Effective Date: January 01, 2010
Last Revised: June 01, 2013
Granicus, d/b/a granicusideas.com (“granicusideas.com”, “we” or “our”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information. We perform market research and other services on behalf of our customers. Specifically, our platform enables our customers (generally companies and communities, referred to herein as “Account Holders”) to create, share, and act upon ideas to drive innovation and make everything, and every day better. Among other products and services (“Services”), Account Holders, either working alone or through us, may create surveys for their customers, employees, or other persons of their choice, as well as enable persons to post ideas, vote, comment, complete profile questions, and participate in public discussion or private focus groups. On our Website, we also may provide opportunities for interested persons to share ideas with us, for, example, through a blog. Although there are myriad ways in which interested persons may participate in our Website, for simplicity, we refer to the various surveys, projects, blogs, focus groups, and any other activity on our website as collectively “Surveys and Projects”.
Account Holders will engage granicusideas.com for a variety of products and services, including to create Surveys and Projects. Persons/companies/communities interested in using our services must create an account with us.
granicusideas.com will send an invitation to you (using contact information that the Account Holder provides to us) to participate in the Surveys and Projects, which may include, for example, responding to a survey, posting a comment, or sharing an idea.
We may collect information about you from a variety of sources, including information that we collect from you directly when you create a user profile or participate in any Surveys and Projects. We collect information from a variety of sources, including information we collect from you directly when you create an account, visit our Website, use our services, register to make comments on projects or blogs, or request information from us.
You are required to create an account with us if you would like to participate in any Surveys and Projects. To create an account, we require you to provide us with your email address and to create a user name and password. You will have the opportunity—but are not required—to respond to create a user profile; the items requested in the user profile will vary based on the Account Holder, but may include your name, contact information, gender and interests.
You also may have the option to log onto our Website through Facebook Connect. If you log onto our Website through Facebook Connect, we will request, at a minimum, your email or phone number and your password. Additional information that you have made available through Facebook may be provided to us based on the user permissions that you have set in your Facebook account for third party access. Facebook controls the information collected from you during the log in process; we do not control the information that Facebook collects from you. When you sign in through Facebook Connect, we request your permission to: access your basic information, including, your name, profile picture, gender, list of friends and user ids, email address, date of birth, and any other information you have set to public on your Facebook account; send email directly to you; post to your wall; and access your data at any time even if you are not using Facebook. Please note, if you allow us to have access to this information, then we will have access to this information even if you have chosen not to make that information public. For information about how Facebook may disclose your information, including any information you make public, please consult the Facebook Privacy Policy. We have no control over how Facebook uses or discloses the personal information you provide to it. We store the information that we receive from Facebook along with other information that we collect from you or receive about you.
We may collect information about you from third parties, such as your name and email address, so that we may contact you and ask you to participate in our Surveys and Projects.
When you interact with our Website, we strive to make your experience meaningful and easy. We may use or engage others to use cookies, clear gifs, or other tracking technologies to track user activity and to collect Website data. Specifically, when you visit our Website and use our Services, we may collect the following information: IP addresses, browser type, operating system, date and time of visit, time spent on and/or logged onto the Website, browser referral header or other mechanism by which you came to our Website, and links clicked on in our Website. We may combine this information with your personal information that you provide to us by using the Website.
In the following paragraphs, we provide additional information about our use of tracking devices:
When you come to the Website, our web server sends a cookie to your computer. Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser for record-keeping purposes. There are two types of cookies; session-based and persistent-based cookies. We also may permit certain third party cookies to be placed on our Website.
Session cookies exist only during an online session. They disappear from your computer when you close your browser or turn off your computer. We use session cookies to allow our systems to uniquely identify you while you are logged into the Website. This allows us to process your online transactions and requests, and to verify your identity, after you have logged in, as you move through our Website.
Persistent cookies remain on your computer after you have closed your browser or turned off your computer. We may use persistent cookies to track aggregate and statistical information about user activity, which may be combined with other user information.
We also may engage third parties, including, without limitation, Google Analytics, to track and analyze non-personally identifiable Website data. We use the data collected by such third parties to help us administer and improve the quality of the Website and Services and to analyze usage. We do not have access to or control over these third party cookies, nor does this Privacy Policy cover such third parties’ use of data.
Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but if you prefer, you can edit your browser options to block them in future. The Help portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your computer from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. Website visitors who disable their web browsers’ ability to accept cookies will be able to browse the Website; however, you must enable cookies to use most of our Services.
We or the third parties we engage to track and analyze Website data may employ clear gifs (a.k.a. Web Beacons/Web Bugs) to help us better manage content on the Website. Clear gifs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of Web users. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on your computer’s hard drive, clear gifs are embedded invisibly on Web pages.
Subject to the limitation on how we use your survey responses discussed in the section entitled “Additional Information about Surveys and Projects,” we use the information that we collect from you through your participation in our Services, including our Surveys and Projects for several purposes:
We may combine all of the information that you submit through our Website, including, for example, your profile information along with your responses to our surveys. We also will use your information to provide Services to our Account Holders. This may include compiling and reviewing your responses to our Surveys and Projects. Below we describe what information we share with Account Holders.
We may share information about you as described herein.
If you choose to participate in our Surveys and Projects, we will share the information with the Account Holder. This will include your responses to the Surveys and Projects, as well as your contact information and profile information, unless you participated in our Surveys and Projects on an anonymous basis. The Account Holders may use your information, at a minimum, for purposes consistent with this Policy, which may include for market research, for sales and marketing, and for other purposes described herein. The Account Holder, however, also may maintain its own privacy policy; if the Account Holder invited you to participate in its Surveys and Projects, then the information that you submit also may be subject to that privacy policy. The Account Holders may contact you directly if your respond to our Surveys and Projects unless you respond on an anonymous basis.
If you choose to participate in our Surveys and Projects, we may share your contact information and non-personally identifiable information (such as information obtained through cookies) with our partners and subsidiaries. We also may combine such information. Our partners and subsidiaries will use your information consistent with the purposes described in this Policy.
Depending upon the particular Site Activity, your responses also may be viewable by any other visitor to that website. For example, if you participate in a blog or project, your responses will be viewable by other visitors to that website.
We may hire vendor companies to provide limited services on our behalf, such as payment processing, sending postal and electronic mail, providing technical support, and to assist us in providing the products and services that you request from us. We only provide those service providers with the information necessary to perform the requested service.
granicusideas.com reserves the right to disclose your information if it licenses, sells, or otherwise transfers its technology or business, or a portion thereof, to third parties.
We also may disclose your Personal Information to protect our rights and property, to prevent against fraud and abuse, and to protect other users of our services. We also may disclose your information as permitted or required by law, for example, in response to court orders, subpoenas, or other requests from government agencies.
We administer Surveys and Projects on behalf of our Account Holders. We may create the Surveys and Projects on behalf of the Account Holder, or the Account Holder will create the Surveys and Projects itself, and provide to us to administer. Regardless of which entity authors the Surveys and Projects, we will host the Surveys and Projects on our Website and collect the responses that you submit. Your participation in our Site Activity (e.g., completing surveys, project/blog responses, votes, ideas, comments, etc.) will be shared with the Account Holder. In some circumstances, we also will analyze the data and provide that analysis to the organization, and in other situations, we turn the survey responses in their entirety to the organization. We do not share your individual survey responses with any person or entity other than the organization that engaged us to create the survey. We may, however, provide your contact information and aggregate information to our partners and subsidiaries, but we will not provide your actual survey responses to our partners or subsidiaries.
Please note that we also will provide the Account Holder with your profile information, subject to the exception below pertaining to anonymous information. If you have any questions about how your information will be treated, please contact speakup@granicus.com. We are not responsible for any information that you submit through this website. If the Account Holder invited you to participate in our Surveys and Projects, then that Account Holder may have its own privacy policy, which will govern the collection and use of your information.
Whether your participation response to a particular Survey or Project is anonymous depends upon the Account Holder. Some Surveys and Projects will permit you to respond anonymously, whereas other Surveys and Projects will require your name. We will notify you on the Surveys and Projects if you are permitted to respond anonymously.
We do not sell your responses to Surveys and Projects to third parties. We may, however, transfer your information (e.g., contact/profile information) to a third party in the event of a transfer, corporate reorganization, bankruptcy, or other similar event, but we will not sell your survey responses under any circumstances. We merely act as a custodian for your responses on behalf of the Account Holder.
We take precautions to ensure the security of your personal information. However, we cannot guarantee that hackers or unauthorized personnel may gain access to your personal information despite our efforts. You should note that in using the granicusideas.com service, your information will travel through third party infrastructures that are not under our control.
We cannot protect, nor does this Policy apply to, any information that you transmit to other users. You should never transmit personal or identifying information to other users.
You must be at least 18 years of age to use this Website. The services available on this Website are not intended for persons under 18, including, in particular, children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from persons under 18 years of age.
Portions of our Website permit users to engage in Surveys and Projects. We are not responsible for the privacy of any information that you choose to submit through a public project, such as a blog, or for the accuracy of any information contained in those postings. Any information that you disclose becomes public information. We cannot prevent such information from being used in a manner that may violate this Policy, the law, or your personal privacy.
Survey data is stored on servers located in the United States for clients in the United States and in Canada for Canadian clients.
You have the right to access the personal information that we collect about you. If you create an account with us, then you may access and update your account information by logging into your account. Once you enter information into a survey, however, you are unable to change your survey responses except by contacting the survey creator.
We may periodically update this policy. We will notify you about significant changes in the way we treat personal information by sending a notice to the email address specified in your primary Account Holder account or by placing a prominent notice on this Website or blog.
Any questions about this Privacy Policy should be addressed to speakup[at]granicus.com or by mail at:
granicusideas.com
600 Harrison St.
Suite 120
San Francisco, CA 94107