Privacy Policy

Overview

This Privacy Policy explains how Paid Participant (“Paid Participant,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) collects, uses, discloses, and retains information when you use paidparticipant.com and related services. The service is operated from the United States and is intended for users who are at least 18 years old.

Information we collect

• Information you provide: email address, alert preferences, account details, support messages, and any information you submit when creating or managing an account.
• Subscription information: membership status, transaction identifiers, and billing-related records. Payment providers process payment-card details; we do not intend to store complete card numbers.
• Technical and usage information: IP address, approximate region derived from an IP address, browser and device information, referral and campaign information, a site-generated identifier, page activity, and study-application link activity.
• Information from service providers: limited information from hosting, authentication, payment, email, analytics, advertising, security, and fraud-prevention providers when those services are enabled.

How we use information

• Provide, maintain, secure, and improve the service.
• Manage free-access limits, memberships, accounts, and study alerts.
• Measure site and campaign performance and understand which opportunities are useful.
• Detect duplicate activity, abuse, fraud, and security incidents.
• Communicate with you and comply with legal obligations.

Member tools and recommendations

When you use the payment tracker, we store the study and company names, dates, amounts, statuses, and notes you enter to provide your private records and totals. Do not enter banking credentials or Social Security numbers. Study recommendations use your selected state or, when available, an approximate IP-derived state. You can change the state on the study board; this is not precise location tracking.

How we disclose information

We may disclose information to vendors that help operate the service, including hosting, authentication, payment, email-delivery, analytics, advertising, security, and customer-support providers. We may also disclose information when required by law, to protect rights or safety, or in connection with a merger, financing, acquisition, or sale of assets.

When you follow an external study application link, you leave Paid Participant and interact with a third-party website. Information you submit there is governed by that third party’s privacy practices, not this Policy.

We do not currently sell personal information for money or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. If our practices change, we will update this Policy and provide legally required choices.

Cookies and similar technology

We use browser storage and similar technology to operate site features, remember preferences, measure usage, enforce access limits, and protect the service. You may control browser storage through your browser, but blocking it may prevent parts of the service from working. If we add nonessential advertising or cross-site tracking technology, we will provide additional notice or choices where required.

Email communications

If you join study alerts, we may send service and promotional emails. We may record when links in our emails are clicked so we can measure engagement and improve those messages. You can unsubscribe from promotional emails at any time using the unsubscribe method in the message. We may still send necessary account, security, billing, or transactional messages.

Retention and security

We retain information for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described here, including operating the service, resolving disputes, enforcing agreements, and meeting legal obligations. We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards, but no method of transmission or storage is completely secure.

Your choices and privacy rights

You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of information associated with you. Depending on where you live and whether applicable legal thresholds are met, you may have additional rights concerning access, correction, deletion, portability, restriction, appeal, or opting out of certain processing. We will not discriminate against you for exercising applicable rights. We may need to verify a request before acting on it.

Children

Paid Participant is not directed to children under 13, and study access is intended for adults 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Contact us if you believe a child has provided information.

Changes

We may update this Policy as the service changes. We will post the revised date and provide additional notice when legally required.