since its introduction in 2016, 260,000 fixed-network customers and 120,000 mobile customers have activated it. In the second quarter of 2018 alone, Swisscom blocked 12 million calls this way. (hae)
