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Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy was last updated on March 14, 2003
At Physicians Advisory Council®, we believe that you, our members, have an inalienable right to privacy. We protect your privacy and anonymity by adhering to these standards:
We recognize that some of the information we request from you is personal and sensitive, and requires trust on your part. We take your trust, and our responsibilities, very seriously. Here are our privacy practices regarding the information you entrust to us.
Who We Are
Physicians Advisory Council® and www.physicianscouncil.com are owned and operated by Decision Analyst, Inc.
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Information We Collect From You
We only collect the personal identifying information (name, address, phone number, and email address) you voluntarily provide to us during registration. We also collect information via surveys.
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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.
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Who We Share Your Information With
We don't share any information that personally identifies you with any business, client, or business partner. Physicians Advisory Council® does not sell or rent your personal information to anyone.
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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.
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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.
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How We Secure Your Information
Physicians Advisory Council® has security measures in place to ensure the confidentiality of your personal information.
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Use Of Internet Technology ("Cookies" and Log Files)
We do not regularly use cookies. We do collect information in our log files.
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Communications From The Site
We send emails to panel members to confirm their registration, to invite them to surveys, and for special occasions and announcements.
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Legal Disclaimer
In the rare occasion when disclosing personal information may be required by law, we will do so.
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Links To Outside Sites
The www.physicianscouncil.com website contains links to other websites whose privacy policies may differ from ours.
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Notification Of Changes
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
We welcome questions or concerns regarding our data-protection practices and our Privacy Policy.
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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.
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Who We Are
Physicians Advisory Council® and www.physicianscouncil.com are owned and operated by Decision Analyst, Inc., a leading international marketing research and marketing consulting company in the United States, located in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We subscribe to the privacy, confidentiality, and ethics policies of these professional marketing and marketing research organizations:
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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, date of birth, and gender. We also collect the IP address of the computer you used at the time you registered and confirmed your registration.
- We also gather information on your practice – such as education, specialty, number of patients, surgeries performed type of practice, and your Internet speed, and computer capabilities – to help us prescreen members for certain surveys.
- Additional information may also be requested when you participate in surveys, such as your preferences, shopping patterns, and buying behavior. This information is used to pre-screen members for subsequent surveys and you may be invited to take additional surveys based upon your previous survey answers. For example, a client may want to do a survey of women age 18 to 55 who do not shop in a mall. We would send a short screening survey to determine which panel members meet our client's requirements.
- 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 that are used in marketing research. 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 the Physicians Advisory Council® Online panel.
- We use your name and address to send you any prize money or incentives to which you are 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.
- 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. Physicians Advisory Council® 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 non-disclosure agreement with the email service provider to ensure your contact information is protected and is not misused.
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How You Can Control Your Information
You may "opt-out" of giving personal information at anytime 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 at any point.
- Once you have registered, you may safely update or delete your membership (and all of your personal data) online at any time.
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Privacy For Children Under 14
- Physicians Advisory Council® and Decision Analyst, Inc., in compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, do not accept registrations from children under 14.
- We do not directly advertise or market to children.
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How We Secure Your Information
We consider the protection of all personally identifiable information we receive from our website visitors and subscribers as critical to our corporate mission. Please be assured that 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. In order to try to minimize this risk, we encrypt all information that you submit using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.
- Private data about you and your practice (name, email address, street address, phone number, specialty education, 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 non-disclosure agreement.
- Contractors who may work with us will also sign a non-disclosure agreement.
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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 From The Site
- 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 users by email on a case-by-case basis to answer their 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 physicianscouncil.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 practice, 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:
Toll-free, 1-800-262-5974
International, 1-817-640-6166
Email: privacy@decisionanalyst.com
For more information about Internet privacy and the privacy guidelines we follow:
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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), 3 Upper Devon, Port Jefferson, New York 11777.
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