I am surprised I didn't comment on Net Applications. About two months ago at the start of August, Net Applications announced that its previously reported usage share numbers were erroneous, but without going into further detail publicly. This came after they never published its June report, which would have normally been released at the start of July. I did talk about it elsewhere, but not here. After a couple of comments in various places, I forgot about it just as most others have. I didn't have reason to think about it again.
Not until Josh Marshall brought it back up.
In reporting the statistics for visitors to his website, Talking Points Memo, he repeated that dubious statistic: "about 10% of people [use] Macs". It's not his error, and the statistic is an aside to his actual point. But it shows how the internet can continue to spread questionable information, even after it has been corrected. Though in this case, the correction came eight months later. In fact, this misinformation was compounded by more misinformation for six additional months. Actually, the questionable methodology was driving reporting for years.
These reports could have driven the behavior of others. It might have induced more coverage of Macs in the regular tech press and even the general press. That might have encouraged more people to buy Macs. That might have caused Microsoft to panic and begin to hammer back with advertising. That might have even encouraged hackers and criminals to start to look for ways to attack OS X.
Now, rereading the piece written by Philip Elmer-DeWitt of CNNMoney/Fortune comes an allegation more troubling. According to Net Applications, the problems in its data come simply from sampling errors. It says that they have been undersampling international traffic, thus magnifying American trends, thus the general overreporting of usage of Apple products. Howver, in what is essentially a footnote to the piece not followed upon, a few people commenting at Geek.com allege that NetApplication adjusts the data for the benefit of its clients. This is a far more damning accusation. For rather than misakes being made, NetApplications is accused of essentially cooking the books. This is a question that needs to be looked into.
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