• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 24, 2008

Nielsen Online Thursday claimed a small victory in its race against comScore to become the first online audience ratings service to become accredited by the media industry's official ratings watchdog. Nielsen said it had completed an audit by the Media Rating Council covering its patented NetSight online metering technology, as well as the editing process it uses to generate audience estimates for Web sites and online destinations. While an important milestone in what is proving to be an arduous, expensive and protracted process, both Nielsen and comScore still phase significant hurdles before they can get accredited.

While the process has been kept confidential under the terms of the MRC's audit, review and accreditation procedures, MRC Executive Director George Ivie in May told Online Media Daily that, "We are less than halfway through the audit process for either organization."

Ivie was not available to comment on Nielsen's announcement Thursday, but stated in Nielsen's press release that the NetSight meter and processing system audit was "important progress."

Interestingly, the completion of Nielsen's online meter audit comes nearly a year after comScore completed the MRC audit for its online metering system in December 2007.

"The second phase of our audit, on enumeration, is finishing up right now, and we're already into the third phase, the panel," comScore Chief Research Officer Josh Chasin told OMD Thursday. "We have been fully committed to a comprehensive audit from day one, and have been working toward that since beginning the pre-audit in August of 2006. We've always cautioned that the audit process is not a race, and we do not see it as a race. but I daresay that if it was a race, it looks like we are ahead."