Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy is reviewed and updated annually.

American Consumer Opinion® believes that its Members have an inalienable right to privacy. We protect your privacy and anonymity by adhering to these standards:

• Safe Harbor Privacy Principles as developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce in consultation with the European Commission.
• Children's Online Privacy Protection Act issued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

We recognize that some of the information we request from you is personal and sensitive. Here are our privacy practices regarding the information you entrust to us.

Who We Are
American Consumer Opinion® and www.acop.com are owned and operated by Decision Analyst, Inc. Tell me more.

Personal Information We Collect From You
We only collect your personal information (name, address, phone number, and email address) that you provide during registration. We also collect your survey response via surveys Tell me more.

How We Use Your Information
We use your personal information to communicate with you, to determine whether you qualify for surveys, and to compile an accurate statistical "picture" of those who take surveys Tell me more.

Who We Share Your Information With
We don't share any information that personally identifies you with any business, client, or business partner. American Consumer Opinion® does not sell or rent your personal information to anyone Tell me more.

How You Can Control Your Information
You may "opt out" at any time when taking a survey. You may also update or delete your personal information at any time Tell me more.

Privacy For Children Under 14
In compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, we do not accept registrations from children under 14. We do not directly advertise or market to children. We may survey children under 14, whose parents are panel Members, with their parents' consent. Tell me more.

How We Secure Your Information
American Consumer Opinion® has multiple security measures in place to ensure the confidentiality of your personal information. Tell me more.

Use Of Internet Technology ("Cookies" And Log Files)
We do not regularly use cookies. We do collect information in our log files. Tell me more.

Communications With Members
We send emails to Members to confirm their registration, to invite them to surveys, and for special occasions and announcements. Tell me more.

Legal Disclaimer
In the rare event that disclosing personal information may be required by law, we will do so. Tell me more.

Links To Outside Sites
The acop.com website contains links to other websites whose privacy policies may differ from ours. Tell me more.

Notification Of Changes
We will notify you by email before any policy is changed and give you a chance to opt out. Tell me more.

Questions And Concerns
We welcome questions or concerns regarding our data-protection practices and our Privacy Policy. Tell me more.

Enforcement Of Privacy Policy
If you believe we have violated our stated Privacy Policy with respect to personal information you have entrusted to us, you have several options. Tell me more.

Who We Are

American Consumer Opinion® and www.acop.com are owned and operated by Decision Analyst, Inc., a global marketing research and analytical consulting company, headquartered in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We subscribe to the privacy, confidentiality, and ethics policies of these professional organizations:

• Better Business Bureau (BBB)
• Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO)
• Marketing Research Association (MRA)
• World Association of Research Professionals (ESOMAR)

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Personal Information We Collect From You

We collect information from you during the registration process and during the survey process.

• During our registration process, we collect your name, address, email address, and the names, dates of birth, and genders of those in your household. We also collect the IP address of your computer.
  
  
• We also gather information on your household—such as dwelling type, education level, gender, income, marital status, ethnicity, occupation, your Internet speed, and computer capabilities.
  
  
• Additional information may also be requested when you participate in surveys, such as your preferences, shopping patterns, and buying behavior.
  
  
• None of the information collected in surveys is reported by the names or addresses of Members. Your individual information is always placed into anonymous, statistical summaries. No one outside of Decision Analyst will ever know how you personally answered any of the questions in our surveys.

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How We Use Your Information

• We use information about you, your household, and its Members to determine whether you qualify to participate in a particular survey.
  
  
• We use your email address to invite you to complete surveys and to notify you of news regarding American Consumer Opinion®.
  
  
• We use your name and address to send you any cash, products, prizes, or incentives to which you may be entitled.
  
  
• We use personal information gathered during surveys to analyze the survey results. For example, we might look at the answers of women compared to men, or the answers of young people compared to older people, or high-income groups compared to low-income groups.
  
  
• We use your personal information to verify you are who you say you are and live where you say you live. Any evidence of false or dishonest information will result in the permanent loss of your membership and the loss of Points in your account.
  
  
• We may use your contact information, such as email address, registration data, and IP address, to verify the opt-in nature of our email list, when asked to do so by an Internet Service Provider.

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Who We Share Your Information With

• Your answers to our surveys are grouped with the answers of other people and reported to our clients as statistical summaries.
  
  
• None of your answers to surveys are ever reported in conjunction with your personal information. No one outside of Decision Analyst will ever know how you personally answered any of the questions in our surveys.
  
  
• We don't share your personal information with any third parties—no client, no business partner, or other organization. American Consumer Opinion® does not sell or rent your personal information to anyone.
  
  
• We may contract with an email service provider to help us send email invitations to surveys. In such cases, we will have a nondisclosure agreement with the email service provider to ensure your contact information is protected and used properly.

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How You Can Control Your Information

You may "opt out" of giving personal information at any time when taking a survey. You may also update or delete your personal information at any time.

• Once you join our panel and receive invitations to complete surveys, you are under no obligation to complete those surveys. You can simply choose not to respond.
  
  
• If you start taking a survey and are asked questions you do not wish to respond to, you may simply stop taking the survey.
  
  
• Once you have registered, you may safely update or delete your membership (and all of your personal data) at any time.

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Privacy For Children Under 14

• American Consumer Opinion® and Decision Analyst, Inc., in compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, do not accept registrations from children under age 14.
  
  
• We do not directly advertise or market to children.
  
  
• From time to time we may have a survey available for children, but we will not directly contact any children under age 14. For these surveys we will contact the parents who are Members of the panel and ask them to give consent for the child to complete the screener or survey.

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How We Secure Your Information

We consider the protection of all personally identifiable information we receive from our Members to be critical to our corporate mission. We have security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of any information we receive from you. As with any transmission over the Internet, however, there is always some element of risk involved in sending personal information. To minimize this risk, we encrypt all information using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.

• Private data about you and your household (name, email address, street address, phone number, income, education, family composition, etc.) is strictly confidential and protected at all times.
  
  
• Only a few trusted employees at Decision Analyst, Inc. have access to your personal information, and each has signed a binding confidentiality and nondisclosure agreement.
  
  
• Contractors who may work with us also sign a nondisclosure agreement.
  
  
• When registering or taking a survey, the information you send us is encrypted. This protects the information you provide to us.

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Use Of Internet Technology ("Cookies" And Log Files)

• "Cookies" are pieces of information that a website transfers to your computer's hard drive for record-keeping purposes. Cookies are used by thousands of websites to make your life as a Web user much easier. There are occasions where we may use cookies. For example, we may use cookies to track registrations back to any affiliate site that may have referred you, and we may use cookies to track advertising results.
  
  
• Like many website servers, we gather information in our log files. Information gathered in log files includes Internet protocol (IP) address, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring and exit pages, platform type, date and time stamp, and number of clicks while onsite.
  
  
• Log-file information is not linked to any individually identifiable information and is used only to administer our systems, to make improvements to our website, and to determine the success of advertising campaigns.

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Communications With Members

• We send an email (generated by an auto-reply system) to all new Members to confirm their registration.
  
  
• We send emails to Members from time to time, inviting them to take surveys.
  
  
• We regularly send emails to Members for special occasions (holidays, birthday) and to make announcements regarding system updates.
  
  
• We communicate with Members by email on a case-by-case basis to answer customer-service-related questions.
  
  

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Legal Disclaimer

We make every effort to preserve user privacy. It is possible, in rare instances, that your personal data might need to be disclosed, if required by law and if we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order, or a legal process served on our website. If this should ever occur, we will attempt to notify you in advance so that you can take legal action to protect your personal information.

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Links To Outside Sites

The acop.com website contains links to other websites. While these websites might be of interest to you, please note that their privacy policies may differ from ours. We encourage you to read the privacy statement of each site you visit.

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Notification Of Changes

If there is a significant change in our privacy policy or practices, or in how we use personally identifiable information, we will notify you by email before the policy is changed and give you a chance to opt out.

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Questions And Concerns

For more information, questions, or concerns regarding our data-protection practices and our Privacy Policy, please contact our Internet Operations Department at:

Internet Operations Department
Decision Analyst, Inc.
604 Avenue H East
Arlington, Texas 76011
Phone numbers:
Within the U.S., 1-817-649-5241
International, 1-817-640-6166
Email: privacy@decisionanalyst.com

If you wish to unsubscribe, please click here. Log on to your My Account page, go to Login and then enter your email address and password. Choose the Delete Account option located on the front page of your My Account page. Deleting your account could take up to 10 days for your request to be processed, so please disregard any emails you receive from us in the meantime.

For more information about Internet privacy and the privacy guidelines we follow:

• Safe Harbor Overview
• Safe Harbor Privacy Principles

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Enforcement Of Privacy Policy

If you believe we have violated our stated Privacy Policy with respect to personal information you have entrusted to us, you have several options:

• We urge you to contact our Internet Operations Department so we may investigate your complaint.
  
  
• You may also file a complaint with the Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO),
  170 North Country Road, Suite 4, New York 11777.
  
  

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