San Francisco (June 16, 2008) Quantcast (www.quantcast.com), the pioneering provider of the world’s only open direct-measurement audience service, today announced it has committed to and initiated the Media Rating Council (MRC) accreditation process.

“As the digital media landscape continues to grow and change, the transparency and accountability of audience measurement has never been more important,” said George Ivie, Chief Executive and Executive Director, MRC. “We are excited to engage with Quantcast – a company that has introduced a new measurement approach – in the auditing process, and are pleased by their interest in working with us so early in the growth of their business.”

Established in the 1960s at the recommendation of the U.S. Congress, the MRC seeks to ensure valid, reliable and effective audience measurements through its standard setting, audit and accreditation processes. The foundation of the MRC audit process is an independent, thorough examination of each aspect of a measurement service’s operations conducted by a CPA firm engaged by MRC. The MRC audit process will begin this summer with oversight and detailed involvement of the MRC Internet Committee.

Quantcast provides near real-time traffic, and audience characterization for over 10 million online media assets, including websites, blogs, games, widgets and videos via its free Quantified Publisher™ program – including many of the web’s most popular destinations and services. With its broad and growing adoption, Quantcast’s service collects directly-measured media consumption data from 700 million monthly global Internet users, 200 million of whom are in the U.S.

“Our approach has always been focused on transparency and enabling the media industry to have greater insight and control over their audience data,” said Konrad Feldman, CEO, Quantcast. “Our participation in the MRC accreditation process is part and parcel of our commitment to deliver accurate and trusted data to our growing publisher and marketer community.”

The recently launched Quantcast Media Planner™ service gives publishers a first-of-its kind ability to organize inventory into actionable packages and marketers/agencies a free and easy-to-use service to discover the audiences they care most about – their uniquely defined customer segments.

Using an innovative approach designed for the increasingly fragmented digital media landscape, Quantcast leverages census-based traffic measurement, combined with various 3rd party panel data sources to deliver accurate and actionable audience data.

The company intends to continue engagement with the MRC on accreditation efforts which will assist the Industry in understanding the benefits of hybrid direct/ panel measurement models.