Randomizing Survey Answers For Accuracy

Saint Aardvark writes: "The New York Times reports that two researchers at IBM have come up with a way to persuade people to give correct answers to survey questions: randomize the results. Strangely enough, they can get accurate information out of the aggregate of enough answers -- but it's completely anonymized. Since conservative estimates say nearly half of all survey answers are bogus, there's an interest in persuading people to be more truthful. As ever, you can use the Random NY Times Registration Generator to falsify your registration details and read the article..."

Comments

Slashdot Poll?

[jedwards]

Did you lie when answering this question?

O Yes
O No
O Cowboy Neal told me the answer

Re:Slashdot Poll?

[Subcarrier]

Did you lie when answering this question? Yes

Truth is often the most devious of lies.

Does this increase trust?

[SeanTobin]

I hope these companies aren't asking users to 'trust' them with thier personal information based on the fact that we are supposed to trust them to randomize it.

Personally, if I don't trust them enough to tell them how much I make, I'm not going to trust them to randomize my results. I don't see how this will increase accuracy -- especially if I keep telling everyone I'm a 108 year old female in Uganda making $100,000+ per year year who works in the sales department of an Educational field and plans to make purchases of an suv, a house, a console gaming system, a optical mouse in the next six months and rates thier internet experience as very low. My e-mail address is sjobs@mac.com and I would like to apply for your quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily, and hourly newsletters and I do give permission to pass this information to your affiliates.