• by Masha Geller , December 5, 2002

Sorry to end the week on a depressing note, but every time I dare to think the online ad industry is beginning to show signs of maturity, something happens to prove me wrong, Yesterday, the Audit Bureau of Circulations folded in its interactive unit, ABCi.

The service was originally offered to give online advertisers an unbiased third party source of site activity (to combat publishers’ tendencies to inflate their traffic figures and the shortcomings of ratings companies like NetRatings and comScore). In November 2001, ABCi even began auditing email campaigns and wireless sites. Now ABCi is back to being part of ABC, sort of.

Sure, according to what ABCi spokesperson Marybeth Meils told IAR, the move comes “at the behest of ABC's 4,300 members, who wanted interactive auditing integrated with regular circulation auditing” so that everything is on one page, but it sounds to me like the online community just wasn’t all that interested in the service, which is a shame.

Reportedly, ABCi will not be dropping any services with the consolidation of the two units, but the result will be that the number of interactive audits performed will shrink, less interactive audit data will be presented and – most importantly - audits will only be available to members, ruling out many smaller and Internet-only publishers.

The good news is that ABCi’s competitor – BPAi – is still offering separate Interactive reports (and they’re free to media buyers), so between the two companies you’ll still be able to get the interactive audit reports you need to see before signing any and all IOs.