  The neutralino-nucleon cross section in the context of the MSSM with
universal soft supersymmetry-breaking terms is compared with the limits from
dark matter detectors. Our analysis is focussed on the stability of the
corresponding cross sections with respect to variations of the initial scale
for the running of the soft terms, finding that the smaller the scale is, the
larger the cross sections become. For example, by taking $10^{10-12}$ GeV
rather than $M_{GUT}$, which is a more sensible choice, in particular in the
context of some superstring models, we find extensive regions in the parameter
space with cross sections in the range of $10^{-6}$--$10^{-5}$ pb, i.e. where
current dark matter experiments are sensitive. For instance, this can be
obtained for $\tan\beta\gsim 3$.
