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Updated January 1, 2007
You are right to be concerned about the privacy of your personal information.
We are also concerned. Our philosophy and our practice in this regard are simple.
The primary purpose of this web site is to provide you with information about us
and our services. We have no reason to collect personal information about those
who visit our web site, nor, in our opinion, do we have the right to do so without
their permission. Therefore, we do not collect personally identifiable information
about you when you visit our site unless you choose to provide that information
to us voluntarily.
We believe that it is very important to have clearly stated rules about how
information is collected and handled, particularly if that information can in any
way be traced back to an individual. The following is our current statement of policy.
It may be updated from time to time. The date of the most recent revision will always
be posted at the top of the page.
Server Data:
The company that hosts our web site provides us with the standard server
traffic statistics about our site: number of visitors, pages visited, dates visited,
type of browsers used, etc. None of this information identifies you personally.
Voluntary Information:
Should you choose to email us, you are voluntarily providing your email address
and any other personal information included with the email. Similarly, should you
fill-out any forms or surveys on our site that ask for personal information, you do
so voluntarily.
Survey Cookies:
We do not use cookies or any other tracking technology that can identify a specific
visitor to our website. However, there are two situations in which cookies may be used
as part of an online survey. Online surveys are part of our business and we may put
links to our surveys on our website. While most surveys do not use cookies, there are
two situations in which cookies are used:
- A cookie may be used to prevent someone from taking the same survey twice.
- Occasionally, we may conduct a survey that is not necessarily meant to be completed
in one session. For example, you might log on once a week to complete a different
portion of the survey, or it might be a very long survey that you are unable to complete
in one session. For this type of survey the survey software assigns each user a random
id number and creates a persistent cookie that allows you to return to the place where
you left off should you close the browser and return to the survey at another time.
In both of these examples random id numbers are assigned to IP addresses and are used
only for the reasons stated above. We do not retrieve any personal information about you
through this process unless you voluntarily enter it as part of the survey.
Privacy of Survey Data:
Most of the surveys we conduct are anonymous. That means that while the questionnaire
may include personal questions like age, income, or employment, we do not have any way to
link that information to you personally. If we mailed you a questionnaire, or contacted
you by phone or email, in virtually every case we obtained your name and contact information
from one of two sources: (1) from our client who may have records of customers from checks,
warranties, product registrations, or similar sources; (2) or by purchasing a list from a
list company. List companies compile contact lists from phone books, property records,
magazine subscriptions, and many other sources, which they then sell to other companies
that use the lists for marketing, or in our case, to send surveys.
Anonymous Surveys: For anonymous surveys, we do not link your name to your answers.
With anonymous surveys, we have no interest in, or reason to, link individual answers to
individual people. For these surveys we are dealing with hundreds or even thousands of
questionnaires and the analysis we provide our clients is based on how clusters of people
respond; for example how people in a certain income bracket or age bracket respond. We
never provide information about how individuals respond.
Non-anonymous Surveys: There are occasions when surveys are not anonymous. For
example, a survey can be used as a kind of electronic focus group or online discussion in
which all participants are aware that the information they provide, including who they are,
is being shared with all other participants. In situations like this it is clearly stated
that there is no anonymity.
Voluntarily providing contact information as part of a survey:
There are two situations where we might ask for contact information as part of a survey:
- Follow-up: Occasionally, as part of a survey we will ask if we can contact you
again with follow-up questions or to see if you would be interested in attending a focus
group. If you agree, you will be asked for contact information.
- Prize drawings: Occasionally, with direct-mail surveys there will be a coupon
that you can complete in order to be entered into prize drawing.
In both of these situations, any contact information you provide is given on a voluntary basis.
If you do so, we maintain your name and contact information with the survey data so that we
can contact you if necessary. The only reasons we would contact you are for the reasons stated
in the survey. We will not use that contact information for any other purpose.
Once the survey is completed, we destroy any paper surveys or paper prize drawing coupons.
The survey database, which may contain the contact information, is stored on disk (not in a
computer) for approximately three years in case additional data analysis is requested.
Confidentiality of Survey Data:
We never sell, rent, trade, or give away any contact information or other individual personal
information collected through our surveys.
Limits to our responsibility:
Our site includes links to other web sites. Should you visit those sites from these links,
be aware that our privacy policy is not in effect once you leave our site. We cannot be
responsible for how other sites maintain privacy. Should a client provide us with a contact
list to conduct a survey, we can assure you that we will use the list only for the purpose of
conducting the survey. However, we cannot make any guarantee about how our client maintains
or uses their list.
When you have questions about privacy:
Please contact us if you ever have questions, concerns, or suggestions related to web site
privacy or data confidentiality. Your questions will help us clarify and refine our privacy
rules.
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