Abuse and takedown policy

1. What is not allowed

Section 6 of the Terms of Service, “Acceptable use”, sets out what customers must not do with Usertick. In summary, a customer must not use Usertick to:

• break the law, or store or send material that is unlawful, infringing, defamatory, harassing or deceptive;
• impersonate any person or organization, or mislead the people a survey reaches about who is asking;
• collect passwords, payment card numbers or government identification numbers in surveys, or obtain any credentials by deception;
• upload malicious code or distribute links to it;
• send spam or other unsolicited marketing; or
• aim surveys at people under 16, or knowingly collect responses from people under 16, unless Usertick has agreed otherwise in writing.

The Terms of Service are the full rules, and they prevail over this summary.

2. How to report a survey

Use the Report abuse form. Every hosted survey page has a Report abuse link in its footer, which opens the form with the page address filled in, and a survey on a website that shows the “Powered by Usertick” badge has the same link beside the badge. For another survey on a website, enter the address of the page where it appears. A survey email sent through Usertick has a Report abuse link at the end; if an email has none, enter the survey link from the email. Your name and contact details are optional, except in an intimate image report. Usertick doesn’t tell the survey owner who sent a report through the form, unless the law requires it or a court orders it, and if you leave a contact, Usertick tells you that it reviewed the report and whether it took action. Reports can also be sent by email to support@usertick.com.

If a survey or a file shows an intimate image of you, including a realistic computer-generated one, that was shared without your consent, choose “An intimate image of me shared without my consent” in the form. Someone acting for you can report it too. The form then asks you to confirm that the content is an intimate image, that you are the person shown or act on their behalf, and that you make the report in good faith and it is true to the best of your knowledge and belief, to leave your email address, so that Usertick can tell you the outcome, and to type your name as your electronic signature. Usertick gives every report a reference, which the form shows when it accepts the report. Section 3 describes the 48-hour time limit for these reports.

Send legal notices, such as court orders and the copyright notices described in section 8, to legal@usertick.com.

3. What Usertick does with a report

A person at Usertick reviews reports as quickly as it reasonably can and checks what they describe. No automated system takes the decision.

Usertick protects people from illegal content on Usertick by taking it down as soon as it becomes aware of it, from a report or from its own review, with these rules for each kind of content:

• Terrorism content. Usertick suspends the survey or takes the file offline at once, and deactivates an organization that is, or acts for, a proscribed organization (section 7).
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse content. Usertick stops access to it at once and reports it to the National Crime Agency, as section 4 describes.
• Intimate images shared without consent. When the person shown, or someone acting for them, reports that a survey or a file shows an intimate image of them without their consent, Usertick decides within 48 hours of the report. If it is such an image, Usertick takes it down within the same 48 hours, together with any identical or substantially similar image that it finds in the same organization, and makes reasonable efforts to remove known identical copies elsewhere on Usertick.
• Other priority illegal content and other illegal content, such as fraud, threats, harassment, stalking, content that incites hatred, and offenses involving drugs, weapons or extreme pornography. Usertick suspends the survey or takes the file offline at once.
• Threats to life or safety. When a report or a survey shows that someone’s life or safety is at immediate risk, Usertick tells the police or the emergency services and suspends the survey.

Usertick also normally suspends the survey without asking its owner first when the survey:

• poses as a bank, a government body or another company, or tricks people into giving personal or financial details (phishing);
• asks for passwords, one-time codes, full card numbers, card security codes or bank account numbers (credential collection);
• links to or delivers malware; or
• is aimed at people under 16, unless Usertick has agreed otherwise in writing.

For any other report, such as spam, harassment that isn’t clear from the page, a copyright or trademark complaint that is not a notice under section 8, or misleading content that is not fraudulent, Usertick first asks the survey’s owner to fix the problem or explain within the time it gives. If the owner doesn’t answer, or the problem stays, Usertick suspends the survey. A report that turns out to be unfounded leads to no action, and after warning them, Usertick may stop acting on reports from a person who often sends reports that are manifestly unfounded.

Usertick doesn’t scan the surveys that people write or the files they upload. Before Usertick shows a survey or questions that its AI drafted, an automated check reads them for requests for passwords or other secret values and for hateful or deceptive content, and Usertick doesn’t show what the check flags. AI at Usertick describes this check.

When Usertick suspends a survey, the survey goes offline and its link stops working, including links already shared, and its responses are kept. The owner can’t publish or share the survey again until Usertick lifts the suspension.

4. Child sexual exploitation and abuse

Child sexual exploitation and abuse content includes abuse images and video, links to them, and grooming, such as a survey built to get images or contact details from children. Usertick reports such content that it detects on Usertick to the National Crime Agency, as the Online Safety Act 2023 requires, and may also report its address to the Internet Watch Foundation. When a child is in immediate danger, Usertick also tells the police.

Usertick stops access to the content at once, by suspending the survey, blocking the file or deactivating the organization, without deleting it, and keeps the content, the information it reported and the related account data securely for as long as the law requires.

5. Telling the owner, and appeals

When Usertick suspends a survey, it emails the owner of the organization, unless the law prevents it or telling the owner would defeat the purpose of the action, for example before a report to the National Crime Agency is made; Usertick then sends the email once that reason ends. The email names the survey and the time of the suspension, says what was done, describes the facts that led to it and whether they came from a report or from Usertick’s own review, names the rule in the Terms of Service or the law that the survey breaks, and explains how to appeal.

The owner can appeal by replying to that email within 30 days, with an explanation or the change they made, whatever the organization’s plan. A person at Usertick reviews the appeal promptly and tells the owner the outcome. If the appeal succeeds, Usertick lifts the suspension: the survey stays paused until its owner publishes it again, and sharing it gives it a new link. If the appeal fails, Usertick’s reply says why. An appeal to Usertick doesn’t affect any other right you have to challenge the decision, including in the courts.

6. Complaints

Anyone can complain to Usertick about illegal content on Usertick, about a report that Usertick didn’t act on or handled wrongly, or, as a customer, about content Usertick took down or a step it took against an organization. A complaint needs no special wording. Reply to any email from Usertick about the report or the suspension, use the Report abuse form, or email support@usertick.com.

• A complaint against a suspension is an appeal, and section 5 applies to it.
• Usertick reviews any other complaint promptly and tells the person who made it what it decided and why. When a complaint shows that a report was handled wrongly, Usertick reopens the report and decides it again.
• A complaint about an intimate image report, from the person who made that report, is handled first and answered within 48 hours.
• Usertick may close a complaint that is manifestly unfounded, for example one that repeats an appeal already decided with nothing new, with a short reply that says so.

7. Repeated or severe breaches

Usertick may deactivate an organization that has two upheld suspensions within 12 months, or one suspension for phishing, malware or illegal content. Deactivation stops collection on all of the organization’s sites, and every member is told. Usertick deactivates at once an organization that is, or acts for, an organization proscribed under the UK Terrorism Act 2000, and tells the police where that Act requires it. Usertick may also pause an organization’s email sending through Usertick on its own when the emails are the problem. Ending the account follows section 18 of the Terms of Service.

8. Copyright (DMCA)

Usertick responds to notices of claimed copyright infringement under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 512). Send a notice to Usertick’s designated agent:

Usertick Ltd, attention: copyright agent
71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom
Telephone: +90 545 260 20 23
Email: legal@usertick.com

Usertick’s designated agent is registered with the US Copyright Office.

What a notice must contain

Under 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(3), a notice must be in writing and include:

1. the physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;
2. identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed or, if several works on one site are covered by a single notice, a representative list of them;
3. identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing and that is to be removed or disabled, with information reasonably sufficient for Usertick to find it, such as the survey link;
4. your name, postal address, telephone number and email address;
5. a statement that you have a good faith belief that the use of the material in the way complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law; and
6. a statement that the information in the notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

When Usertick receives a notice that contains these elements, it removes or disables access to the material, usually by suspending the survey, and sends the survey’s owner a copy of the notice. Under 17 U.S.C. 512(f), a person who knowingly and materially misrepresents that material is infringing, or that it was removed by mistake, may be liable for damages.

Counter-notices

If you believe that material was removed or disabled by mistake or because it was misidentified, you can send a counter-notice to the designated agent. Under 17 U.S.C. 512(g)(3), it must be in writing and include:

1. your physical or electronic signature;
2. identification of the material that was removed or disabled and the location where it appeared before, such as the survey link;
3. a statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material; and
4. your name, address and telephone number, and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the US federal district court for the judicial district in which your address is located or, if your address is outside the United States, for any judicial district in which Usertick may be found, and that you will accept service of process from the person who sent the original notice or that person’s agent.

When Usertick receives a valid counter-notice, it promptly sends a copy to the person who sent the original notice and tells them that it will restore the material in 10 business days. Usertick then lifts the suspension no less than 10 and no more than 14 business days after it received the counter-notice, unless the designated agent first receives notice that the person who sent the original notice has filed a court action to restrain the alleged infringement.

Repeat infringers

Usertick deactivates, in appropriate circumstances, the organization of a customer who repeatedly infringes copyright. An organization whose material is removed under valid notices twice within 12 months, without a successful counter-notice, is a repeat infringer.

9. Contact

Reports about surveys go through the Report abuse form. Legal notices go to legal@usertick.com, or by post to Usertick Ltd, 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom.

Authorities, and people who use Usertick or meet a survey on it, can contact Usertick directly about content on Usertick at legal@usertick.com, in English. A person at Usertick reads and answers these messages.