Members of the Pew Research Center (“Center” or “we”) American Trends Panel (the “Panel”), a nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. Adults, must be residents of the United States and at least eighteen (18) years old. The Center is a Pennsylvania non-profit corporation with its office at:
1615 L Street NW, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
1. Rules for Participants in the Surveys
The Center’s Panel is made up of respondents who answer questionnaires, primarily on the internet, by accessing the links that the Center’s vendor, Ipsos Public Affairs, LLC (“Ipsos”) sends to members of the Panel (the “Panelist”, “Panel Member”, “you”) via e-mail, SMS or other electronic communication. We may also occasionally contact you via telephone in accordance with applicable law.
2. Joining the Panel
Subject to the age restriction mentioned above, the Center invites a limited number of randomly selected households across the nation to join the Panel. People who do not live in these selected households may not join. Nevertheless, we reserve the sole right to deny membership, without any requirement to justify such a rejection.
Membership is not open to employees of the Center or members of their immediate family, or to employees of the Ipsos group of companies or members of their immediate family.
3. Privacy
By participating in the Panel, you consent to the Center’s processing of your information consistent with our Privacy Statement.
4. Email & Communication Settings
Due to your mail-box security settings, the survey invitations you receive from us might be directed to your bulk / junk mail or similar folder. To avoid this, please add the info@americantrendspanel.org address to your address book.
5. Registration and Background Information
Providing Ipsos and the Center with certain demographic and personal information about yourself is a condition for participation in the Panel as it would otherwise not be possible for us to determine whether your participation in any survey would meet such survey’s criteria. We may also ask some basic information about characteristics of other members in your household.
During the registration process and during your participation in our research surveys, you agree to provide only true, accurate and complete information and agree to update the Panel account related information that you supplied to ensure it remains up to date and accurate.
6. How Does the Panel Work?
All Panelists will receive survey invitations by email, SMS or other electronic communication from American Trends Panel with links leading to surveys. We may occasionally reach out to you via telephone. There is no obligation for you to answer surveys. Each survey is only to be answered once. If you decide you are not interested to take part in a specific survey, simply ignore or delete the invitation and reminders. The Center is not required to send surveys to all Panelists for each new survey; nor does the Center guarantee a minimum or a maximum number of surveys per year.
Ipsos and the Center have undertaken appropriate data security measures. Still, should any viruses appear in the e-mails sent to you, Ipsos and the Center are not liable for the consequences that such cases may entail and thus no compensation may be claimed from Ipsos or the Center for such reasons.
When the necessary number of Panelists have answered a survey, or you do not fit the profile, the Center reserves the right to end the survey at any stage and not collect further answers.
7. Acceptable Survey Participation
While participating in the Panel, you understand that any messages, opinions, information, pictures or any other materials shared by Panelists are the sole responsibility of the person who provided the material. You agree that you will not share any material that:
- That includes content that promotes illegal activities.
- Is abusive, obscene or hateful. This includes language, information or images. Masked swearing (e.g. “f__k”) is considered the equivalent of the actual swear word.
- Is threatening, harassing, libellous or defamatory.
- Is inciting hate or violence.
- Is bigoted, racially, ethnically, sexually or otherwise offensive.
- Contains viruses, corrupted files, “Trojan Horses” or any other malicious code.
- Contains your personal details or the personal details of other people.
- Is owned by or under the copyright of someone else.
8. Rewarding You for Answering Online Surveys
Each time you complete a survey before the deadline, you will receive either a check or an Amazon (or other similar company) gift card depending on your preference as indicated at the time you joined the Panel. You can contact panel support at any time to change your preference for method of payment.
9. Confidentiality Notice
As a Panel Member, you may come in contact with, be allowed to see or use or otherwise have access to certain non-public, confidential, proprietary, or trade secret information or material that are the sole and exclusive property of the Center (collectively, “Confidential Information”). You must not copy, print, store, forward or disclose to anyone by any means, the Confidential Information you will have access to, and must not use the Confidential Information for other purpose than the purpose it was disclosed to you.
10. Intellectual Property
The Center shall own and retain exclusive ownership of its trademarks, logos, copyrights, any content of its website and other intellectual property rights (“Center IP”). You may not use or reproduce any of the Center IP without the Center’s prior written consent. Nothing in these Terms and Conditions shall be construed as granting you any license, right, title or interest in any Center IP, or any patent, trademark, copyright, know-how, or similar right now or hereafter owned or controlled by the Center.
11. Indemnity and Limitation of Liability
You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless the Center and Ipsos and each of its respective officers, partners, clients, managers, employees, agents and attorneys, from and against any and all liabilities, claims, actions, suits, proceedings, judgments, fines, damages, costs, losses and expenses (including reasonable legal fees, court costs and/or settlement costs) arising from or related to: (i) your membership in the Panel, (ii) your participation in research surveys conducted by Ipsos and the Center, (iii) any third party claims related to your participation on the Panel, or (iv) any breach by you of these Terms and Conditions.
Any unlawful or disparaging action caused by you during your membership within the Panel and to your participation within research surveys conducted by the Center, that may be considered a violation of criminal and/or civil law, shall entitle the Center to seek all remedies in this regard to the full extent permitted by law and in equity. The Center disclaims any warranties, express and implied, related to your membership within the Panel and to your participation within research surveys conducted by Ipsos and the Center and Ipsos and the Center shall have no liability whatsoever (including without limitation liability for any indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages), to you or any third party, for your membership within the Panel and to your participation within research surveys conducted by Ipsos and the Center.
You will release and forever discharge the Center, Ipsos, each of their affiliated companies, and each of their respective officers, directors, shareholders, employees, and agents from and against all claims, lawsuits, causes of action, demands, losses, liabilities, obligations, judgments, damages, costs and expenses of any kind (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) (“Loses”) arising out of your participation on the Panel.
12. Participation Conditions
Ipsos and the Center reserve the right, at any time, to change the present “Terms and Conditions”. We will inform you of any updates via the Panel Member website.
From time to time, we may contact you by e-mail or phone for account administration purposes or special announcements containing key information related to your Panel membership activity and key Panel updates (“Membership Updates”).
13. Withdrawal from the Panel
You may at any point ask to leave the Panel and stop receiving e-mails, SMS or phone messages from Ipsos and the Center and the notice to leave the Panel shall be sent by e-mail to info@americantrendspanel.org.The Center and Ipsos will endeavour to process your removal from the Panel within 10 business days after we receive your notice. Your account will become inactive in the Panel database.
14.Termination of Membership
The Center also reserves the right to terminate membership in the Panel for any conduct not within our quality parameters or business objectives, or any other violation or breach of these Terms and Conditions, the Privacy Statement, or survey rules. Any use of the Panelist account or taking a survey by an individual other than the Panelist is considered an unauthorized use and may be grounds for termination and forfeiture of points.
Ipsos reserves the right to suspend or delete inactive Panelists from the Panel. This means terminating a Panelist’s membership if the Panelist does not regularly participate in the surveys invited to. The Center or Ipsos will inform you of such suspension or termination.
15. Jurisdiction
These Terms and Conditions are governed by Pennsylvania State laws and the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located in Philadelphia, PA.
