Consumer Input Privacy Policy

Last modified: July 31st, 2009

View archived versions here.

This policy describes our practices at this site, ConsumerInput.com, and applies to all ConsumerInput.com panel members. Consumer Input is a panel of Compete and is made up of people who wish to participate in market research – consumers who want to express their opinions about the products and services they use or that matter to them. By participating in research, our members have an opportunity to influence leading companies by providing information anonymously about their attitudes, decisions and their behavior online.

For understanding online behavior, we use a small piece of software that resides on your PC which records your Internet browsing. This information gets merged with the browsing histories of millions of other members and consumers to make it anonymous and it's then shared with companies to help them improve the way they do business. Protecting our members' privacy is a cardinal priority as it speaks to the respect we have for our panelists and their opinions. Toward that end, we make these promises to you:

• We will not make any of your personal information available to anyone without your knowledge except in the rare instances where required by law.
• We will never sell your email address or contact information to a third party, nor will we ever solicit you to purchase anything.
• We will never link individual responses to survey questions with your identity - so we ensure that your opinion is aggregated or grouped with the opinions of others
• Your opinions and decisions – whether it's answers to survey questions or your request to withdraw participation from our panel - will be respected without fail

Questions & Answers:

Who is Compete?

Compete, a unit of Kantar Media, delivers digital intelligence that helps the world’s top brands improve their marketing based on the online behavior of millions of consumers.

Compete’s products and services are fueled by the largest integrated online consumer behavior and survey panel in the industry. Digital insights are interpreted by analytical experts in the automotive, financial services, media, mobile, online, retail, telecom and travel markets to deliver data and recommendations to create effective online experiences and highly profitable advertising campaigns.

Compete's services are supported by industry-leading data management and technology. Our consumer and industry data is drawn from numerous sources and comprises the largest continuous consumer behavior database in the industry. Our proprietary data methodologies and patent-pending technology aggregate, transform and normalize this data and ensure it is representative of the entire US online marketplace.

People are recruited to join Compete's member community through this site, www.consumerinput.com, the first website to help consumers personally benefit from clicksharing. Consumer data is also licensed from national ISPs and ASPs. This multi-source data collection methodology sets the industry standard for representative and actionable data. Consumer Input members are protected by Compete's stringent privacy policy and data collection techniques that purge personally identifiable information.

What service do we provide to the marketplace?

We provide market research in the form of consumer opinions about products and services and consumer online behaviors by collecting related information from our panel members. The collected information is shared with our clients in aggregate or grouped form so that no individually identifiable information is released. We do not license, publish, or sell any information collected from our panelists that can be tied to an individual panel member. Nor will we use panel information as part of a targeted marketing program. We respect and honor the privacy of our panelists.

What information do we collect at this website?

Basic Information: When you sign up, we may obtain your email address and basic demographic information as part of the registration process; same applies when you agree to download the application which monitors your internet behavior.

Basically, we use your email address to let you know about opportunities to take surveys, to provide new updates our program that may be of interest to you, and to inform you about special programs and benefits we are offering to our panel members (such as special gifts or incentives). Usually, panel members are notified about an opportunity to take a survey several times per month.

Cookies, Beacons and Site Logging

The Consumer Input site uses temporary session cookies during the download and registration process to correctly identify the research panel that the user has joined, enable the creation of a unique, anonymous identifier and to trigger the download process.

In addition, we automatically collect information via log files to administer the site and to aid in technical problem solving. Log file information collected is IP address, time a page was viewed, name of pages viewed within the Consumer Input site or survey hosting site during the specific visit, browser type, URL parameters, and cookies that were set by the Consumer Input website or survey hosting website at the time of the visit. Log files may also include information indicating where a visitor came from. This information is used only to administer the site and to identify and resolve any technical problems related to the site's operation. Log file information is never linked to personal identifying information.

We use third-party web beacons from Yahoo! to help analyze where visitors go and what they do while visiting our website. Yahoo! may also use anonymous information about your visits to this and other websites in order to improve its products and services and provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by Yahoo!, click here.

Consumer Input may use cookies for advertising research purposes by keeping track of the types of online advertisements that you see on the websites that you visit, as well as the number of times that you see those ads. Users will be asked to opt-in to any ad tracking cookies, if used.

What information does our technology collect?

Survey Response: We ask panel members for their opinions about a variety of products and services through surveys we send them via email or on a survey questionnaire website. Typically, we combine panel members' responses and report on the aggregated (or grouped) results. On some occasions, an individual's responses may be disclosed, but we would never reveal the individual or panel member who provided the answers.

When we occasionally ask for additional personally identifying information as part of a specific survey or project, we will provide an explanation in the text of the questionnaire to allow members to make an informed decision about whether they want to provide it or not. The explanation will include a description of any new identifying information that will be collected via the survey and with whom it will be shared. As with any survey, members can decline to take the survey or stop at any time during the survey process. Like all other information we collect, any additional information collected for a specific survey will be used for research purposes only.

Internet Behavior: Using the small piece of software you download, we collect information related to your website visitation and internet usage. We use this information, in anonymous or aggregated fashion, to help our clients understand what sites, products, and services our members interact with.

The small piece of software uses a proprietary rules engine to search through all URLs (internet site addresses), before transmitting them to its database, to strip out any such personally identifiable information. If any personal information, for ex. something you may have typed into a field on a page, inadvertently collected by the software, we make every commercially viable effort to purge our database of that information promptly. In any event, we do not disclose the contents of such information stored in our databases - so we will not release or use this information anyway.

Who are our clients and what information do we share with them?

Leading companies turn to Compete to help achieve their sales, profit and market share goals. Our flagship marketing intelligence services, Marketing Effectiveness Intelligence and Online Channel Effectiveness, provide the earliest measure of how consumers consider, buy and engage with their brands relative to rivals. Compete’s Ad Impact offering provides a new way to measure the impact of online advertising by looking at the change in consumer behavior online in response to the campaign. Marketers also rely on Compete's behaviorally targeted surveys to segment and reach hard-to-find consumer segments. With Compete’s products and services, companies can measure their effectiveness across all of their marketing programs. The accuracy and speed of Compete's services gives marketers newfound ability to identify and respond to market dynamics while consumers are in-market, rather than just analyze decisions in retrospect. For example:

• Compete helped a major automaker allocate $30 million to launch a new SUV by tracking vehicle demand and conversion in real-time;
• Compete generated an incremental $75 million in annual subscriber value for a major wireless carrier, without any increase in marketing expenses;
• Compete helped a leading hotel brand increase its booking rate by 56% by redesigning the purchase funnel on its website;
• Compete generated an additional $50 million in loan income for a consumer banking leader by recommending new online sales techniques.

Are there any other third parties with whom we share your information?

We may use a 3rd party partner for database or software application services (such as customer support, email or survey and for purposes of data quality, data cleansing . In addition, we may occasionally supplement information panel members provide us with public information (such as demographic information, ownership information or similar) available through third parties. In all cases, we ensure your privacy by having these third parties sign a written, legally binding agreement stipulating that they will not share our data with any outside party and that any individual identifying information is to be used solely for the purpose of matching records or providing the agreed upon database service.

Do we rent or sell your name, address, email information or other personally identifiable information?

No. We will never rent or sell your email address, contact information or other personally identifiable information to a third party.

What security measures do we have in place to ensure that your data is kept securely?

This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under our control. Panel member information is maintained on a secured database accessible only by certain Compete employees. Panel members may also access their own information for the purposes of verifying and updating, but they cannot view other members' information.

Cookies used during the download and registration process expire once the user session is complete and consumer data is kept only as long as necessary to fulfill business purposes.

As with any Internet endeavor, absolute security of information transmitted through channels (communication networks, hardware, software) not directly operated or controlled by us cannot be guaranteed.

Information is stored and processed in the United States within the Compete infrastructure.

What is our policy regarding children's privacy?

The ConsumerInput.com site and services are meant for those users who are 18 years or older. Our registration process denies membership to underage panelists.

How would we inform you if our privacy practices change?

If we are going to use your personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated in our privacy policy at the time of collection, we will notify you via email. You will have a choice as to whether or not we use your information in this different manner; instructions for how to make that choice will be included in the email.

If we make any material changes to our privacy practices that do not affect user information already stored in our database, we will post a prominent notice on our website notifying our members that there is a change and pointing them to the revised privacy page.

How may I update, correct or delete information you have about me?

To update your profile, change your e-mail address, or be removed from our mailing list, Click Here

How may I opt-out or withdraw from being a panel member?

To opt-out or withdraw from the ConsumerInput panel, you can remove the software application as follows:

Microsoft Internet Explorer:

1. From the Windows control panel, select "Add / Remove Programs"
2. Select the "Consumer Input Software" entry.
3. Select the "Remove" button.
4. Select the "Uninstall" button from the dialog that appears.
5. Follow the instructions presented in the Consumer Input Software Uninstallation Program

Mozilla Firefox:

1. From the Firefox "Tools" menu, select "Add-ons".
2. From the Add-ons menu, select the "Consumer Input Software" entry.
3. Select the "Uninstall" button.
4. Select the "Uninstall" button again to verify.
5. The Consumer Input Software will be completely removed the next time Firefox is restarted.

How may I contact you?

If you have any questions related to the panel, please contact us at questions@consumerinput.com.

If you have questions related to privacy, please contact us at privacy@compete.com or by writing to us at:

Privacy Officer
Compete
4 Copley Place
Suite 700
Boston, MA 02116