[Mad Dawgg]

"But the buyers and the sellers are more aware of any potential problems with the Nielson’s numbers than you and I could ever be, the buyers and the sellers both spend serious money supplementing and verifying those numbers, and they agree that the numbers are good enough to determine the dollar value of their exchanges. So clearly by definition the market is free, whether you’re willing to accept the truth of that fact or not.

So by your definition a Market in which an outside entity sets the price is still a Free Market because the buyer and the seller still exchange money and goods?

[discostu]

No, by YOUR definition a market where the buyers and sellers are both happy with how the numbers are acquired is free. “completely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers”. The buyers and sellers are happy with how Nielson gets, massages and publishes the numbers, therefore the market is free. It’s not like there’s some government mandate that makes Nielson the sole source of information. There are other companies that provide data, they are used and compared against the Nielson data, even with all that other data everybody benchmarks from Nielson. That’s a free market.