ISO 19731:2017 specifies the terms and definitions, as well as the service requirements, for organizations and professionals that conduct digital analytics and web analyses for collecting, analysing and reporting of digital data for purposes of market, opinion and social research by various methods and techniques. It provides the criteria against which the quality of such services can be assessed and evaluated.

ISO 19731:2017 applies to digital analytics and web analyses conducted by service providers on their own initiative, commissioned by clients or conducted by clients themselves.

ISO 19731:2017 applies to digital and web analysis research activities such as:

- understanding the usage of websites via the use of cookies, page impressions and other means, navigation across sites, time spent by visitors and their actions;

- online metered panels, e.g. on-going measurement of web visitation via meters installed on panellists' desktop, mobile or tablet devices;

- tag-based solutions to measure online usage at universe level, which can be integrated with metered panel data to provide a hybrid measurement;

- social media analytics which collect, aggregate and analyse online comments, and user-generated content such as blogs, forums and comments on news sites or other sites.

NOTE Universe can also be known as population.

ISO 19731:2017 can be construed to cover all forms of digital data collection including from desktop computers, tablets, mobile devices and over the top (OTT) devices as well as internet of things (IoT) devices where applicable.