TERMS OF USE

GENERAL TERMS OF USE AND MEMBERSHIP

In order to make these General Terms and Conditions (GTC) easier to read, we refrain from the additional use of feminine and non-binary pronouns as well as from the use of special characters, such as gender asterisks, underscores or the indented I. By using the gender-neutral generic masculine for the languages for which the use is relevant, we address all genders equally.

mypinio GmbH (hereinafter “mypinio”), Pistoriusstr. 112, 13086 Berlin, owns and operates www.mypinio.com. (hereinafter, the “Site”)

These Terms of Use (hereinafter, the “Terms”) apply to the mypinio platform and to all of the features, mobile applications, emails, online services and other functionalities (hereinafter, the “Features”) available via or related to the mypinio Site, whether accessed via a computer, mobile device, or otherwise (hereinafter, the “mypinio Site and Features”).

These Terms are a legal agreement between you and the Company. By using the mypinio website and features or our services and/or by clicking “Accept” or otherwise agreeing to these Terms, if such option is made available to you, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Use and by our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with these terms or our privacy policy, please do not register on the mypinio website and do not use the features or our services.

We are likely to post additional terms, official rules or agreements that apply to certain services, applications, activities and features that we offer or make available on the mypinio Site and Features. You may be subject to such additional terms and conditions when you access those services, applications, activities and/or features.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions regarding these Terms. You can reach us by using LiveChat, email (privacy@mypinio.com), or by mail to: mypinio GmbH, Pistoriusstr. 112, 13086 Berlin; Subject: “Customer Service”.

WHAT WE DO

mypinio operates an online survey platform through which a member (the “Member(s)”) can participate in surveys. mypinio cooperates with survey marketplaces (hereinafter “Marketplaces”) and market researchers (hereinafter “Market Researchers”) to provide mypinio Members with access to surveys.

ELIGIBILITY

Membership in mypinio is free of charge and open to any individual who is at least sixteen (16) years of age or such other age as may be required for your geographic location. Membership in mypinio may be further restricted based on your age or geographic location. If you are under eighteen (18) years of age and receive a bonus or incentive, then that bonus will be paid to your parent or guardian. You are allowed to have only one account.

REGISTRATION AND MEMBERSHIP

Membership with mypinio requires the registration of a user account (hereinafter “User Account” or “Member User Account”). We provide an online registration form for this purpose. The Member User Account is used to manage your User Data and to credit and administer the Incentives to your account. When registering, you must provide your valid contact information (first name, last name, email address). Your account must have a unique and valid email address and password.

→  Online registration form

You agree to provide only accurate, current and complete registration information and to keep such information updated to ensure its accuracy. If you do not provide or maintain accurate and complete personal information, then mypinio may suspend or even terminate your user account at any time. This may result in the forfeiture of any incentives you have already earned.

The creation of a user account requires the assignment of a password. The password follows our password policy. It must be at least 8 characters, contain at least one uppercase letter and at least one number. It must also contain at least one special character. You are solely responsible for the use and security of your email address, username and password and for all activities that occur under your Member Account, whether authorized or unauthorized.

You may only use one (1) password to open and access your account, and you may not use another account holder’s password or allow another person to use your password for any reason. You are solely responsible for the security of your username and password and for all activities that occur under your Member Account, whether authorized or unauthorized. mypinio is not responsible for any loss that may result from a third party’s use of your password. You agree to notify mypinio immediately of any unauthorized use or breach of your Member Account. To do so, please send us an email or use our live chat or contact form.

→ Contact form

If you have forgotten your password, then you can request an email to reset your password using your email so that you can use your account again.

By signing up as a member of mypinio, you agree to receive invitations to participate in surveys via email. mypinio does not guarantee that you will receive a certain minimum volume of invitations or any invitations at all. Your participation in surveys and your disclosure of personally identifiable information is completely voluntary. Therefore, whether you accept or decline invitations to participate in surveys is entirely up to you and we will not penalize you for declining such invitations.

You, as a member of the mypinio community and app, are responsible for providing any computer equipment and communication services necessary to connect to this site and use our services. You agree that neither your membership in mypinio nor your participation in surveys on mypinio.com and its affiliates creates any agency, partnership or employment relationship, and that your participation in surveys is solely as an independent and individual person. You also agree that any bonuses, credits or other incentives you receive for completing surveys are the only compensation you will receive for completing surveys.

CODE OF CONDUCT FOR MEMBERS

For us, community and the form of interaction is very important. We make it a point to give everyone who has an opinion a voice. This applies to our surveys and polls and the survey and polls of our partners, as well as in the creation of content. All posts can be commented on and liked. Comments can also be liked. In this respect, an interactive exchange of our community members is possible. Therefore, we ask you to observe the following rules:

• Be courteous, respect the opinions of others, and conduct yourself in a manner that creates a safe and pleasant environment for all members.
• Use mypinio exclusively for your personal, non-commercial use.
• Do not attempt to resell, trade, barter, or otherwise generate income from your earned credits, rewards, or User Account by allowing others to access your mypinio account.
• Do not attempt to access any service or area of the website for which you do not have access authorization.
• Do not collect or store any personal information about other members.
• Do not use automated tools or systems such as spiders, scrapers, robots, or other ways or interfaces to extract data from our app or web app.
• Do not access or use the Site in any manner that violates any applicable state, federal or international law, regulation or other governmental requirement and/or rule, contract or tariff.
• Do not try to circumvent mypinio’s bonus and incentive system in any way. Do not post content from our surveys and polls or the surveys and polls of our partners and its customers.
• Do not share or post response results or screener questions from surveys or polls.
• Do not post or reference any survey or site content without our prior written permission.
• Do not impersonate any person or entity that gives the impression to other members that you have any relationship with us in any way. Employees, partners or official representatives are identified as such in the user account. This will be made visible to all other members by means of a corresponding label in the user profile.
• Do not post any statements received from mypinio support on the mypinio site or any other public site.
• You may not engage in any other activity that mypinio considers inappropriate or abusive.
• Only take surveys that you can answer in good conscience. We reserve the right to refuse to award an incentive for a survey if the response involves obviously or perceived incorrect answers, speeding through a survey (speeding), or answering each question in the same way (lining). Additionally, there are other quality criteria that are relevant to awarding the incentive. In addition, we verify that your survey responses are truthful and well thought out. We also reserve the right to block user accounts if this behavior occurs frequently.
• Do not post any of the following:
  • Content that infringes patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets or other intellectual property rights of others. In this context, if you want to post images on our website, please make sure that the images you upload are free to use. Instead, it is better to use your own photos and images.
  • Personal information of yourself or others.
  • Any financial information about your user account, personal finances, or financial information of other individuals or organizations.
  • Political, religious or ideological beliefs.
  • Material advocating illegal activities.
  • Any statement that expresses or implies that your actions are endorsed by mypinio or our customers and partners.
  • Advertising and solicitations
    • Do not use any community areas to buy or sell any goods.
    • Do not sell products or services to others.
    • Don’t ask other community members for money or any goods.
    • Do not post any advertising, referrals, or promotional materials.
    • Do not send junk mails, “spam”, chain letters, pyramid schemes or any other form of solicitation.
  • Personal attacks or anything obscene, vulgar, harmful, illegal, insulting, abusive, harassing, threatening, defamatory, libelous, untrue, misleading or invasive of someone else’s privacy (including “jokes” that may be misunderstood).
  • Do not communicate with the mypinio support chat in a manner which is vulgar, harmful, obscene, insulting, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libelous, untrue or misleading.
  • Do not send harmful, illegal, fraudulent or disruptive emails or code such as viruses, spyware, adware, malware or other code to us or to the mypinio website or to our affiliates (or to anything or anyone) that could negatively impact this website or any recipient.
  • Do not carry out any attacks or actions that could place a significant load or burden on the infrastructure of this website or disrupt the normal operation of our service. For example a denial of service attack. (DoS, DDoS)
  • Do not, under any circumstances, contact mypinio’s customers or the sponsor of a survey or service.

Failure to comply with this Code of Conduct or use of the mypinio Platform in an undesirable manner may result in termination of your Member Account and forfeiture of your credit.

REFERRAL LINKS

You may receive an additional bonus if you refer friends, acquaintances and family members to mypinio, provided they sign up via a unique link or code we provide for referrals (a “Referral Link”). The terms and conditions for awarding a bonus, if any, are explained in the “Invite a friend” section within the App. When you refer new members, you agree not to impersonate or claim to represent mypinio, and you will not attempt to mislead or deceive potential members into using your Referral Link for membership. You agree to make it clear to potential members you recruit that they will use your unique referral link and that you may be referred to them if they join mypinio through your referral link.

MEMBER CONTENT AND PERSONAL FEED

mypinio users have the possibility to create their own content and polls. Polls can be created with either text or images. In this context, so-called “content” is created when uploading images or creating posts or polls. (hereinafter “User Content” or “Member Content”). Whenever you make use of these features that allows you to upload content to our Site, you must comply with the content standards set out in the Content Rules (next paragraph).

We are not responsible or liable to our Members or any third party for the content or accuracy of any Member Content posted by our Platform Users. Any content you upload to our website will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary. You retain all ownership rights to your content, but you grant us and other users or partners of our platform a non-exclusive license to use, store, process, and reproduce that content and to distribute and make it available to third parties.

We also have the right to disclose your identity to third parties in the event of an allegation that content published or uploaded by you on our Platform constitutes an infringement of their intellectual property rights or their right to privacy. We also reserve the right to forward your user information to investigative authorities or law enforcement agencies if there is a suspicion of misuse or the distribution of illegal content. Any user (anonymous or non-anonymous) has the possibility to report the published user content to us. A corresponding “Report Post” function is available for this purpose. In this function, a selection of various reasons is available. These reports will be reviewed by mypinio employees, evaluated and, if necessary, responded to with appropriate measures.

We have the right to remove any posting (posts, polls, or other options to publish content on mypinio.com) from our website if, in our opinion, your content does not meet the content standards set out in our content rules. If you post images or image content, please ensure that they are either your own images or that you have the right to post them.

Note: The views expressed by Members, Partners, or Influencers on our website do not represent our views or values. Each member of our community is responsible for their own content.

CONTENT RULES

By “content” we mean both text and image content. As soon as you create your own content on our platform, you automatically agree to comply with the following terms at all times.

• You may not post or upload User Content or use the Site in any manner that violates any laws in Germany or elsewhere (including copyright laws).
• You may not post or upload any User Content or use the Site in any manner that is abusive, threatening, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, harassing, false, misleading, or unreliable, or that disparages or could discredit us, the Site, or our customers and partners.
• You may not post on our Platform any personal information of any other person, entity, organization or third party generally. This includes text, photos or multimedia formats such as audio or video. This is only possible if their full and unambiguous consent has been given that this personal information may be published on our platform, stored and used and processed by us and our customers and partners in accordance with our Terms and the Privacy Policy.
• You agree not to post any User Content that violates the rights of any other person or entity (including intellectual property rights and privacy rights in compliance with applicable local data privacy laws). You expressly agree that you have all necessary rights and permissions to publish the User Content you submit to the Site. This evidence must be provided by the user if required.
• Any User Content you post on the Site may be used by us for any purpose subject to the Privacy Policy.
• You are solely responsible for all content (posts, polls or any other form of content distribution) published by you on our platform.
• Please inform us immediately if any rules of these Terms of Use are violated by you or any other user of our platform.
• We reserve the right to edit or remove any User Content published on the Platform at any time. The can also be done without explanations or valid reasons. Additionally, we may also request editing or deletion of content by you as a member of our community. No reasons need to be given for this either.
• Incidentally, any rules mentioned in this user agreement also apply to the comment function for posts. Corresponding text content can also be published there that relates to the corresponding post. (Posts, polls or other ways of publishing content).
• We also have the right by law or regulation to moderate and review any content posted on our website. However, we assume no responsibility for User Content and reserve the right to remove or edit User Content at any time.
• To the extent allowable by law, you hereby indemnify us against all losses, damages, proceedings, actions, legal costs and disbursements, expenses and any other losses or liabilities arising from your posting of User Content, or use of the Site, or your breach of these Terms.

In the event that we are notified by a third party that User Content you have uploaded to the Site infringes the intellectual property rights of a third party, we reserve the right to disclose your identity and contact information to such third party so that it may take enforcement action against you. Even without having to notify you. We will also cooperate at all times with customary regulatory and law enforcement authorities and provide all necessary information for the investigation and investigation of possible crimes. You acknowledge and agree that we may disclose your information to such third parties, subject to any relevant exceptions available to us under applicable data protection legislation, for the purposes of such third parties taking such enforcement action, and you hereby waive any rights you may have against mypinio in connection with any such disclosure.

DATA COLLECTED THROUGH THE SURVEY PROCESS

mypinio members are invited to participate in surveys through various means. (e.g. via the user account, the App, via email, via Whatsapp notification and possibly other ways) The respective preferences can be managed within the App. In the course of the invitation, so-called “profile data” is drawn from previous information provided by the user. Profile data is obtained both from mypinio profile surveys, from surveys of our partners and from user behavior within the platform. This information helps us provide the best user experience for the member and any other user at mypinio.com.

SURVEY INCENTIVES

For participating in mypinio surveys or polls, studies and surveys of our customers and partners, we compensate the effort incurred in the form of incentives. Incentives are stated as a cash value for the respective survey and credited to the user account in the corresponding local currency.

The country currency is set during the registration of the user account and cannot be changed by the user/member himself. If it is necessary to change the currency, please use our contact form.

→ Contact form

Incentives can be earned in a variety of ways. Here is a selection of ways:

• Welcome bonus upon registration
• Successfully inviting other users to mypinio.com (Referrals)
• Participation in Incentives of Invited Users (Incentive Share)
• Profile surveys
• Surveys
• Polls
• Studies
• Registration and participation in micro-communities and fanpages
• Cashbacks
• Consumption of advertising content
• Special promotions

mypinio is entitled to change, add or discontinue incentives and promotions at any time. The amount of the incentives is determined exclusively by mypinio and its customers or partners. The amounts can change at any time. Even for the same activities or promotions. Due to variability, demand, and speed of completion of surveys and studies, the particular incentive may change over time.

In our surveys, in the marketplaces, with customers or partners you may experience screen-outs later in the screener or qualification process. In these cases, either the survey process is terminated or the participant will get redirected to possible other surveys via a chained process. This case is what we call “survey chaining”. The advantage for the participant is that they get more chances to participate in surveys and thus are not immediately screened out. However, in such cases, the original incentive for the survey is likely to change. Both positively and negatively. Unless you want this to happen, then simply cancel the survey. However, if you get to a new survey and finish it, the corresponding bonus (the incentive) will be displayed at the end of the survey.

Since we offer the surveys and incentives on our platform in different countries, the respective incentive is displayed in the user’s local currency. This has the advantage that the user sees the account balance in his corresponding currency and therefore no currency conversion is necessary. Due to the diversity of our surveys and the diversity of our customers, partners and marketplaces, the source currencies may vary from partner to partner and from survey to survey. Another aspect is the variability of the currency conversions for the respective countries and its currencies. mypinio updates the respective currency conversions daily. This means that the respective incentive is displayed on a daily basis. However, there is no guarantee of specific currency conversions. In some cases, it may even happen that the exchange rate has changed in the course of the survey. This depends on the respective time of participation in the survey, the length of the survey and the time of updating the currency conversions.

If your account does not accurately reflect your account balance, mypinio reserves the right to correct such errors at any time. If you have received incentives in error or you believe that your Member Account has been the subject of suspicious activity, please contact us immediately. If it turns out that you have been the victim of fraud, we will transfer the incentives you have earned already to a new member account.

Transferability of incentives: You may not assign, transfer or pledge your earned balance to any third party. The purchase of incentives does not automatically create a right of ownership for you or any third party.

The reasons for incentives or the amount of incentives can be adjusted by mypinio at any time. There is no legal claim to the amount of incentives for certain activities.

RESPONSE QUALITY AND REVERSALS

mypinio attaches great importance to the quality of survey results when participating in polls, surveys and studies. In this respect, we and our partners have set up measures to check the quality of responses. The following quality criteria are applied in such cases:

• Use of VPNs or SmartProxy solutions
• Determination of the current participation location
• Recording the duration of survey participation
• Quick click-through of the survey (speeding)
• Pattern responses
• Similar response patterns (Lining)
• Recurring free text answers
• Non-plausible free text answers (Gibberish words)
• One-word answers
• Duplication of IP addresses
• All checkboxes selected
• Speed traps

You can earn points as follows:

• Upon successful completion of a survey for which you have successfully qualified, you will receive the incentive
• Successful participation in special promotions
• Successful completion of a profile survey
• Successful acceptance of micro-community invitations

In such cases, quality screeners are usually used. This means that the survey participant is already screened out during the ongoing survey based on such quality checks. In these cases, the incentive is not paid out. Another possibility are so-called pre- or post-quality screeners. Pre-screeners check for possible quality problems before the survey begins or at the start of the survey. Post-quality screeners are checked after the survey has been completed. The duration until the final evaluation ranges from within a few seconds to sometimes several days, weeks or even months. In such cases, we receive a corresponding message from our customers or partners, which is then recorded in the user account as a so-called “reversal”. The original amount of the incentive is then deducted from the user account accordingly. In the reversal entry itself, it is then recognizable to which incentive (survey ID) this negative booking belongs.

If you have any questions in this regard, please use the contact form to send us an inquiry. To the extent that you have a sound basis for disputing the Reversal, please explain fully, taking into account all relevant information, why you believe that Disagreement is unjustified . You are also welcome to provide screenshots. Upon receipt of your notice, we will investigate your claim and notify you within thirty (45) days of our decision to either adjust or retain the incentive as we deem appropriate. If we need more time to decide your claim, we will notify you and endeavor to make a decision as soon as possible. Any decision by us with respect to a claim will be final.

REDEMPTION PROCESS

All credits / incentives earned at mypinio are recorded and managed in the user account. All bookings (incentives, payouts, deposits, reversals) can be viewed in the “Earnings” menu item. Once the minimum payout amount has been reached, a payout can take place. The payout can be initiated via the “Redeem” menu item. More info on the redemption process can be found in our blog article.

For payouts we cooperate with our partner https://tangocard.com/. The payout takes place in the form of a gift card. First you select the desired payout amount and then request the gift card in the next step. You will then immediately receive an email with a confirmation from TangoCard. In the email there is a link to the gift card. On the confirmation page you will then find a variety of partners where the gift card can be redeemed. Incidentally, the redemption of the gift card can also be made at several partners at the same time. If the entire value of the gift card has not been redeemed at the first redemption, the remaining amount can be used at any time afterwards.

Please make sure you have your correct email address on file in your user account to avoid delays in delivery. Gift cards are sent exclusively by email. The delivery of the gift cards usually takes place promptly. However, within 48 hours at the most. If there are any delays, please check your spam folder first. If you do not receive an email within 48 hours, please use the contact form to inform us. Any request to resend a missing voucher must be made within 45 days of the original mailing of the voucher. mypinio will not process any requests after the deadline. We reserve the right to cancel payouts or gift cards if required by law or regulation.

Expiration of incentives: Incentives earned remain valid for 12 months from the date of credit. If payments for them have not been made within a period of 12 months, then these incentives will automatically expire. They will be deleted from your account or deactivated.

If your account is suspended or your account becomes inactive, you will no longer be able to access or claim your credits. Your account will automatically become inactive if you have not used your account for more than 24 months. More precisely, if you have not logged in for more than 24 months. We will not inform you about the cancellation of the user account or the expiration of the credit. If your account has become inactive, then we reserve the right to delete your user account altogether. This includes both the account data and all content that you have shared on our platform. Furthermore, your credit will also no longer be accessible and will thus expire. We also reserve the right to change these rules at our sole discretion.

Misuse, fraud or other misconduct may also result in deactivation of the user account. A detailed list of these can be found above in the “Code of Conduct for Members” section.

PROFILE DATA / SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC DATA

This is data that we collect from the User as part of profile surveys, special polls or surveys in general. As a rule, these surveys are marked accordingly. However, there is no obligation to do so. The purpose of collecting profile data is to gain more precise knowledge about the community member in order to deliver appropriate surveys to the user. The more accurate the socio-demographic information, the higher the probability that you as a mypinio community member will receive suitable surveys with a high probability of payment of the survey incentive. The information should therefore always be truthful. Our research clients usually search for certain general or specific target group segment criteria. Once there is a match to the potential survey participant’s profile data, the user is considered for the survey(s) tender. However, there is no guarantee for participation in any survey conducted by mypinio or one of our partners.

The criteria for participation in surveys is determined both by the profile data already collected and queried in the so-called “pre-screening” or “pre-qualification” process. In certain cases, it can also happen that certain screener questions are only asked in the ongoing survey, so that a delayed screen-out process can occur, even if some questions of the survey or study have already been answered. In such cases, our partners usually still pay a screen out bonus, which can vary from partner to partner or from survey to survey. However, there is no legal claim or guarantee for this.

Profile data is collected and stored by both mypinio and our partners. Our partners are subject to their own or additional terms of use, which are provided on the dialogue pages of our partners. If you are not sure which current terms of use apply, either do not take part in the survey or send us a request via the contact form.

→ https://mypinio.com/contact/

For the selection of suitable surveys according to the recorded profile criteria of the user/member, we transfer this information anonymously to our partners. This information is stored and processed there in accordance with the applicable data protection regulations. Our partners and their market research customers are responsible for the data protection-compliant processing of the survey data and profile data.

Information collected as part of this process consist, for example, the following:

• Age
• Gender
• Country of birth
• Country / city of residence
• ZIP code
• Year of birth / exact date of birth
• Marital status
• Education
• Personal income level / Household income level
• Spoken languages
• Race
• Employment
• Career
• Organization role
• Organization size
• Number of employees
• Other data that my be relevant

In certain cases, this information may be requested not only by mypinio, but also by our partners and their market research clients. It may even happen that, due to changes in local legal requirements, additional questions are asked about certain criteria. This applies to our partners, the research and market research organizations and companies, as well as to the survey tools themselves.

COMMUNICATION DATA

When you communicate with us (for example, when you exercise your rights under this Policy), we may collect and process such communication data, including the content of our communications. but such collection and processing is strictly limited to the purpose of re-communicating with you about the subject matter of your original communication.

CONFIDENTIALITY OF SURVEYS

Participation in studies, surveys and polls through mypinio or through any of our partners or marketplaces may sometimes involve confidential, proprietary and sensitive information. Any contents of the study, survey or questionnaire are the sole property of the originator/survey initiator and may not be shared or published. This also includes the question itself and the questionnaire methodology used.

Typical confidential information includes concepts for new products, services, packaging, online games, apps, film and television concepts, commercials, online marketing and general marketing strategies. Media includes text, sound, video and images. These would be presented in appropriate form in the survey or study. The purpose is to obtain the opinion or judgment of the survey participant. None of this information may be disclosed to third parties. Neither verbally nor in the form of a data backup such as download, screenshare, screenshot or download of the survey as HTML or PDF format. Any duplication is not permitted. Violation of this obligation may result in the blocking of the user account, which then also means the forfeiture of the account credit already acquired. Any monetary damages incurred on the part of mypinio, our customers or partners as a result of the breach may be subject to compensation. You assume full liability in this case.