VIP Voice Privacy Policy

Last Updated: December 31, 2019

What Are NPD And VIP Voice?

The NPD Group, Inc., and its corporate affiliates ("NPD" or “We”) provide consumer and retail information and insights for a wide range of industries. We have been conducting market research for over 50 years. Our clients encompass over 2,000 businesses, including many Fortune 500 companies. VIP Voice is a consumer research and survey platform of NPD that gathers the opinions of consumers through online surveys.

How did I access this website?

You may access the VIP Voice and VIP Voice Rewards websites (together, the "website") by registering to become a member ("member") and by choosing to participate in an NPD survey.

NPD Is Committed to Protecting Your Privacy

In addition to being a committed leader in market research, we are committed to protecting the privacy and security of your information. This privacy notice (the "Privacy Notice") describes our privacy practices, including how NPD collects, protects, uses and shares your personal and demographic information. By visiting the Website, registering to be a Member and/or taking NPD surveys, you agree that your information, including your, Personal Information may be handled as described in this Notice.

What Is "Personal Information"?

What Types Of Information Do You Collect and Process About Me?

How We Use Your Information

How We Share Your Information

"Do Not Track" Requests

Third Party Links

Does NPD Collect Information From Minors?

How Long Do You Retain My Data?

How Do You Protect My Personal Information?

Can I Update My Personal Information?

Can I Access My Personal Information?

What About Rewards?

How Do I Opt Out?

How Will You Notify Me If This Notice Changes?

Special Information For California Residents

How Do I Contact VIP Voice?

What Is "Personal Information"?

For purposes of this Privacy Notice, personal information means information that directly identifies you or that may reasonably be used to identify you as a specific individual.

What Types Of Information Do You Collect And Process About Me?

Personal Information That You Submit Actively To NPD

1. Personal Information:

In order to register to become a member of the Website, you must first complete our registration form. This requires you to provide certain information (e.g., first and last names, email address, residential address, gender, date of birth, and income level). In addition, if applicable, we may collect your mobile phone number and relevant mobile plan details.

2. Demographic Information:

In order to start taking NPD surveys that are most relevant to you, you must first complete our demographic survey. This requires you to provide certain information (e.g., age, gender, household size and number of children in the household).

3. Survey Responses:

Once you have completed the demographic survey, you may be invited to take one or more surveys. Survey questions may ask you about things such as purchases you have made and your opinions about products or services.

4. Social Media Data

NPD may make social media features (“Features”), such as the Facebook “Like” button, available to you through our Website. These Features may collect your IP address, information about which page you are visiting on our Website, and may set a cookie to enable the Features to function properly. Features are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Website. If you choose to use such Features, the privacy policy of the third party provider, and not this Privacy Notice, will govern the collection, use and disclosure of information obtained through the use of those Features.

5. Testimonials

We display personal testimonials of satisfied members on our Website in addition to other endorsements. With your consent, we may post your testimonial along with your name. If you wish to update or delete your testimonial, you can contact us at support@vipvoice.com.

Information Collected From Third Parties

We may receive additional information about you, such as demographic data or fraud detection information, from third party service providers and/or partners, and combine it with information we have about you. We also may receive information about you and your activities through our partnerships.

Automatically Tracked Data

Our authorized panel management platform provider, currently Toluna USA, Inc. and any successor provider(s) ("Authorized Platform Provider"), may collect certain information about you automatically when you take a survey, to determine whether you have seen, clicked on or otherwise interacted with a survey and to avoid duplicate survey responses and for fraud prevention purposes. Such information includes, but is not limited to, information about your device and device capabilities including, without limitation, the device operating system, cookie information, Internet Protocol (IP) address, device type, time zone, network status, browser type, browser identifier, Media Access Control (MAC) address, and other information that alone or in combination may be used to uniquely identify your device. The specific technology that may be employed is described below:

1. Cookies

A cookie is a small text file containing information about the user that is placed by a website on a user’s computer or device. NPD and/or third parties providing services to us may place cookies on your computer or device for various purposes such as survey and other market research program control, fraud prevention purposes, online ad effectiveness research, website tracking and audience measurement, and to develop audience insights and/or look-alike models in connection with marketing campaigns. Such third parties may also use tracking cookies, tags, and scripts to track certain information about you based on your activity on our Website. For example, this information may be used to determine whether you have seen, clicked on, or otherwise interacted with a survey and to avoid duplicate survey responses and/or for fraud prevention purposes.

If you wish, you can choose not to consent to cookies or choose not to accept cookies by adjusting your web browser’s privacy settings to delete cookies upon exiting a Websites or when you close your browser. You may also configure your browser to block cookies. Not providing consent, deleting cookies or blocking cookies may exclude you from participating in surveys or other market research programs or negatively impact your user experience.

2. Digital Fingerprinting

Third parties providing services to us may use digital fingerprinting technology to gather certain data about you and/or your computer or device. This data may include information such as an IP address, your computer operating system or browser version number. This technology creates a unique computer identifier that will be used to help ensure the integrity of survey results (for example, to eliminate duplicate survey responses) or to identify and track your participation in a survey or other market research program and limit participation in accordance with the requirements of a specific survey or other market research program.

3. Log Files

Third parties providing services to us automatically gather and store certain information during survey and other market research program participation. Their servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website. These server logs may include information such as your web request, IP address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies. These log files are used among other things, to maintain the Website’s performance and security.

4. Clear Gifs

From time to time, we employ a software technology called clear gifs (a.k.a. Web Beacons/Web Bugs). Clear gifs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of Website users. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on a user's computer hard drive, clear gifs are embedded invisibly on web pages. We do not tie the information gathered by clear gifs to personal information. We use clear gifs in our HTML-based emails to let us know which emails have been opened by recipients. This allows us to gauge the effectiveness of certain communications and the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns. If you would like to opt-out of these emails, please see How Do I Opt Out?

How We Use Your Information

We use your information, including your personal information, for the following purposes:

Generally in our market research business to help clients and commercial partners better understand consumer behavior;
To communicate with you about your use of our Website, to respond to your inquiries, and for other customer service and account management purposes.
For notifications and reminders. For example, we may use your information, such as your email address, for special offers, and promotions, or to otherwise contact you about information we think may interest you.
To improve our surveys and respond to user desires and preferences;
To administer survey functions, including for trouble shooting, data analysis, testing, research and statistical purposes;
To display content in a survey in a manner most effective for you and your device;
To fulfill rewards and administer our rewards program;
To operate, evaluate, maintain, improve and develop the surveys (including by monitoring and analyzing trends in survey responses from users);
To better understand how users access and use our Website, both on an aggregated and individualized basis, in order to improve our surveys, Website and services and respond to user desires and preferences, and for other NPD research and analytical purposes;
To manage, protect against and investigate fraud, risk exposure, claims and other liabilities;
To comply with federal, state or other applicable laws and regulations; and
To the extent we deem it necessary or appropriate, to enforce or apply our rights under our agreement with our users, and/or protect the property, rights or safety of our users, NPD, or others.

How We Share Your Information

We may share your information, including personal information, as follows:

Affiliates. We may provide the information we collect from you to our corporate affiliates or subsidiaries; however, if we do so, their use and disclosure of your personal information will be subject to this Privacy Notice.
Service Providers. We may provide the information we collect from you to third party vendors, technology and other service providers, contractors or agents, including the Authorized Platform Provider, who perform functions on our behalf, or are engaged with us. For example, we use service providers to provide data append services, data validation services, data classification services, fraud prevention, data integrity, incentive fulfillment and sweepstakes related services. These service providers are allowed to access and use the information we make available to them only as needed to perform their functions and for no other purposes.
Co-Sponsored Surveys. We may provide your information to facilitate co-sponsored surveys with strategic partners bound by this Notice; provided, however, that such strategic partners will not utilize your personal information to send any marketing or promotional materials to you
Commercial Partners and Other Third Parties. (a)We may provide demographic information (e.g., gender, household size, and number of children) to commercial partners and other third parties in either single or aggregate summary form and we may also provide other aggregate or de-identified information to such third parties. Singular summary includes demographic information about a person without specifically identifying the person. For example, this summary does not contain personal information such as an email address, nor does the combination of demographic information make it readily possible to identify the person. Aggregate summary includes demographic information about a group of persons without specifically identifying any person within the group; or (b) We may also provide your information, including your survey information and your personal information, to commercial partners, including for example retailers or brands, for marketing research and analytics purposes (for example, to develop audience insights and/or look-alike models in connection with marketing campaigns, to create models that estimate consumer preferences in the total population or to inform market segments). In such cases set forth in the above clauses (a) and (b), we will take steps designed to ensure that your personal information is handled securely and is treated at least as protectively as under this Privacy Notice. We will not, however, allow such commercial partners or other third parties to use this information for the purposes of individually marketing to you or to contact you.
Business Transfers. If we are acquired by or merged with another company, or in connection with the sale of all or a portion of our assets relating to VIP Voice, or our online survey business or as part of a bankruptcy proceeding, we may transfer the information we have collected from you to the other company and we will notify you via email or a prominent notice on our website of any change in ownership or uses of your personal information, as well as any choices you may have regarding your personal information.
In Response to Legal Process. We also may provide the information we collect from you in order to comply with the law, a legal proceeding, court order, or other legal process, such as in response to a court order or a subpoena.
To Protect Us and Others. We also may provide the information we collect from you where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person, violations of our VIP Voice Loyalty Program and Reward Center Terms and Conditions or this Privacy Notice, or as evidence in litigation in which NPD is involved.

"Do-Not-Track" Requests

Currently, our systems do not recognize browser "do-not-track" requests.

Third Party Links

Our Website and services may contain links to third-party websites. Any access to and use of such linked websites is not governed by this Privacy Notice, but instead is governed by the privacy policies of those third party websites. We are not responsible for the information practices of such third party websites.

Does NPD Collect Information From Minors?

We comply with all applicable laws and codes pertaining to the protection of children’s privacy, including, without limitation, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (as amended). We do not knowingly collect personal information from participants who are under the age of 13. If you are under 13 years old, you may not take an NPD survey. If we become aware that we inadvertently collected personal information from anyone under the age of 13 or if you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 13 has provided personal information to us, please contact us and we will promptly delete such personal information and will terminate the account from our databases.

How Long Do You Retain My Data?

We will retain your information for as long as your member account is active or as needed to provide you surveys and/or rewards, and up to 39 months from your last survey activity. However, we will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. If you wish to cancel your membership or unsubscribe or request that we no longer use and retain your information please see How Do I Opt Out?

How Do You Protect My Personal Information?

NPD and its Authorized Platform Provider comply with their legal obligations, when applicable, by keeping personal information up to date; by storing and destroying it securely; by not collecting or retaining excessive amounts of data; by protecting personal information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access and disclosure and by employing physical, technical and administrative protections and procedures to help prevent unauthorized access to, disclosure, misuse, or loss of the data collected on the Website and through NPD surveys, in accordance with generally accepted, appropriate standards in the research industry. The data is stored on secure servers, and only specific, authorized personnel have access to non-aggregated data. Such personnel work on password-protected computers and are subject to confidentiality and security policies and procedures. The security technology is updated and tested on an on-going basis. In addition, we train our employees about the importance of confidentiality and maintaining the privacy and security of your information. If you have any questions concerning the steps taken by NPD to protect the security of the data you provide to us, please see How Do I Contact VIP Voice?

Can I Update My Personal Information?

We encourage our members to keep their information as up-to-date as possible. To change your email address, password, or make changes to the demographic and other profile information provided during the registration process, please visit: www.vipvoice.com, log in and visit "Account" or email our Customer Support at support@vipvoice.com.

Can I Access My Personal Information?

You may access your personal information by logging in to your VIP Voice account and to the “Accounts” link, or email our Customer Support at support@vipvoice.com.

What About Rewards?

After registering for VIP Voice, you will be given the opportunity to participate in the VIP Voice Rewards Program, which includes the SweepLand ® and BidLand ® applications and any successor programs, and features such as our Instant Win Games (the "Rewards Program"). Within these applications, you earn points for completing eligible surveys and can use those points as entries into sweepstakes or bids in auctions. Participation in these programs is optional.

By participating in our Rewards Program, you agree to let NPD share your contact information with its independent third party rewards administrator. Your contact information is used by the administrator to let you know if you have won a sweepstakes / auction or to communicate program information. To receive your prize, you will be required to submit and/or verify certain information to the administrator (e.g. name and mailing address). This information is used to send your prize to you. When claiming prizes, winners also complete an online affidavit, which gives us permission to post winners' names and state or country of residence.

We may also from time to time offer you the opportunity to claim cash rewards or other incentives for completed surveys. To receive your reward, you may be required to submit and/or verify certain information (e.g. name and mailing address) to an independent third-party administrator, so it may provide your reward to you.

For complete Terms and Conditions of the Rewards Program, please click here.

How Do I Opt Out?

To opt out of VIP Voice membership, please log in at: www.vipvoice.com and, click on "Unsubscribe" in the footer of the Website and follow the instructions. You may also click on "Unsubscribe" at the bottom of any email sent from VIP Voice. Please keep in mind that it may take up to ten business days to complete this process.
If you have provided a mobile phone number, to opt out of messaging to your mobile phone reply "STOP" to any mobile message that you receive.
If you wish to cease participation in the Rewards Program, but remain a VIP Voice member, do not enter accumulated reward points into sweepstakes and auctions.
To request we no longer use and retain your information, please contact us at support@vipvoice.com.

How Will You Notify Me If This Notice Changes?

This Notice is current as of the Effective Date set forth above. We may change this Notice from time to time, so please be sure to check back periodically. We will post any changes to this Notice on our Website. If we make any material changes to this Notice, we will notify you here, by sending you an email at the address you have provided, or by means of a posting a notice on the Website home page prior to the change becoming effective.

Special Information For California Residents

A. California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) requires Voice VIP to provide California consumers with the following information about how we process their personal information and the rights available to them with respect to their information.

Categories of Personal Information that We Collect, Disclose, and Sell

The categories of personal information about California consumers that we have collected and disclosed in the preceding 12 months for a business purpose are as follows:

NAME, CONTACT INFORMATION AND IDENTIFIERS: name, postal address, unique personal identifier (Panelist ID number), online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, or other similar identifiers.

PROTECTED CLASSIFICATIONS: characteristics of protected classifications under California or federal law such as race, gender or age.

USAGE DATA: internet or other electronic network activity information, including, but not limited to, information regarding a consumer’s interaction with our Website.

EDUCATION INFORMATION: information about level of education.

We sold information related to the categories listed above.

Categories of Sources of Personal Information

We collect information:

From you, directly and indirectly as described above
From certain data services

Purposes for Collecting and Selling Personal Information

We describe how we use your personal information, please see, How We Use Your Information. We have sold information from the categories of data set forth above to commercial partners and third parties for marketing research and analytics purposes (for example, to create models that estimate consumer preferences in the total population or to inform market segments).

Categories of Third Parties with Which Personal Information is Shared

Commercial Partners and Other Third Parties
Affiliates
Business Transfers
In Response To Legal Process
To Protect Us And Others

For further information, please see How We Use Your Information

California Consumer Rights

You have the right to make the following requests, at no charge, up to twice every 12 months:

Opt-out of the sale of your personal information. To exercise your opt-out rights, please visit our Do-Not-Sell page
Request a copy of the specific pieces of personal information that we have collected about you in the prior 12 months.
Request deletion of your personal information that we have collected about you, subject to certain exemptions.
Request that we disclose what personal information we collect, use and sell.

Submitting Requests. You can submit requests for access and deletion of your information online by clicking here, or by contacting us at 833-775-0019 (toll free). All requests must be verifiable in accordance with the CCPA.

Incentives and Discrimination. We offer financial incentives in return for the sharing of your data. The incentives we offer are financial rewards in exchange for completing eligible surveys and allowing us to share certain information we collect from you. We will not discriminate against you if you exercise your CCPA rights.

B. Shine the Light Law. California residents may request a list of certain third parties to whom we have provided personal information about you for their own direct marketing purposes. You may make one request per calendar year. In your request, please attest to the fact that you are a California resident and provide a current California address for your response. To request this information in writing, see How Do I Contact VIP Voice?. Please allow up to thirty (30) days for a response.

How Do I Contact VIP Voice?

If you wish to exercise any of your rights described above, or if you have any questions about our privacy practices, or this Website, please contact:

Janet Hall
Member Services
VIP Voice
900 West Shore Road
Port Washington, NY 11050
support@vipvoice.com