Terms and Conditions of Participation in the MKOR Panel (“Terms and Conditions”)

To become a member of the MKOR Panel (“Panel”), you must be a resident of Romania and at least 16 years of age. We offer our members the opportunity to participate today in testing and evaluating future services and products. Your voice is representative of thousands of people!

MKOR is a company incorporated and registered in accordance with the Romanian legislation, having the registration number 38569292 and its registered office in Bragadiru, Mărgelelor str. 2D, Ilfov County, Romania.

1. Rules for participants in surveys conducted by MKOR

The MKOR surveys use this panel of respondents answering questionnaires on the Internet by accessing the MKOR’s panel members (“Panelist” / “You”) emails, SMS or phone messages.

2. Joining the panel Panel

Anyone can request membership of the Panel. However, we reserve the exclusive right to refuse membership without having to justify our decision. If the registration procedure is not successful, we will not keep your personal information.

Panel membership takes place by voluntarily ticking the “Yes” answer to the question “Do you agree to participate in future studies organized by MKOR Consulting?”. This question will be addressed to you each time you participate in a new poll.

Membership is not available to MKOR employees or their close relatives. Membership is limited to one member per household.

3. Use of your personal information

The information you provide to us will be treated with strict confidentiality and in accordance with all applicable laws, regulations and rules, including privacy and personal data, including the Data Protection Act and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (EC Directive ), as amended.

In the sense of this commitment, we promise that:

• We will not try to sell you anything or transmit your personal information to third parties for the purposes of marketing or sales, except by contacting this Panel.
• Your individual responses will remain confidential and will only be used in conjunction with other confidential responses unless you explicitly agree that your responses to a particular survey are sent to a customer along with your personal information.
• Refusing to answer a specific question will have no effect on your membership.
• You can request to leave the panel at any time by using unsubscribe links found in emails and / or by answering no to questions referring to your panel membership.
• You have the right to request at any time the correction or deletion of your personal information and the information you provide about your household.
• You may request at any time a copy of your personal information in our possession.

In some cases, with regard to our research, we may require you to provide some sensitive personal data, such as disclosing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious affiliation or philosophical ideas, membership of trade unions, or data on health or sexual life.

You are not required to answer these questions, and such questions will always include a “I prefer not to answer” option. The answers to these questions will remain confidential unless you explicitly and freely express your consent that your responses to these questions, along with your personal information, will be passed on to your research clients for a more in-depth analysis.

For more information about how we use your personal information, please see our panel panel privacy policy.

4. E-mail policy

Since you have voluntarily registered to the Panel and confirmed your email to register, you musn’t flag emails or other communications received from MKOR as spam or unsolicited communication. In doing so you are solely responsible for any damage caused to MKOR.

Your mailbox security settings could prevent emails send by MKOR from reaching your inbox. To avoid this situation, please add [email protected] to your contact list.

5. Record historical information

For the statistical analyzes MKOR provides to its clients, MKOR needs some demographic and personal information about you, including confidential information such as, for example, your income.

Transmitting this personal information to MKOR is a condition for participation in the Panel; otherwise, we could not determine whether your participation in any poll meets the criteria of that survey. You hereby agree that MKOR will register your data in the Panel database. We could also ask for some information about other members of your household. Please make sure you have the consent of the other members of the household in this regard, because you are responsible for this.

Personal data provided about yourself or about other members of your household when you participate in a survey are transformed into anonymous data that will be used for statistical purposes only by MKOR or its clients unless you explicitly consent to act otherwise.

During the registration process and participation in our research surveys, you agree to provide only true, accurate, and complete information, and you agree to update the Panel account information to make sure they are up to date and accurate.

6. How does the Panel work?

Panellists will receive MKOR invitations to take part in research by e-mail, SMS or telephone, with links to relevant pages. Panellists are not required to respond to invites, participation is optional. We do not accept more than one response per research.

If you decide you are not interested in participating in a particular survey, you can click on the “no reminders” link for the survey at the bottom of the invitation email. So you will not receive reminders for that survey, but you will still receive other invitations.

Please do not mark emails from MKOR as spam, as shown in the previous section 4. MKOR is required to send emails to all Panels for each new survey; MKOR can not guarantee a minimum or maximum number of annual polls.

MKOR has taken high data security measures. However, if viruses are detected in emails sent to you, MKOR is not responsible for the consequences associated with such situations and therefore MKOR can not be held accountable.

When a survey gets its necessary response quota, MKOR or its customers have the right to close the survey and stop response collection.

7. Keeping historic data

In addition to your contact information, MKOR will also collect as part of the replies you submit to MKOR during registration and in any survey other personal data such as sex, age, date of birth, education, occupation, income, location, etc.

You hereby agree that MKOR will store and use this data for statistical analysis and for future selection for participation in polls.

The answers you provide will be pseudonymised by MKOR for security reasons and will only be shared with customers in an anonymous format unless you have explicitly agreed to be identified.

8. Children’s privacy

For surveys targeting children, we will always ask for the prior consent of our Panellists who are either parents or legal guardians who are legally responsible for the child before inviting the child to participate in the survey.

9. Reward for completing surveys

Every time you respond to a survey before the deadline and only if you opt in for it, you will be enrolled to participate in a raffle. The type and amount of the reward or prize raffle may vary depending on the difficulty, the duration of the survey, or other factors.

10. Transmission of data

In some very specific cases, such as when you agree to participate in a product test or when you authorize us to send you prizes, MKOR will send you personal information or sample replies to another market research institute, final customer, or supplier as appropriate.

In addition, in certain cases and with your explicit consent, MKOR may send you personal information and sample replies to another market research institute, which is the business partner of MKOR, for the following purpose: sending a survey invitation – email or via phone with links to surveys or the use of your personal information for prizes / gifts or prize raffles (if any) related to participation in these market research surveys. However, such third party will be required to comply with the condition that data may only be used for statistical, research and / or prize giving / gift / prize raffle purposes and are required not to transmit or reveal data such as your name, postal address, or other personal information that might serve to identify you.

Only with your explicit consent, when requested in a survey, we can send the individual survey responses to your customer who has requested your personal information. The Customer will only use this information for the purposes explained when requesting your explicit consent.

We may also transmit your information to our sub-contractors who may carry out part of our work on our behalf and under our control and responsibility. Some of these sub-contractors could have their headquarters outside the European Economic Area; in this case, they must comply with the same confidentiality requirements and security agreements as we do.

If you have become a member of the Panel through a third-party vendor, this vendor may be informed that you have become a member of the Panel and have access to the information you provided during the registration process.

11. Notice of confidentiality and limitation of liability

As a participant in our research studies, you may be asked to evaluate new concepts, products and packaging that are still in their early stages of development. You may be in contact with, you may have permission to view, use or access certain non-public, confidential, proprietary or commercial information or materials that are the sole and exclusive property of our relevant customer, including, but not limited to, information about Customer’s products (collectively, “Confidential Information”). You are forbidden to copy, print, store, transmit or disclose to anyone, by any means, the Confidential Information you access and you must not use the confidential information for any purpose other than the purpose for which it was disclosed to you.

MKOR owns and retains exclusive ownership of trademarks, logos, copyrights, any content of their website and other intellectual property rights (“MKOR IP”). You must not use or reproduce any of the MKOR IP without prior written consent of MKOR. No information in these Terms and Conditions shall be construed as granting any license, right, title or interest in any MKOR’s IP or any patent, trademark, copyright, know-how or the like, owned or controlled by MKOR or in the future.

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold MKOR and each of its officers, partners, clients, managers, employees, agents and lawyers against any liability, claims, actions, trials, proceedings, fines, damages, costs (including reasonable legal fees, court costs and / or negotiation costs) resulting from or related to: (i) your membership of the Panel, (ii) your participation in research surveys conducted by MKOR, (iii) any claims by third parties or (iv) any violation by you of these Terms and Conditions.

Any unlawful or deceptive action you have caused during your membership of the Panel and your participation in the research surveys conducted by MKOR, which may be considered a violation of criminal and / or civil law, allows MKOR to appeal to all remedies in this respect, to the extent permitted by law. MKOR does not offer any guarantees, expressed or implied, regarding membership of the Panel and your participation in the research surveys conducted by MKOR, and MKOR will not be liable (including but not limited to liability for indirect damages , special, incidental or consequential) to you or any third party for membership of the Panel and for your participation in research surveys conducted by MKOR.

You will always release and relieve MKOR, MKOR’s customers, each of its officers, directors, shareholders, employees and agents from all claims, claims, damages, losses, liabilities, judgments, damages, costs and expenses of any kind including reasonable attorneys’ fees (“loss”) arising directly or indirectly from any loss, death, material damage or other damage you suffer or suffered as a result of the distribution, sale, consumption or use or contact with a product with any product testing and evaluation research. This does not apply to Losses that may be caused by gross negligence on the part of the customer or MKOR or any liability thereof under the applicable product liability law or consumer protection.

12. Terms of Participation

MKOR reserves the right to change these “Terms and Conditions” at any time. From time to time, we can contact you by email or phone for account management purposes as well as email newsletters or special announcements that contain key information about your panel membership and Panel Updates (“Members Updates”).

We may also send you an email communication about (i) the Panel’s activities, the rewards for which you could be eligible to participate in our polls, (ii) new Panel engagement campaigns that we conduct in relation to rewards and / or redemption (new) (collectively, “commitment updates”). Receiving any of these commitment updates is optional and you can opt-out of your commitment updates at any time using the unsubscribe link provided in those emails.

13. Withdrawal from the Panel

These Terms and Conditions are currently valid, with a ten (10) business day notice applicable to both parties. You can always ask to leave the panel and stop receiving MKOR emails or messages on your phone; email us [email protected] if you want this.

You can also choose to remove yourself from the Panel by voluntarily ticking “No” to the question “Do you agree to participate in future studies organized by MKOR?”.

After any of the actions described above, your identification will be deleted from MKOR Panel, including all the survey entries you took part in, your answers remaining completely anonymous.

MKOR reserves the right to delete inactive Panel members. Please note that if you can not answer MKOR’s surveys for a predefined time, you can email us at [email protected] to avoid being deleted from the panel.

14. Jurisdiction

These Terms and Conditions are governed by the Romanian law and the jurisdiction of the Romanian courts.