MINDSPELLER PRIVACY POLICY
 
 

When you use our services, you’re trusting us with your information. We understand that this is a big responsibility and we work hard to protect your information and put you in control.


This Privacy Policy is meant to help you understand what information we collect, why we collect it and how you can update, manage, export and delete your information.


Effective 1 February 2021


We build a range of services that help people daily to explore and interact with brands in new ways. Our services include:

• Mindspeller apps and sites, such as Search, Path Finder and Mind Tracker
• Platforms such as the Mindspeller Store and Asset Library
• Products that are integrated into third-party apps and sites, such as ads and embedded Mindspeller software

You can use our services in a variety of ways to manage your privacy. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you can contact us via legal@mindspeller.com


INFORMATION THAT MINDSPELLER COLLECTS


We want you to understand the types of information we collect as you use our services


We collect information to provide better services to all our users – from figuring out basic stuff such as which language you speak, to more complex things like which ads you’ll find most useful, the people who matter most to you online or which videos you might like. The information Mindspeller collects, and how that information is used, depends on how you use our services and how you manage your privacy controls.


When you’re not signed in to a Mindspeller Account, we store the information that we collect with unique identifiers tied to the browser, application or device that you’re using. This helps us do things such as maintain your preferences across browsing sessions.


When you’re signed in, we also collect information that we store with your Mindspeller Account, which we treat as personal information.


Things that you create or provide to us


When you create a Mindspeller Account, you provide us with personal information that includes your name and a password. You can also choose to add a phone number or payment information to your account. Even if you aren’t signed in to a Mindspeller Account, you might choose to provide us with information – like an email address to receive updates about our services.


We also collect the content that you create, upload or receive from others when using our services. This includes things such as email you write and receive, photos and videos that you save, docs and spreadsheets you share and comments that you make on multi-media files.


Information that we collect as you use our services


Your apps, browsers & devices


We collect information about the apps, browsers and devices that you use to access Mindspeller services, which helps us provide features such as automatic product updates.


The information that we collect includes unique identifiers, browser type and settings, device type and settings, operating system, mobile network information including operator name and phone number and application version number. We also collect information about the interaction of your apps, browsers and devices with our services, including IP address, crash reports, system activity, and the date, time and referrer URL of your request.


We collect this information when a Mindspeller service on your device contacts our servers – for example, when a service checks for automatic updates. If you’re using an Android device with Mindspeller apps, your device periodically contacts Mindspeller servers to provide information about your device and connection to our services. This information includes things such as your device type, operator name, crash reports and which apps you’ve installed.


Your activity


We collect information about your activity in our services, which we use to do things like recommend a multimedia file that you might like. The activity information that we collect may include:

• Terms that you search for
• Videos that you watch
• Views and interactions with content and ads
• Voice and audio information when you use audio features
• Purchase activity
• People with whom you communicate or share content
• Activity on third-party sites and apps that use our services
• Browsing history that you’ve synced with your Mindspeller Account

If you use our services to send and receive messages, we may collect telephony log information such as your phone number, calling-party number, receiving-party number, forwarding numbers, time and date of calls and messages, duration of calls, routing information and types of calls.

You can visit your Mindspeller Account to find and manage activity information that’s saved in your account.

Your location information

We collect information about your location when you use our services, which helps us offer features such as driving directions for your weekend getaway or show brands near you.

Your location can be determined with varying degrees of accuracy by:

• GPS
• IP address
• Sensor data from your device
• Information about things near your device, such as Wi-Fi access points, cell towers and Bluetooth-enabled devices

The types of location data that we collect depend in part on your device and account settings. For example, you can turn your device’s location on or off using the device’s settings app. You can also turn on Location History if you want to create a private map of where you go with your signed-in devices.

In some circumstances, Mindspeller also collects information about you from publicly accessible sources. For example, if your name appears in your local newspaper, Mindspeller’s Search engine may index that article and display it to other people if they search for your name. We may also collect information about you from trusted partners, including marketing partners who provide us with information about potential customers of our business services, and security partners who provide us with information to protect against abuse. We also receive information from advertisers to provide advertising and research services on their behalf.

We use various technologies to collect and store information, including cookies, pixel tags, local storage, such as browser web storage or application data caches, databases and server logs.

WHY MINDSPELLER COLLECTS DATA

We use data to build better services

We use the information that we collect from all our services for the following purposes:

Provide our services

We use your information to deliver our services, such as processing the search input you provide us in order to return results or helping you share content by suggesting recipients from your contacts.

Maintain & improve our services

We also use your information to ensure that our services are working as intended, such as tracking outages or troubleshooting issues that you report to us. And we use your information to make improvements to our services – for example, understanding which search terms are most frequently misspelled helps us improve spell-check features used across our services.

Develop new services

We use the information we collect in existing services to help us develop new ones. For example, understanding how people interact with images helps us design and launch new Mindspeller features and applications.

Provide personalised services, including content and ads

We use the information we collect to customise our services for you, including providing recommendations, personalised content and customised search results.

Depending on your settings, we may also show you personalised ads based on your interests. For example, if you search for ‘mountain bikes’, you may see an ad for sports equipment when you’re browsing a site that shows ads served by Mindspeller. We are working on features that will allow you to control and personalize what information we use to show you ads.

• We don’t show you personalised ads based on sensitive categories, such as race, religion, sexual orientation or health.
• We don’t share information that personally identifies you with advertisers, such as your name or email, unless you ask us to. For example, if you ask us to negotiate a discount or promo code on your behalf with one of our Advertisers.

Measure performance

We use data for analytics and measurement to understand how our services are used. For example, we analyse data about your visits to our sites to do things like optimise product design. And we also use data about the ads with which you interact to help advertisers understand the performance of their ad campaigns. We use a variety of tools to do this. When you visit sites that use Mindspeller services, Mindspeller and our customers may link information about your activity from that site with activity from other sites that use our ad services.

Communicate with you

We use information that we collect, such as your email address, to interact with you directly. For example, we may send you a notification if we detect suspicious activity, such as an attempt to sign in to your Mindspeller Account from an unusual location. Or we may let you know about upcoming changes or improvements to our services. And if you contact Mindspeller, we’ll keep a record of your request in order to help solve any issues you might be facing.

Protect Mindspeller, our users and the public

We use information to help improve the safety and reliability of our services. This includes detecting, preventing, and responding to fraud, abuse, security risks and technical issues that could harm Mindspeller, our users or the public.

We use different technologies to process your information for these purposes. We use automated systems that analyse your content to provide you with things like customised search results, personalised ads or other features tailored to how you use our services. And we analyse your content to help us detect abuse such as spam, malware, and illegal content. We also use algorithms to recognise patterns in data.

We may combine the information we collect among our services and across your devices for the purposes described above. Depending on your account settings, your activity on other sites and apps may be associated with your personal information in order to improve Mindspeller’s services and the ads delivered by Mindspeller.

If other users already have your email address or other information that identifies you, we may show them your publicly visible Mindspeller Account information, such as your name and photo.

We’ll ask for your consent before using your information for a purpose that isn’t covered in this Privacy Policy.

YOUR PRIVACY CONTROLS

You have choices regarding the information we collect and how it’s used

This section describes key controls for managing your privacy across our services. You can review and adjust important privacy settings by sending an e-mail with your inquiry or request to legal@mindspeller.com. In addition to this interaction we are developing  specific privacy settings in our products which will allow you to inquire and amend settings directly from your account.

Managing, reviewing, and updating your information

When you have inquiries about your privacy settings, you can always review and update information by sending an e-mail to legal@mindspeller.com.

We are building a place for you to review and control information saved in your Mindspeller Account. Your Mindspeller Account will include:

Privacy controls

Activity Controls

Decide what types of activity that you’d like saved in your account. For example, you can save your viewed content history to get better multimedia suggestions.

Ad settings

Manage your preferences about the ads shown to you on Mindspeller and on sites and apps that partner with Mindspeller to show ads. You can modify your interests, choose whether your personal information is used to make ads more relevant to you, and turn on or off certain advertising services.

About you

Control what others see about you across Mindspeller services.

Shared endorsements

Choose whether your name and photo appear next to your activity, such as reviews and recommendations, which appear in ads.


 

Ways to review & update your information


email legal@mindspeller.com

By sending us an email to legal@mindspeller.com, we allow you to review and control data that’s created when you use Mindspeller services, such as searches that you’ve done.

Mindspeller Advertiser CAS

Mindspeller Advertiser CAS allows you to manage information associated with specific products.

Your personal information (coming soon)

Manage your contact information, such as your name, email and phone number.

When you’re signed out, you can manage information associated with your browser or device, including:

• Signed-out search personalisation: Choose whether your search activity is used to offer you more relevant results and recommendations.
• Ad Settings: Manage your preferences about the ads shown to you on Mindspeller and on sites and apps that partner with Mindspeller to show ads.

Exporting, removing & deleting your information

You can export a copy of content in your Mindspeller Account if you want to back it up or use it with a service outside of Mindspeller.

You can also request to remove content from specific Mindspeller services based on applicable law.

To delete your information, please send an e-mail request to legal@mindspeller.com to:

• Delete your content from specific Mindspeller services
• Search for and then delete specific items from your account
• Delete your entire Mindspeller Account

There are other ways to control the information that Mindspeller collects whether or not you’re signed in to a Mindspeller Account, including:

• Browser settings: For example, you can configure your browser to indicate when Mindspeller has set a cookie in your browser. You can also configure your browser to block all cookies from a specific domain or all domains. But remember that our services rely on cookies to function properly.
• Device-level settings: Your device may have controls that determine what information we collect.

SHARING YOUR INFORMATION


When you share your information

Our services may allow you to share information with other people, and to control how you share information. Remember, when you share information publicly, your content may become accessible to third parties, including Advertizers.

When you’re signed in and interact with some Mindspeller services, like leaving comments on a branded content or reviewing a brand, your name and photo may appear next to your activity. We may also use this information in an anonymized, aggregated fashion for advertisement purposes.

When Mindspeller shares your information

We do not share your personal information with companies, organisations or individuals outside of Mindspeller except in the following cases:

With your consent

We’ll share personal information outside of Mindspeller when we have your consent. For example, if you use Mindspeller Search to visit one of our advertisers’ webpage, we’ll get your permission before sharing your personal information with the advertiser. We’ll ask for your explicit consent to share any sensitive personal information.

With domain administrators

If you’re a student, or work for an organisation that uses Mindspeller services, your domain administrator and resellers who manage your account will have access to your Mindspeller Account. They may be able to:

• Access and retain information stored in your account, such as your email
• View statistics regarding your account, such as how many apps you install
• Change your account password
• Suspend or terminate your account access
• Receive your account information in order to satisfy applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request
• Restrict your ability to delete or edit your information or your privacy settings

For external processing

We provide personal information to our affiliates and other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures. For example, we use service providers to help us with customer support.

For legal reasons

We will share personal information outside of Mindspeller if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:

• Meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.
• Enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations.
• Detect, prevent or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues.
• Protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Mindspeller, our users or the public as required or permitted by law.

We may share non-personally identifiable information publicly and with our partners – such as publishers, advertisers, developers or rights holders. For example, we share information publicly to show trends about the general use of our services. We also allow specific partners to collect information from your browser or device for advertising and measurement purposes using their own cookies or similar technologies.

If Mindspeller is involved in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, we’ll continue to ensure the confidentiality of your personal information and give affected users notice before personal information is transferred or becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

KEEPING YOUR INFORMATION SECURE

We build security into our services to protect your information

All Mindspeller products are built with strong security features that continuously protect your information. The insights we gain from maintaining our services help us detect and automatically block security threats from ever reaching you. And if we do detect something risky that we think you should know about, we’ll notify you and help guide you through steps to stay better protected.

We work hard to protect you and Mindspeller from unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure or destruction of information we hold, including:

• We use encryption to keep your data private while in transit
• We offer a range of security features to help you protect your account
• We review our information collection, storage and processing practices, including physical security measures, to prevent unauthorised access to our systems
• We restrict access to personal information to Mindspeller employees, contractors and agents who need that information in order to process it. Anyone with this access is subject to strict contractual confidentiality obligations and may be disciplined or terminated if they fail to meet these obligations.

EXPORTING & DELETING YOUR INFORMATION

You can export a copy of your information or delete it from your Mindspeller Account at any time

You can send us an email to legal@mindspeller.com requesting to export a copy of content in your Mindspeller Account if you want to back it up or use it with a service outside of Mindspeller.

To delete your information, you can send an email to legal@mindspeller.com to:

• Delete your content from specific Mindspeller services
• Search for and then delete specific items from your account
• Delete specific Mindspeller products, including your information associated with those products
• Delete your entire Mindspeller Account

RETAINING YOUR INFORMATION

We retain the data that we collect for different periods of time depending on what it is, how we use it and how you configure your settings:

• Some data you can delete whenever you like, such as the content that you create or upload. You can also delete activity information saved in your account by specifying the timeframe via an email to legal@mindspeller.com.
• Other data is deleted or anonymised automatically after a set period of time, such as advertising data in server logs.
• We keep some data until you delete your Mindspeller Account, such as information about how often you use our services.
• And some data we retain for longer periods of time when necessary for legitimate business or legal purposes, such as security, fraud and abuse prevention, or financial record-keeping.

When you delete data, we follow a deletion process to make sure that your data is safely and completely removed from our servers or retained only in anonymised form. We try to ensure that our services protect information from accidental or malicious deletion. Because of this, there may be delays between when you delete something and when copies are deleted from our active and backup systems.

You can request more information about Mindspeller’s data retention periods, including how long it takes for us to delete your information, by sending an e-mail to legal@mindspeller.com.

COMPLIANCE & COOPERATION WITH REGULATORS

We regularly review this Privacy Policy and make sure that we process your information in ways that comply with it.

Data transfers

We maintain servers around the world and your information may be processed on servers located outside the country where you live. Data protection laws vary among countries, with some providing more protection than others. Regardless of where your information is processed, we apply the same protections described in this policy. We also comply with certain legal frameworks relating to the transfer of data.

When we receive formal written complaints, we respond by contacting the person who made the complaint. We work with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of your data that we cannot resolve with you directly.

European requirements

If European Union (EU) or United Kingdom (UK) data protection law applies to the processing of your information, we provide the controls described in this policy so you can exercise your right to request access to, update, remove, and restrict the processing of your information. You also have the right to object to the processing of your information or export your information to another service.

For users based in the European Economic Area or Switzerland, the data controller responsible for your information is Mindspeller BV, unless otherwise stated in a service-specific privacy notice. In other words, Mindspeller BV is the Mindspeller affiliate that is responsible for processing your information and for complying with applicable privacy laws.

We process your information for the purposes described in this policy, based on the following legal grounds:

With your consent

We ask for your agreement to process your information for specific purposes and you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. For example, we ask for your consent to provide you with personalised services, such as ads based on your interests. You can manage your settings by requesting insight or amendment via legal@mindspeller.com

When we’re pursuing legitimate interests

We process your information for our legitimate interests and those of third parties while applying appropriate safeguards that protect your privacy. This means that we process your information for things such as:

• Providing, maintaining and improving our services to meet the needs of our users
• Developing new products and features that are useful for our users
• Understanding how people use our services to ensure and improve the performance of our services
• Customising our services to provide you with a better user experience
• Marketing to inform users about our services
• Providing advertising, which keeps many of our services free (and when ads are personalised, we ask for your consent)
• Detecting, preventing or otherwise addressing fraud, abuse, security or technical issues with our services
• Protecting against harm to the rights, property or safety of Mindspeller, our users or the public as required or permitted by law, including disclosing information to government authorities
• Performing research that improves our services for our users and benefits the public
• Fulfilling obligations to our partners like developers and rights holders
• Enforcing legal claims, including investigation of potential violations of applicable Terms of Service

When we’re providing a service

We process your data to provide a service you’ve asked for under a contract. For example, we process your payment information when you buy a license to one of our Software-as-Service applications.

When we’re complying with legal obligations

We’ll process your data when we have a legal obligation to do so, for example, if we’re responding to legal process or an enforceable governmental request.

If you have questions, you can contact Mindspeller and our data protection office at legal@mindspeller.com. And you can contact your local data protection authority if you have concerns regarding your rights under local law.

ABOUT THIS POLICY

When this policy applies

This Privacy Policy applies to all of the services offered by Mindspeller BV and its affiliates, including services offered on third-party sites, such as advertising services. This Privacy Policy doesn’t apply to services that have separate privacy policies that do not incorporate this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy doesn’t apply to:

• The information practices of other companies and organisations that advertise our services
• Services offered by other companies or individuals, including products or sites that may include Mindspeller services, be displayed to you in search results, or be linked from our services

Changes to this policy

We change this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will not reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. We always indicate the date when the last changes were published and we offer access to archived versions for your review. If changes are significant, we’ll provide a more prominent notice (including, for certain services, email notification of Privacy Policy changes).

Our Commitment to Data Protection

Mindspeller is a technology-powered market research and branding consultancy committed to optimizing brand equity by revealing implicit human biases. Through our proprietary neuromonitoring platform we complement traditional quantitative research with deep-seated System 1 insights. We work with leading global brands across industries to uncover decisive insights that help marketing executives optimize brand equity.

Mindspeller adheres to the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the US Department of Commerce and in charge of the enforcement authority of the Federal Trade Commission regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information from the United Kingdom and European Union member countries. Mindspeller certifies that it adheres to the Privacy Shield Principles of Notice, Choice, Accountability for Onward Transfer, Security, Data Integrity and Purpose Limitation, Access, and Recourse, Enforcement and Liability. If there is any conflict between the policies in this privacy policy and the Privacy Shield Principles, the Privacy Shield Principles shall govern.

To learn more about the Privacy Shield program, please visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/

Visitors to Our Website:

Mindspeller collects visitor data to analyze traffic on our site. This information helps us understand how to help you better.

When you sign up for the Mindspeller mailing list or access any content using your email address, we store your information (including your name and email address) and may add you to a third-party mailing application where you can confirm your preference to receive Mindspeller updates and resources. You can unsubscribe from this list any time via a link at the bottom the emails we send.

When you visit www.mindspeller.com, a short text file called a cookie is downloaded to your computer. A cookie is used to store very small amounts of information. You can toggle your browser settings to block cookies or notify before they are placed.

Information collected on our website (name, email address, cookies, tracking pixels and related technologies) may be used by Mindspeller and specifically approved third parties to target advertising on other sites based on your users’ online activity.

Participants Involved in A Mindspeller Market Research Study

Mindspeller works with third party respondent panel marketing research firms for the sourcing of survey work. Depending on the type of research that we are conducting, Mindspeller may collect the following information for market research analysis, and analyze it in conjunction with our partners listed below:

• Spontaneous associations form the backbone of our research as they allow us to better understand the meaning consumers attach to marketing communication stimuli. This type of data input includes, but is not limited to, text-based open responses and numeric and alphanumeric inputs of any type. This self-reported online survey respondent data is integrated in Mindspeller’s semantic association networks for data analytics and reporting purposes to our external clients. Respondent identities remain anonymous to Mindspeller and our clients. Respondent identification numbers do allow Mindspeller to profile respondent data on age, gender and (in)direct user experience.
• EEG and/or other biomedical sensor recordings – These recordings are used to better understand the implicit association strengths and profile of consumer that we are interested in researching. These recordings are needed to improve our science by building new classifiers and to give emotion data to our customers. Access to this data is given to our research team to analyze and report to our external clients. In addition to our internal research team, the data may be shared with external research partners, specialized in processing human biosensor data, for further processing and product innovation. This data can be removed from our system at any time by submitting a request below.
• Browser Information- We use anonymous market research panels to source participants for our studies. Thus, we only collect necessary browser specific information such as IP Addresses, browser/device type, browser language, and other similar sources of information to confirm the individuality and humanity of our research participants. This data can be removed from our system at any time by submitting a request below.

Voluntary survey data can be deleted upon request, or every 2 calendar years on the 31st day of December, beginning on 31, December 2020.

If you do not agree with the information in this privacy policy, please do not complete any of our market research surveys or utilize the content on or our website in any fashion.

Contact Us Regarding Complaints Inquiries, or Questions pertaining To Your Data or This Policy

Mail:
Data Protection Officer
Mindspeller BV
Bio-incubator
1, Gaston Geenslaan
3001 Leuven
Belgium
Email:
legal@mindspeller.com

If your complaint is not resolved after following the recourse mechanisms described above, you may have the ability to invoke binding arbitration (please see below under Resolution of Complaints).

To Have Your Data Removed

It is your right to access, correct, or delete your personal data at any time. Mindspeller will comply with all such requests within a reasonable timeframe unless extenuating circumstances prevail. You have the right to have some or all of your data removed upon your request. Following the initiation of contact, Mindspeller will confirm the types of personal data that we have stored associated with your identity. Mindspeller and other third parties will never publicly disclose your research data and associated information counter to the policies set forth in this document unless you have provided express written consent.

Marketing data:

1. To opt out of targeted ads by Mindspeller, click the relevant box on our marketing communications.
2. To opt out of targeted advertising in general, send an email to sales@mindspeller.com.
3. To have all of your data removed from our marketing applications, please send an email with the subject “URGENT: DELETE MY DATA” to legal@mindspeller.com. Please include your full first and last name in addition to your email address in your request.

Research Data:

1. In order to have your personal data permanently removed from our secure servers, please send an email with the subject “URGENT: DELETE MY DATA” to legal@mindspeller.com and include your computer’s IP address. This is the only way that we can associate you, the requester, with your data. A member of our data management team will reply within 48-72 hours to confirm removal.

Resolution of Complaints

In compliance with the EU-US Privacy Shield Principles, Mindspeller commits to resolve complaints about your privacy and our collection or use of your personal information. European Union individuals with inquiries or complaints regarding this privacy policy should first contact Mindspeller at:

Mail:
Data Protection Officer
Mindspeller BV
Bio-incubator
1, Gaston Geenslaan
3001 Leuven
Belgium
Email:
legal@mindspeller.com

Mindspeller has further committed to refer unresolved privacy complaints under the EU- US Privacy Shield Principles to the INSIGHTS ASSOCIATION PRIVACY SHIELD PROGRAM, a non-profit alternative dispute resolution provider located in the United States and operated by the Insights Association. If you do not receive timely acknowledgment of your complaint, or if your complaint is not satisfactorily addressed, please visit http://www.insightsassociation.org/get-support/privacy- shield-program/privacy-shield-eu-swiss-citizens-file-complaint for more information and to file a complaint. These dispute resolution services are provided at no cost to you.

Responses to Law Enforcement Agencies or Legal Claims

Mindspeller may be required to disclose personal information in response to a lawful request by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements

General Liability for Data Loss

Mindspeller shall remain liable under the EU-US Privacy Shield Principle of Accountability for Onward Transfer if its sub processors process your Personal Information in a manner inconsistent with the Privacy Shield Principles, unless Mindspeller proves that it is not responsible for the event giving rise to the damage.