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PRIVACY POLICY OF GfK CUSTOM RESEARCH, LLC and GfK NOP, LTD.
Effective Date: June 1, 2001
Last Revised: August 16, 2010
This Privacy Statement presents an overview of how we collect, store, use and disclose your Personal Information (as defined below). If you do not agree with this Policy, then you may not use Surveys.com.
WE PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY
The Surveys.com Online Market Research Community is owned and operated by The GfK Group (“GfK”), a leading market research company. GfK is strongly committed to the protection of the confidentiality of Personal Information. We are members of the Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) and have strict procedures in place that are consistent with CASRO's requirements. To that end, we subscribe to the CASRO Code of Standards and Ethics. For more than 75 years GfK has been collecting information from respondents and, throughout that time, we have honored the privacy of our respondents.
HOW DO WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?
We will always collect your Personal Information by fair and lawful means. For instance, we collect Personal Information from our survey members and others who voluntarily disclose such information to us. We also obtain e-mail addresses of prospective members from providers of address lists who have assured us that such lists are comprised of individuals who have consented to be listed ("opt-in" lists).
WHAT PERSONAL AND OTHER INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?
“Personal Information“ is any information that is identifiable with you and may include but is not limited to your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, date of birth, etc. From time to time we may collect sensitive information that may include but is not limited to health and financial information.
We also automatically collect a variety of publicly-available machine information for system administration, service improvement and data integrity purposes, as further described below.
HOW DO WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?
When you participate in one of our surveys, we combine your survey responses with the responses of all other survey participants and report aggregate responses. Additionally, we may use data we collect in statistical modeling to better understand trends among the general population. When we conduct such statistical modeling, we do not release your Personal Information.
We will not make your Personal Information available to any third party without your knowledge, unless it is for research purposes or required by law, as further specified below.
We may use Personal Information for the following reasons:
- Contact you for market research.
- Conduct survey research with you.
- Validate answers you provided in a survey.
- Manage our incentives programs and fulfill your requests for such incentives.
- Allow you to participate in sweepstakes.
- Update our records of your Personal Information.
- Provide service and support to you.
- Provide you with general information about GfK and our products and services.
- Verify the integrity of submitted information.
- Detect and prevent violation of our Terms & Conditions.
- As otherwise authorized by you.
We may disclose your Personal Information and/or survey responses to third parties as follows:
- In accordance with CASRO guidelines, we may provide your Personal Information to a third party, including the client who commissioned the survey you participated in, so long as such third party is contractually bound to keep the information confidential and use it only for research or statistical purposes;
- In connection with market research services (including our incentives programs), to our agents, contractors or partners that facilitate such services; provided, however, such parties are restricted from using your Personal Information in any way other than to provide services to GfK;
- In connection with the request or requirement of any law enforcement agency or governmental authority, to such government agencies or instrumentalities;
- Pursuant to required legal process, to the related compelling party;
- When we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to prevent physical harm or financial loss or in connection with suspected or actual illegal activity;
- In connection with the sale, assignment, or other transfer of Surveys.com, in which case we will require any such buyer to agree to treat Personal Information in accordance with this Privacy Statement. In the event that a sale, assignment, or other transfer of Surveys.com is not consummated with a prospective buyer, we will require the third party not to use or disclose your Personal Information in any manner whatsoever and to completely erase the same;
- As otherwise authorized by you.
We may maintain Personal Information or machine identifiable information in order to satisfy your requests and/or GfK’s business requirements. For instance, we may retain the email address of persons who opted out, or requested to be removed from, our panel, to ensure we conform to such wish. Furthermore, if we have removed a member for failure to satisfy our Terms & Conditions, we may maintain such information to enforce that decision.
WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT BY AUTOMATED TECHNOLOGIES?
As further specified below, we automatically collect a variety of machine readable information about you, including the date and time you visited our website, the pages you visited, the website you came from, the type of browser you are using (e.g., Internet Explorer), the type of operating system you are using (e.g., Windows XP), your Internet Protocol address and the domain name and address of your Internet service provider.
Cookies
Cookies are small text files stored on your computer by a website that assigns a numerical user ID and stores certain information about your online browsing. We use cookies on this site and on our survey site to help us recognize you as a prior user. No Personal Information is stored on any cookie that we use.
If you wish, you can adjust your web browser’s privacy settings to delete cookies upon exiting websites or when you close your browser. You may also configure your browser to block cookies, however doing so may negatively impact your user experience on surveys.com.
Local Shared Objects
Our survey website uses Local Shared Objects (LSO), also known as “Flash cookies,” for a variety of research purposes, including storing some of your preferences, displaying content based upon what you view, personalizing your visit, tracking your behavior and activities across multiple visits to the site, and to combat survey fraud.
Flash cookies are different from browser cookies because of the amount and type of data stored and how the data are stored. Cookie management tools provided by your browser or anti-spyware applications will not remove Flash cookies, nor will the “Private Browsing” modes prevent their placement on your computer.
You can, however, manage privacy and storage settings for Flash cookies or disable their use entirely by visiting Macromedia’s website, the manufacturer of Flash Player, at the following link:
www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html
Log Files
Surveys.com currently uses logging throughout the panelist registration process, panelist portal usage, as well as the survey-taking experience. When you access any of these services, our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website. These server logs may include information such as your web request, Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser. This information is periodically deleted as part of normal maintenance routines.
Digital Fingerprinting
We use digital fingerprinting technology, also known as "machine identification" technology (“Digital Fingerprinting”), to gather certain data about you and/or your computer. This data may include personally identifiable information such as an email address or an Internet Protocol (IP) address, as well as non-personally identifiable information such as a computer operating system or browser version number. A digital fingerprint commonly takes the form of a small file that websites can place on your computer through normal usage of your web browser. This technology creates a unique computer identifier (“ID”) which may be used to identify and track your participation in a survey and limit participation in accordance with our Terms and Conditions.
GfK and Surveys.com utilize Digital Fingerprinting technology to assist our clients in ensuring the integrity of survey results by enabling us to authenticate users and to help ensure users participate in surveys no more than the maximum allowable participation. In furtherance of GfK’s and Surveys.com’s efforts to assist its clients in protecting and ensuring the integrity of survey results, GfK and/or Surveys.com may: (a) link or associate an ID to an individual or to personal information or personally-identifiable information of an individual; (b) share an ID with GfK’s and/or Surveys.com’s clients and/or sample or panel providers; and/or (c) receive or obtain a unique identifier that is linked to an identified or identifiable individual. Any unique identifier(s) received or obtained by GfK and/or Surveys.com that are linked to an identified or identifiable individual will be protected in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
HOW AND WHEN DO WE OBTAIN YOUR CONSENT?
We obtain your consent prior to using or disclosing your Personal Information. For example, when you respond to a survey, you provide your consent to allow us to use your Personal Information for the purpose of conducting research. In certain circumstances, we obtain your consent to disclose your Personal Information to the commissioning client commissioning in order to contact you regarding a bad experience with a product or service.
DO WE COLLECT INFORMATION FROM CHILDREN?
Occasionally, we conduct surveys with children under 13 but only with parental or legal guardian consent. Depending on the sensitivity of the survey topic, we may seek parental or legal guardian consent for interviewing children between 13 and 17 years of age. If we become aware that Personal Information from a child under 13 has been collected without the consent of such child’s parent or guardian, we will use all reasonable efforts to delete such information from our database.
WHAT SAFEGUARDS HAVE WE IMPLEMENTED TO HELP ENSURE THE SECURITY YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?
The security of your Personal Information is very important to us. We have put in place reasonable physical, electronic, and administrative procedures to safeguard the information we collect. Only those employees who need access to your information in order to perform their duties are authorized to have access to your Personal Information.
We cannot guarantee that all communications between us or information stored on our servers will be free from unauthorized access by third parties such as hackers, and your use of our services demonstrates your assumption of this risk.
HOW CAN YOU REVIEW YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION THAT WE HAVE COLLECTED, USED OR DISCLOSED?
We will make available to you Personal Information in our custody or control that we have collected, use or disclosed, upon your written request, to the extent required and/or permitted by law.
To request access to Personal Information that we hold about you, we require that you submit your request in writing at the e-mail address or postal address shown below in the Contact section. When we receive an access request from an individual, we will attempt to fulfill the requested information within 30 days, including requests regarding the Personal Information we have in our possession or control about the individual, what it is being used for, and to whom it has been disclosed, if applicable.
In certain situations, however, we may not be able to give individuals access to all of their Personal Information. This may occur when:
- Providing access to Personal Information would be likely to reveal Personal Information about a third party;
- Disclosing the information would reveal confidential commercial information;
- The information has been collected for the purposes of a legal investigation.
If we deny an individual's request for access to their Personal Information, we will advise the individual of the reason for the refusal.
HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT THE PERSONAL INFORMATION WE HAVE ON YOU IS ACCURATE?
GfK makes reasonable efforts to keep Personal Information in its possession or control accurate and complete, based on the most recent information available to us. We also rely on our respondents to keep their Personal Information accurate and complete. If you register with us, you have the right, and we encourage you, to view and update your registration information at any time. To update your information, please log-in to the members area http://about.surveys.com/signin.aspx or e-mail us: Panel Support Team at chenderson@surveys.com in the US and Pam Hughes at pamhughes@surveys.com in the UK. In order to ensure accuracy of our database and to ensure compliance with our Terms & Conditions, we also may verify Personal Information against a third party database. If you believe your Personal Information is inaccurate, you can demonstrate in writing the accuracy or completeness of the Personal Information we have on you. If you successfully demonstrate that the Personal Information we have on you is inaccurate or incomplete, we will amend as required.
OPT-OUT OF SURVEYS
Your decision to participate in a survey, respond to any specific survey question or provide Personal Information, including sensitive Personal Information, will always be respected. You may choose whether or not to participate in a particular survey, refuse to answer certain questions or discontinue participation at any time. However, failure to provide certain information or fully participate in a particular survey may preclude you from receiving incentive compensation or participation in future certain research studies.
As a Surveys.com community member, you will receive our e-mail invitations to complete surveys. If you decide you no longer wish to participate as a member of Surveys.com, upon receipt of your e-mail invitation, you can reply to it with the word "Remove" in the body of the reply or, alternatively, you can click the hyperlink at the bottom of the e-mail and you will no longer receive survey invitations. You can also e-mail our helpdesk at chenderson@surveys.com in the US and pamhughes@surveys.comin the UK with the word "Remove" in the title. Of course, if you decide you later wish to participate in the community, you are welcome to reactivate your account at any time. However, we are not able to remove your Personal Information from the lists of third parties with whom your information has been shared with your consent or as permitted by this Policy.
TRANSBORDER POLICY
The GfK Group is a global organization. Your Personal Information may be collected, stored, processed, used and transferred by one or more GfK affiliated companies or non-affiliated service providers in one or more countries outside your originating country. GfK adheres to the Safe Harbor Agreement and follows the Safe Harbor Principles (“Principles”) published by the US Department of Commerce with respect to all such data. Compliance with the Principles may be limited in certain cases to the extent necessary to meet national security, public interest or law enforcement requirements. By using this website, you consent to the transfer, storage, use and disclosure of your Personal Information among our affiliated companies and non-affiliated service providers, wherever located. GfK’s service providers are contractually bound to respect the confidentiality of your Personal Information.
CHANGES TO THIS POLICY
We reserve the right, at our discretion, to modify our privacy practices and update and make changes to this Privacy Statement at any time. As we modify this site to accommodate changes in our business model, developments in the market research industry and take advantage of technological advances, the practices described in this Privacy Statement will change. For this reason, we encourage you to refer to this Privacy Statement on an ongoing basis. This Privacy Statement is current as of the “last revised” date which appears at the top of this page. We will treat Personal Information in a manner consistent with the Privacy Statement under which it was collected, unless we have your consent to treat it differently. By using this website following any Privacy Statement change, you freely and specifically give us your consent to collect, use, transfer and disclose your Personal Information in the manner specified in such then-current Privacy Statement.
LINKS TO THIRD PARTY WEBSITES
This Privacy Statement applies solely to the site and service located at www.surveys.com, and not to any other product or service. This website may contain links to a number of third party websites that we believe may offer useful information. The policies and procedures we described here do not apply to those websites. We recommend that you carefully read the privacy policies of each site that you visit for information on their privacy, security, data collection and distribution policies.
CONTACT US
We value your opinion. If you have questions, comments or suggestions, please e-mail us at chenderson@surveys.com in the US and pamhughes@surveys.com in the UK or write us at:
Surveys.com Panel c/o GfK CRNA
500 Mamaroneck Avenue
Harrison, New York 10528
Attn: Surveys.com Community Manager
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