It’s difficult to open a marketing magazine these days without seeing details of a new survey conducted via the Internet. It’s the latest and greatest toy for all those researchers who love the black box approach to research, where the medium is more important than the message. Like most other methods there are advantages and disadvantages to surveys conducted via the Internet. Let’s start with the advantages. They are extremely fast. You can post a questionnaire on a Web site and start to receive replies almost instantly from Net surfers. Within a few hours you will probably have an adequate sized sample. This involves less effort, but is no quicker than a phone survey with an adequate number of stations. The second advantage is that there is almost no cost involved. Once the questionnaire is posted on a Web site there are no further printing, postage or long-distance costs. Compared to traditional methods where every extra interview costs money, this is extremely attractive. So Internet surveys are fast, economical - and deadly!