Voorwaarden

Preamble


SurveyCircle is a platform, provided by Jonas Johé, Glücksteinallee 47, 68163 Mannheim, Germany, (hereinafter "we", "us"). On SurveyCircle users (hereinafter: Survey Managers) can promote surveys for academic or commercial purposes and can collect points by participating in surveys of other users. With these points, users can advance their own surveys in a ranking in which all surveys promoted on SurveyCircle appear. Moreover, Research Enthusiasts can register on SurveyCircle in order to participate in surveys and to send the hereby collected points to Survey Managers to support their surveys. It is also possible to support Survey Managers without creating a user account. The use of SurveyCircle is only possible upon acceptance of the General Terms and Conditions (GTC) of SurveyCircle. For the collection, saving and processing of your data, please read our Privacy Policy.

§ 1 Registration; Creating a User Account; Contract Conclusion; Contract Language


(1) There are different possibilities to use SurveyCircle. You can register as a Survey Manager, as a Research Enthusiast or as a Supporter of a Survey Manager.
(2) Only natural persons aged 16 or above may register with SurveyCircle. By clicking the register button you confirm that you fulfil these requirements.
3) Registration is only permitted if a password-protected e-mail address is used, through which we can reliably reach you. The use of so-called "disposable" or "trashmail" email addresses is not permitted and may result in your user account being blocked without prior notice.
(4) To register as a Survey Manager or a Research Enthusiast you have to create a user account by clicking the register button. The information entered during the registration process must be complete and truthful. After clicking the register button, you will receive a confirmation email containing a confirmation link. Click the confirmation link to complete the registration and to conclude the contract on the basis of these GTC.
(5) It is forbidden to register and operate more than one user account by one person. Moreover, it is forbidden for Survey Managers and Research Enthusiasts to register as a Supporter at the same time (see section 2 of these GTC).
(6) User accounts are not transferable. You must not pass on your log-in details of your user account to third parties.
(7) The contract language is German. Translations of these GTC to other languages are for information only. In the event of contradictions between the German text and the translations, the German text shall have priority.

§ 2 Supporters of Survey Managers; Applicability of these GTC


Additionally, it is possible to merely become a Supporter of Survey Managers on SurveyCircle without setting up any user account. For this, find a Survey Manager you want to support, specify an alias of your choice and click the button in order to register as a Supporter. We recommend using a fancy name or anonymous designation as alias. If you want to use the Supporter function more than once, you need to register with the same alias for every use, as you can only participate once in each survey and this is the only way that the system can display the surveys that you have already participated in. Please note that we cannot delete the data that you enter or that accumulate under the alias as a result of the participation in surveys, because we cannot identify you. Please also note that we cannot verify whether the alias has already been used. If you notice that surveys have already been participated in under the alias selected by you due to the presence of green checkmarks or half-filled circles in the status column, please select a different alias. By clicking on the button to register as a Supporter you accept the applicability of these GTC and the Privacy Policy. You can print these GTC as well as the Privacy Policy from our website using your browser's print function whenever you wish.

§ 3 Free Use of SurveyCircle; Availability; Warranty


The registration with and use of SurveyCircle as well as the support for SurveyCircle are free of charge. Benefits (see section 8 of these GTC) that you make to us are entirely voluntary and therefore do not represent a consideration for the services we offer. Thus, we reserve the right to discontinue SurveyCircle at any time. You cannot assert any claims against us if we do so. Moreover, you cannot demand the existence or absence of certain functions on SurveyCircle, freedom from defects or a certain availability of SurveyCircle or of our support.

§ 4 Rules for Placing Surveys on SurveyCircle


To place a survey on SurveyCircle as a Survey Manager you need to comply with the following rules:
(1) All information you provide concerning the survey must be truthful and objective. The input fields must not be filled with sensational content that is not covered by the survey and that mainly serves the purpose of encouraging people to participate in the survey.
(2) You as a Survey Manager have to make sure that you are allowed to publish and advertise your survey in connection with your supervisor’s name.
(3) For each Survey Manager, the maximum number of participants that can be acquired via SurveyCircle is limited. Every time the Survey Code of your survey is redeemed on SurveyCircle, this is counted as one participant. You can learn the current maximum number of participants when setting up a survey on SurveyCircle. We reserve the right to change this number at any time, not however for surveys that have already been set online.
(4) If you promise to donate a certain amount per filled-out survey and/or to raffle off vouchers or gifts, you must keep this promise. When conducting raffles, you must comply with the statutory regulations, especially with data protection law. Notwithstanding any statutory requirements, you hereby assure that you will make donations and/or conduct raffles within 30 days of the end of your survey. You are not permitted to ask the winners for consideration for their prizes.
(5) You must ensure that the Survey Code and, optionally, the redeem link will be made accessible to the participants after they participate in your survey, so that the participants can easily copy the Survey Code or follow the link. Apart from this, you are not permitted to share the Survey Code of your survey with other parties or to use it yourself (e.g. to improve the rating or ranking of your survey).
(6) After the end of the survey period, you need to remove the survey from the Survey Ranking without delay by closing it in your user account.
(7) The surveys you promote and link on SurveyCircle must fulfill the following minimum requirements:
  • They must not contain the contents listed in section 9 of these GTC.
  • You must ensure the anonymity of the participants. You are not permitted to consolidate the email addresses received within the scope of voucher or gift raffles with the participants' response data records.
  • The survey you promote must be the survey version with which you actually collect data for use in your research project, not any beta version
  • The Survey Manager must ensure that the survey can be processed comfortably on the device categories recommended by him (e.g. without having to zoom in and out repeatedly). We reserve the right to limit the user's recommendation if we should notice that the survey cannot be processed comfortably with a device category recommended by the user.
  • Participation in the survey must be voluntary.

(8) Furthermore, we reserve the right to remove the following surveys from the Survey Ranking:
  • Surveys with a processing time of less than three minutes or more than 45 minutes
  • Surveys that lack a certain minimum measure of content quality or formal quality or a minimum measure of seriousness
  • Surveys whose Survey Code does not appear only at the end of the questionnaire (i.e. usually after the participant answers all questions) but already at an earlier stage of the questionnaire
  • Surveys that do not contain any valid Survey Code
  • Surveys that cannot be reached via the specified link
  • Surveys whose survey period has already ended
  • Surveys of Survey Managers who violate these GTC

§ 5 Keywords


We reserve the right but do not assume any obligation to supplement your survey with keywords in order to make it even easier to find. If you do not wish these keywords, you can send us a brief email, upon which we will promptly remove the keywords. Furthermore, we reserve the right to remove keywords that are sensational and not objective and whose content is not covered by your survey.

§ 6 Participation in Surveys; Collection and Forwarding of Points


(1) By participating in surveys, all users of SurveyCircle can collect points. The user receives these points by redeeming the Survey Code he receives at the end of the survey. The actual number of points credited when redeeming a Survey Code depends on the ranking of the respective survey at the time of the click on the button to redeem the Survey Code (provided that steps 1 to 3 of the redeem process were completed prior to the click). Thus, all information about the number of points provided prior to the redemption (e.g. at the beginning of the participation in the Survey Ranking or after inserting the Survey Code in the redeem form) merely indicates the temporary status.
(2) Survey Codes can be redeemed by the participants as long as the respective survey is online in the Survey Ranking and until the end of the day after the survey is set offline. Thereafter, the Survey Code will expire and can no longer be redeemed. Please note that we cannot inform you when surveys will be set offline, as every Survey Manager may set his survey offline (i.e. remove it from the Survey Ranking) whenever he wishes to do so. If a Survey Code is redeemed after the survey is removed from the Survey Ranking but before the Survey Code expires, the number of points will be governed by the ranking that the survey would have theoretically occupied if it had been online as of the redemption.
(3) Collected points shall not be sold for money or forwarded against other kinds of consideration. However, Research Enthusiasts and Supporters may forward them to Survey Managers without receiving any consideration, but only if they are domiciled in the same country as the Survey Manager. We reserve the right to limit the maximum number of points that a Research Enthusiast and a Supporter may forward to a Survey Manager in individual cases if this should be necessary in order to protect the self-regulation capacity of the point-based incentive system of SurveyCircle for the benefit of the majority of all users.
(4) Survey Managers cannot collect points by participating in their own survey.
(5) Supporters cannot collect points by participating in the survey of the Survey Manager they directly support.
(6) Users must carefully answer all surveys in which they participate, i.e. they must e.g. not click through the questions in a hurry just to reach the Survey Code as quickly as possible.
(7) Users may only redeem Survey Codes of surveys which they have carefully answered.
(8) Every user may only participate once in each individual survey and may only redeem the corresponding Survey Code once.
(9) Users must not pass on Survey Codes to other people.
(10) Users must not perform actions which are suitable to manipulate SurveyCircle’s point-based incentive system, to exploit it unilaterally or to endanger its self-regulation capacity.
(11) Points gained in violation of the above regulations may be deducted retroactively, and the user may be blocked without prior announcement and barred from the further use of SurveyCircle as a registered user.

§ 7 Ratings of Surveys


Users who rate the surveys of other users in which they have participated must do so in an objective way, not for the purpose of damaging Survey Managers. Furthermore, they must not contain the contents listed in section 9 of these GTC.

§ 8 Voluntary Benefits to SurveyCircle


If voluntary benefits are paid to SurveyCircle, no invoice can be issued for this (however, PayPal usually offers proof of the payment). The amounts transferred voluntarily are gross amounts.

§ 9 Obligations of the Users, Consequences of Violations


(1) When submitting data or contents or linking to studies, the following rules shall be observed. Data, contents and surveys must not contain any of the following:
  • Contents of a racist, pornographic, obscene, or insulting nature, contents that glorify or trivialize violence or that are otherwise unlawful or offensive;
  • Contents that impair or endanger children and youths in their development or upbringing or that violate human dignity or other legal rights;
  • Contents that could incite others to commit punishable or offensive acts;
  • Insulting or offending statements;
  • Threats against other users, providers or third parties;
  • Abusive criticism, slander, lies or misinformation that do not only serve to hide the true purpose of your study due to scientific reasons for a limited period of time;
  • Links to websites containing any of the prohibited contents listed above;
  • Any other contents that breach third-party rights;
  • Contents that contain viruses, Trojans, spyware or other malware or that could endanger or impair the security and stability of our systems.

(2) Should it come to our attention that the data or contents submitted or the studies linked violate the above mentioned rules, or should a third party that asserts a violation request us to do so, we may remove the respective data, contents or links without delay and block the violating user and/or delete his user account and exclude him from the future use of SurveyCircle as a registered user. The same shall apply if the user breaches other obligations under these GTC. We reserve the right to assert further claims, e.g. damages.

§ 10 Granting of Rights of Use, Third-Party Contents, Assurance of Ownership of Rights


(1) By entering data or placing content you grant us a non-exclusive, free-of-charge right to use the data or content without any limitation as to place and time in order to make the data or content publicly available on SurveyCircle. We do not need more rights and expressly consider such data or contents to be third-party content.
(2) You assure that you hold the rights to all data and content you submit to SurveyCircle, which are required for granting rights pursuant to subsection (1), and that this does not breach any third-party rights, including personality rights.
(3) We reserve the right to assert further claims, e.g. damages and to exclude the user from the use of SurveyCircle.

§ 11 Termination of this Contract


Survey Managers and Research Enthusiasts can terminate this contract at any time by deleting their user account. For more information, please read section 7 of our Privacy Policy.

§ 12 Limitation of our Liability


(1) We are not liable for the compliance of our users with the above-mentioned rules.
(2) In any other case, we shall only be liable for intent and gross negligence.
(3) The limitation of our liability shall not apply in the event of injury to life, body and/or health and in the event of liability under the German Product Liability Act (Produkthaftungsgesetz – ProdHaftG).
(4) We shall not be liable for any events of force majeure that make the contractual performance impossible, even if such events merely impair the due performance of the contract to a significant extent or hinder it temporarily. Force majeure comprises all circumstances that are independent from the will and influence of the contracting parties, such as terror attacks, embargo, confiscation, natural disasters, strike, official orders or other serious and unforeseeable circumstances for which the contracting parties are not responsible. In this context, a circumstance will be regarded as force majeure only if it occurs after the conclusion of the contract.
(5) We shall not be liable for disruptions and loss of quality of data transfer via the internet for which we are not responsible and which make more difficult or impede the use of the contractual services. We shall not be liable for the loss of data or contents submitted to SurveyCircle.
(6) Insofar as our liability is excluded or limited, this shall also apply to the liability of our employees, other staff members, representatives and agents.
(7) Within the scope of applicability of the German Telecommunications Act (TKG), the liability provision of section 44a TKG remains unaffected in any case.

§ 13 Applicable Law; Mandatory Consumer Protection Regulations


This contract shall be governed by German law, under exclusion of the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). Mandatory consumer protection regulations under the law of the state in which a consumer has his habitual abode remain unaffected. A consumer is any natural person that concludes a legal transaction for purposes largely not related to its commercial or self-employed activity.

§ 14 Amendments to these GTC


We reserve the right to amend these GTC in case of introduction of new features, amendments to our business concept and/or changes of the legal situation in accordance with the following procedure:
You will be sent the amended GTC by email to your email address, indicating the respective amendments. If you do not object within two weeks of the receipt of the said email, your approval of the respective amendments will be deemed granted. In the email containing the amendments, we will specifically draw your attention to the importance of this period. If you object to the amendments within this period, we may exclude you within four weeks after your objection from the use of Survey Circle and delete your user profile.

§ 15 Severability


Should individual provisions of these GTC be fully or partially invalid or unenforceable or become invalid or unenforceable after the conclusion of the contract, this shall not affect the validity of the remaining part of the contract.