Last modified: June 30, 2020

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy describes how Avid collects and uses Personal Data about you through the use of our Website, and through email, text, and other electronic communications between you and Avid.
Avid Ratings Canada, Ltd. (“Avid,” or “we,” “our,” or “us”) respects your privacy, and we are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this policy.

This Privacy Policy (our “Privacy Policy”) describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you visit the websites avidratings.com, gosurvey.com, avidreports.com, and client.avidratings.com (collectively, our “Website”) and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.

This policy applies to information we collect:

• on our Website;
• in email, text, and other electronic messages between you and us;
• when you interact with our advertising on third party websites and services, if that advertising includes links to this policy.

It does not apply to information collected by:

• us offline or through any other means, including on any other website operated by Avid or any third party;
• any third party, including through any application or content (including advertising) that may link to or be accessible from or on the Website.

Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Website. By accessing or using our Website, you agree to this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy may change from time to time (see Changes to Our Privacy Policy) Your continued use of our Website after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check this Privacy Policy periodically for updates.

2. Children Under the Age of 18

Our Website is not intended for children under the age of 18 and children under the age of 18 are not permitted to use our Website. We will remove any information about a child under the age of 18 if we become aware of it. 

Our Website is not intended for children under 18 years of age. No one under age 18 may provide any information to or through the Website. We do not knowingly collect Personal Data from children under 18. If you are under 18, do not use or provide any information on our Website or on or through any of its features, including your name, address, telephone number, email address, or any screen name or user name you may use. If we learn we have collected or received Personal Data from a child under 18 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from a child under 18, please contact us at info@avidratings.com or call us at (608) 824-2500.

3. Information We Collect About You and How We Collect It

We collect different types of information about you, including information that may directly identify you, information that is about you but individually does not personally identify you, and information that we combine with our other users. This includes information that we collect directly from you or through automated collection technologies.

Generally

We collect several types of information from and about users of our Website, specifically information:

• by which you may be personally identified, such as name, postal address, e-mail address, home, work, and mobile telephone numbers, and information related to your home, including purchase price (“Personal Data”); or
• that is about you but individually does not identify you, such as traffic data, logs, referring/exit pages, date and time of your visit to our Website, clickstream data, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Website.

We collect this information:

• directly from you when you provide it to us;
• automatically as you navigate through the Website. Information collected automatically may include clickstream and page view information, and other information collected through cookies and other tracking technologies; and
• From third parties, for example, our business partners.

Information You Provide to Us

The information we collect on or through our Website is:

• information that you provide by filling in forms on our Website. This includes information provided at the time of registering to use our Website, using our products and services, or requesting further services;
• records and copies of your correspondence (including email addresses), if you contact us; and
• details of transactions you carry out through our Website.

You also may provide information, such as feedback or reviews, to be published or displayed (hereinafter, “posted”) on public areas of the Website or transmitted to other users of the Website or third parties (collectively, “User Contributions”). Your User Contributions are posted on and transmitted to others at your own risk. Although we limit access to certain pages, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. Additionally, we cannot control the actions of other users of the Website with whom you may choose to share your User Contributions. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that your User Contributions will not be viewed by unauthorized persons.

Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies

As you navigate through and interact with our Website, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, specifically:

• details of your visits to our Website, such as traffic data, location, logs, referring/exit pages, date and time of your visit to our Website, clickstream data, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Website.

The information we collect automatically may include Personal Data or we may maintain it or associate it with Personal Data we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. It helps us to improve our Website and to deliver a better and more personalized service by enabling us to:

• estimate our audience size and usage patterns;
• store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize our Website according to your individual interests;
• recognize you when you return to our Website.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:

• Cookies (or browser cookies).  We and our service providers may use cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with our Website through your computer or mobile device. A cookie is a small file or piece of data sent from a website and stored on the hard drive of your computer or mobile device. On your computer, you may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser, and you may have similar capabilities on your mobile device in the preferences for your operating system or browser. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website. Unless you have adjusted your browser or operating system setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Website.
• Google Analytics. We use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”) to collect certain information relating to your use of the Website. Google Analytics uses “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the Website analyze how users use the site. You can find out more about how Google uses data when you visit our Website by visiting “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps”, (located at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/). We may also use Google Analytics Advertising Features or other advertising networks to provide you with interest-based advertising based on your online activity. For more information regarding Google Analytics please visit Google’s website, and pages that describe Google Analytics, such as www.google.com/analytics/learn/privacy.html.

4. How We Use Your Information

We use your Personal Data for various purposes described below, including to:

• provide our Website to you;
• provide products and services to you;
• provide you with information you request from us;
• enforce our rights arising from contracts;
• notify you about changes; and
• provide you with notices about your account.

We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any Personal Data:

• to present our Website and its contents to you;
• to provide our products and services to you;
• to syndicate such information to third parties for their analytics, aggregation, ratings, and review purposes;
• to provide you with information, products, or services that you request from us or that may be of interest to you;
• to process, fulfill, support, and administer transactions and orders for products and services ordered by you;
• to provide you with notices about your Avid account;
• to contact you in response to a request;
• to fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it;
• to carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collection;
• to notify you about changes to our Website, or any products or services we offer or provide through them;
• in any other way we may describe when you provide the information; and
• for any other purpose with your consent.

We may also use your information to contact you about goods and services that may be of interest to you, including through newsletters. If you wish to opt-out of receiving such communications, you may do so at any time by clicking unsubscribe at the bottom of these communications or by visiting your Account Preferences page. For more information, see ‘Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information’ below.

5.              Disclosure of Your Information

We do not share, sell, or otherwise disclose your Personal Data for purposes other than those outlined in this Privacy Policy. We disclose your Personal Data to a few third parties, including:

• our affiliates and third party service providers that we use to support our business;
• to a company we may or actually merge with, acquire, or that may or actually buys us, or in the event of change in structure of our company of any form;
• to comply with our legal obligations;
• to enforce our rights; and
• with your consent.

We do not share, sell, or otherwise disclose your Personal Data for purposes other than those outlined in this Privacy Policy. However, we may disclose aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.

We may disclose Personal Data that we collect or you provide as described in this privacy policy:

• to affiliates and other third parties we use to support our business. The services provided by these organizations include providing IT and infrastructure support services, and marketing and promotional services;
• to a potential or actual buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which Personal Data held by Avid about our Website users are among the assets transferred;
• to fulfill the purpose for which you provide it;
• for any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information;
• with your consent.

We may also disclose your Personal Data:

• to comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request;
• to enforce or apply our Terms of Use and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes; and
• if we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of Avid, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Avid offers its customers services related to the home buying experience. As part of these services, we may receive your Personal Data from our customers and use and process it for their analytics, aggregation, ratings, and review purposes, and we may retransfer your Personal Data together with the disclosure of survey data to our customers for their analysis and their provision to homebuyers and homebuilders. [MC1] When we are collecting information from you on behalf of our customers, we will only collect, use, and otherwise process your Personal Data as authorized by our customers. We are not responsible for and have no control over the privacy and data security practices of our customers or other third parties, which may differ from those set forth in this Privacy Policy.  If your Personal Data has been disclosed to us by customers in this capacity, please inquire with the applicable customer directly in regard to how they collect, use, and share your personal information.

6. Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information

We offer you choices on how you can opt out of our use of tracking technology, disclosure of your Personal Data for our advertising to you, and other targeted advertising.

We do not control the collection and use of your information collected by third parties described above in ‘Disclosure of Your Information.’ These third parties may aggregate the information they collect with information from their other customers for their own purposes.

In addition, we strive to provide you with choices regarding the Personal Data you provide to us. We have created mechanisms to provide you with control over your Personal Data:

• Tracking Technologies and Advertising. You can set your browser or operating system to refuse all or some cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of our Website may then be inaccessible or not function properly
• Promotional Offers from Avid. If you do not wish to have your email address used by Avid to promote our own products and services, you can opt-out at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email or other marketing communications you receive from us, by using the Contact Us link on our Website, or by contacting us using the Contact Information below. This opt out does not apply to information provided by Avid as a result of ordering or using our products or services.

7. Your Rights Regarding Your Information and Accessing and Correcting Your Information

You may review and change your personal information by contacting us using the contact information provided at the bottom of this Privacy Policy.  

You can review and change your Personal Data by contacting us using the Contact Us link on our Website or the Contact Information below. You may also notify us through the Contact Us link on our Website or the Contact Information below of any changes or errors in any Personal Data we have about you to ensure that it is complete, accurate, and as current as possible or to delete your account. We cannot delete your Personal Data except by also deleting your account with us. We may also not be able to accommodate your request if we believe it would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.

As described above, we may also process Personal Data submitted by or for a customer in regard to the fulfilment of our services. If your data has been submitted to us by or on behalf of an Avid customer and you wish to exercise any rights you may have under applicable data protection laws, please inquire with the applicable customer directly. Because we may only access a customer’s data as authorized by that customer, if you wish to make your request directly to us, please provide to us the name of the Avid customer who submitted your data to us. We will refer your request to that customer, and will support them as needed in responding to your request within a reasonable timeframe.

You hereby agree that your Personal Data will be transferred to, processed and stored on servers located in the United States belonging to Avid and/or its affiliates and/or third party service providers retained by Avid for such purpose. Whenever your Personal Data is transferred outside of the jurisdiction in which it was collected, Avid shall use contractual means and other safeguards with a view to ensuring that your Personal Data receives equivalent protection as that required by the privacy laws applicable in your jurisdiction.[MC3] 

8.              Do Not Track Signals

We currently do not use automated data collection technologies to track you across websites. We currently do not honor do-not-track signals that may be sent by some browsers.

Some web browsers permit you to broadcast a signal to websites and online services indicating a preference that they “do not track” your online activities. At this time, we do not honor such signals, but we currently do not use automated data collection technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across third party websites or other online services (behavioral tracking).

9. Data Security

Information transmitted over the Internet is not completely secure, but we do our best to protect your Personal Data. You can help protect your Personal Data and other information by keeping your password to our Website confidential.

We have implemented measures designed to secure your Personal Data from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure. We use encryption technology for information sent and received by us.

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where you have chosen a password for the use of our Website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee the security of your Personal Data transmitted to our Website. Any transmission of Personal Data is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Website or in your operating system.

We do not control the collection and use of your information collected or shared with third parties mentioned herein.  These organizations are under contractual obligations or subject to other safeguards to ensure that they use this data only for providing the services to us and maintain this information strictly confidential, the whole in compliance with this Privacy Policy and all applicable privacy laws.

10. Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We will post any changes to our Privacy Policy on our Website. If we make material changes to our Privacy Policy, we will notify you of such changes through your contact information and invite you to review (and accept, if necessary) the changes.

We may change this Privacy Policy at any time. It is our policy to post any changes we make to our Privacy Policy on this page with a notice that the Privacy Policy has been updated on the Website’s home page. If we make material changes to how we treat our users’ Personal Data, we will notify you by email to the email address specified in your account and/or through a notice on the Website’s home page. The date this Privacy Policy was last revised is identified at the top of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date, active and deliverable email address for you, and for periodically visiting our Website and reviewing this Privacy Policy to check for any changes. IF YOU ARE DISSATISFIED WITH THIS PRIVACY POLICY OR THE SITE, YOUR SOLE REMEDY IS TO CEASE USING THE SITE.

11. Contact Information

You may contact us through the contact information below.

If you have any questions, concerns, complaints or suggestions regarding our Privacy Policy or otherwise need to contact us, you may contact us at the contact information below or through the Contact Us page on our Website.

How to Contact Us:
Avid Ratings Canada, Ltd.
73 Hincks Street, Unit 2
New Hamburg, ON N3A 2A2

Canada
Attention: Privacy Officer
Email: info@avidratings.com