Tasteocracy’s Privacy Policy

Your privacy is important to us. This policy explains our information practices, defines your privacy options and describes how your information is collected and used by us, Tasteocracy.

This policy covers the Tasteocracy websites at www.tasteocracy.com, Tasteocracy’s various social media accounts and the information we may collect if you decide to participate in a test of food, food ingredients or personal care products.

By using or visiting the websites, accessing social media accounts or participating in a study, you agree to the collection and use of information in the manner described in this policy. Tasteocracy shall have right at any time and without prior notice, at its sole discretion, to revise this policy. Such revisions and additions shall be effective immediately upon notice, which may be given by any means, including, but not limited to, posting the revised or additional terms and conditions on the websites or social media accounts. You are responsible for reviewing the websites or social media accounts periodically for any modification to this policy.

PERSONAL INFORMATION YOU PROVIDE

This policy applies to all information collected on the website, information you post on the social media accounts and any information you provide to Tasteocracy. You will most likely provide us personal information when you participate in certain Tasteocracy-sponsored activities. The personal information we collect may include your name, home address, email address and phone number. In addition, if you agree to participate in certain Tasteocracy studies (as described in the next paragraph), we may ask you to tell us if you’re allergic to certain foods, food ingredients or personal care products.

STUDY DATA

If you participate as a tester in a Tasteocracy product study, you will be asked to provide us with opinions, comments, responses and/or results related to such products. In addition, your participation in the study may be videotaped; this videotape (which will include your image and voice) may be provided to the company that has hired Tasteocracy to conduct the study. Your study opinions, comments, responses and results, and the video taken of you participating in the study, shall collectively be called the “Study Data.” The Study Data will be provided to the client that has hired Tasteocracy to conduct the study. The Study Data so provided to the Tasteocracy client will not include any information that would identify you personally as a study participant. In addition, Tasteocracy may provide certain information to companies that help us conduct or manage the study or make better use of the study results, including your personal data and/or the Study Data. Each such company shall agree not to disclose your personal data to any party other than Tasteocracy or make any other use of your personal data. As consideration for Tasteocracy’s payment of testing fees to you, you agree to assign all right, title and interest in and to the Study Data to Tasteocracy.

SOCIAL MEDIA

As a “friend,” a “fan” or a “follower,” you can post messages or other materials to various social media pages (the “Content”). The submitting user retains ownership of Content. Notwithstanding this ownership, the submitting user grants Tasteocracy the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, world-wide, transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, translate, distribute and display Content. Tasteocracy has not, and will not, review, monitor or edit Content for accuracy, timeliness or integrity. Tasteocracy shall have the right to delete any Content that it considers to violate this policy. Tasteocracy may preserve and/or disclose Content if required to do so by law or to protect the rights, property or personal safety of others. Please follow these rules when posting Content: (a) do not post any Content that is libelous, defamatory, obscene, threatening, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, or that would constitute a criminal offense or that would otherwise give rise to liability or violate any law; (b) do not use social media pages in any manner that could be offensive to the Tasteocracy community, including posting Content that promotes racism, bigotry, hatred, physical harm or harassment; (c) do not impersonate any person or entity, misrepresent any affiliation with another person or entity or otherwise conceal your identity; (d) only submit Content for which you have the copyright or other specific permission; and (e) do not post any Content containing a solicitation of funds, advertising or promoting goods or services.

COLLECTION OF DATA

In addition to the personal information you supply, the Study Data and the information you submit or provide to social media pages, we may collect certain information to evaluate how visitors, guests and members use the website or social media pages. We collect data to make our service work better for you in the following ways: to improve the design of the website or social media pages, to provide personalization on the website or social media pages, and to evaluate the performance of our various activities and programs. The technologies we use to gather this non-personal information may include, for example, IP addresses, cookies, clear gifs, browser detection and weblogs.

IP addresses define the Internet location of computers and help us better understand the geographic distribution of our users and manage the performance of the website or social media pages. Cookies are tiny files placed onto the hard drive of your computer when you visit the website, so we can recognize you when you return to the site and deliver content specific to your interests. You may modify your browser preferences to accept all cookies, be notified when a cookie is set or reject all cookies.

We may also use a technology called clear gifs. Clear gifs are tiny graphics with unique identifiers that are used to track emails and online movements, helping us understand what activities and content are effective.

We may detect the type of web browser you are using to optimize the performance of our website and to understand the mix of browsers used by our visitors, guests and members. To learn about how people use our website, we examine weblogs, which show the paths people take through our site and how long they spend in certain areas.

Tasteocracy may also contract with unaffiliated third parties to provide services, such as software for the website or social media pages, customer communications, analyzing and evaluating the information we collect, and other services. When we do this, we may provide your personally identifiable information or Study Data to third parties only to provide those services; such third parties are not authorized to use your personally identifiable information for any other purpose.

OUR COMMITMENT TO DATA SECURITY

Access to your personal data is limited to authorized Tasteocracy staff or approved vendors. Although total security does not exist on the Internet, Tasteocracy shall make commercially reasonable efforts to safeguard the information that you submit to us.

USE OF THE WEBSITES AND SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES BY CHILDREN

The website and social media pages are not intended for use by children. Tasteocracy will not knowingly collect any personally identifiable information submitted by visitors to the website or social media pages who are under the age of 18.

HOW TO ACCESS OR CORRECT YOUR INFORMATION

You can access your personally identifiable information that you have submitted to Tasteocracy related to your activities as a Tasteocracy tester. To protect your privacy and security, we require the use of a username and password to verify your identity before granting access to or making corrections to your user information page. If you have any questions related to such information or need to correct mistakes or errors in such information, please contact us as set forth in the “How to Contact Us” section below.

DISCLOSURE OF YOUR PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION

We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information (and all related Study Data and Content) as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order or legal process. It is also possible that Tasteocracy would sell all or substantially all of its assets and business. In any transaction of this kind, information, including your personally identifiable information (and all related Study Data and Content), may be among the assets that are transferred. If we decide to so transfer your personally identifiable information, you will be notified by email or a post to the websites or social media pages.

PRIVACY AND LINKS TO THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

The website or social media pages may contain links to other websites or social media pages. Tasteocracy is not responsible for the privacy practices of these other sites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each web site that collects personally identifiable information.

HOW TO CONTACT US

Should you have privacy questions or concerns, please call us at 763-354-2776 or 925-551-4214, send an email to info@tasteocracy.com, or mail to Tasteocracy, 13755 1st Avenue North, Suite 500, Plymouth, MN 55441 or Tasteocracy, 365 N. Canyons Parkway, Suite 101, Livermore, CA 94551.