Clattering is part of the craft.

Newcomers to the industry in particular often advertise themselves and their services with self-confidence.

So did the survey start-up Civey.

The Berliner Klick-Demoskops boldly claimed that they were "the No. 1 in the field of digital opinion data", "market leader in the field of digital opinion data", "technology leader in the field of digital opinion data" and on top of that "more reliable than the competition" - which obviously meant reputable survey companies such as the research group Wahlen, Infratest Dimap, the Allensbach Institute for Demoscopy or Forsa.

The last-named institute did not want to let this sit on itself - and was completely right in a now final judgment of the Cologne Regional Court (file number 33 O 20/20).

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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The company is already controversial because of its collection methods (FAZ of February 1).

Unlike most other institutes, it does not conduct its surveys with catalogs of questions that are elaborately created according to scientific criteria, but with online river sampling.

Individual questions are placed in an almost inflationary manner on the websites of newspapers, magazines and other media partners.

However, according to the Cologne court, this question-inflation says nothing about the market position.

It may be the case that Civey, "measured by the questions answered on the Internet, has the highest number of answers and thus ultimately the 'leading' population" available for his market research, according to the judgment.

However, the company was unable to demonstrate that it

The regional court is also convinced that the claim that Civey is more reliable than the competition is not tenable.

Instead of substantiating the assertion with proof that the opinions predicted by Civey “are more likely to actually correspond to the opinions prevailing in reality”, the company limited itself in the proceedings to pointing out that its methods were safe from manipulation and that its Services are therefore more reliable, the chamber criticizes in its judgment.

A company that claims "technology leadership" is claiming to have the "best" and "most successful" technology and is signaling that the industry is oriented towards this technology.

Civey could not prove that either.

Rather, Civey himself pointed out in a brief that "other opinion research institutes use largely analogous methods of empirical social research such as telephone interviews".