Data analytics business firm Comscore and its former CEO , Serge Matta , was charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations of far-flung fake at the company and have settled for over $ 5 million , theagency announced on Tuesday .
consort to the SEC , Comscore and Matta stuffed its public revenue filings to overstate revenue by $ 50 million from 2014 - 2016 . As theLos Angeles Times noted , that $ 50 million in tax revenue never existed but helped the company “ beat Wall Street analyst ’ sales estimates for seven quarters , ” artificially inflate Comscore ’s note value . The SEC also establish that “ Comscore and Matta made false and shoddy public disclosures regarding the fellowship ’s customer base and flagship product , ” namely by misrepresenting its identification number of customers as increase rather than decreasing , “ and that Matta lied to Comscore ’s internal accountant and external audited account firm ” as part of an cause to cover it up .
The SEC also said Comscore lied to investor about “ sales of a flagship product that measured advertising movement , saying it grew when it actually fell , ” the Times drop a line . Neither Comscore or Matta have to let in wrongdoing as part of the village .
Former Comscore CEO Serge Matta, 2015.Photo: Mike Pont (Getty Images for AWXII)
News of the conduct later investigated by the SEC first broke in a2015 Wall Street Journal articlethat mark “ much of the party ’s reported top - line ontogenesis has come from taxation that bring no cash in the threshold . ”
The settlement required Comscore to pay penalties of $ 5 million , while Matta will pay penalty of $ 700,000 and refund $ 2.1 million to Comscore . The SEC has also ostracise Matta from serve as an official of a public ship’s company for the next 10 . AsAdWeek remark , this has been a problematical yr for Comscore , which miss another CEO and its presidentearlier this year .
Comscore is one of the big data analytics fellowship in the nation , which gives it Brobdingnagian power over what is seen online and where . For example , its entanglement traffic data has continually been cited in insurance coverage of layoff in the journalism sphere ( as well as implicitly inform executives making those layoff decisiveness and the across-the-board media marketplace which journalists work in ) . It ’s also long been anopen secret in mediathat web metricswrit expectant are bullshitand that Comscore isno unknown to this debate .
In fact , in 2010 , Comscore was accused of maneuver ade facto protection racketby offering more advanced metric function to pay up customers , with some journalistic getup using its barren tools suspecting Comscore was grossly undercounting its number . ( At the time , Comscore insistedthat ’s just not how it worksand that it needed to subsidize the cost of more exact measurement , and it later give up some of those toolsfor freeto smaller websites . ) Amid a controversy overinflated Facebook advertising metricsin 2016 , multiple publisherstold CNBCthey argufy the accuracy of Comscore ’s numbers . So this is not a skillful aspect for a party whose whole business is purportedly providing exact numbers .
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1176596682122911746
Comscore ’s integral line model is to furnish cardinal metric function for media companies , entertainment titan and publishers . Now it is being criminate of using artificial number fo inflate its revenue .
— Alex Weprin ( @alexweprin)September 24 , 2019
lmao , at the same fourth dimension comscore cover wildly crushed dealings identification number for anyone who did n’t pay them ( numbers that were taken as fact by sensitive newsman ! ) , CEO was juicing its own revenue bit with weird data point trades reported as gross . it ’s almost like the internet is a scamhttps://t.co/RbhwPkbSCQ
— Jake Swearingen ( @JakeSwearingen)September 24 , 2019
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1176572311677341697
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“ Comscore and its former CEO wangle the account statement for non - pecuniary and other transactions in an effort to dog receipts targets and deceive investor about the performance of Comscore ’s business , ” SEC Enforcement Division associate director Melissa R. Hodgman told AdWeek in a statement . “ We will extend to hold issuers and executives accountable for such serious breaches of their fundamental duty to make accurate revealing to the invest public , while make appropriate credit rating for a company ’s prompt curative acts and cooperation . ”
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