Code of Conduct

Why have a code of a conduct in the first place - why do we feel the need to do this at all? In today's world more and more people are getting connected and leveraging the power of the internet. People who used to think more about surfing the web or looking for deals on eBay are now seeking out service professionals to help them with everything from life insurance, to selecting the best cable or mobile plan, getting help with a home loan, to urgently-needed assistance keeping their family in their home. And with progress (for this surely what we all see) comes opportunity - opportunity for bona fide businesses to reach more customers, opportunity for more people to find the help they need, and (sadly) opportunity for abuse.

The internet is a wonderful place to be but is not well understood my most. At VisionHero, we have grown up with the internet and understand how people seek out help and how they ultimately get connected with businesses who claim to offer such help. As search experts, we also understand how scammers operate and to be frank it simply makes us sick to think about the damage these people do.

We mentioned opportunity. Most scammers are not technology experts and therefore less self-sufficient than many believe. We see an opportunity for companies like VisionHero who supply media-related services on a very large scale to put a dent in the abuse by simply refusing to work with companies that do not agree to be good stewards of consumers trust both in terms of their business practices and data protection policies. Our belief is that if more companies like ours took this stance, we make it much harder for scammers to operate and ultimately force them to move on.

To this end, we have come up with the VisionHero code of conduct which we both adhere to ourselves and demand that our partners and customers do the same. Rather than come up a thousand word, legal-sounding policy statement that allows us to do more or less anything we want to, we have come up with a simple list of X guiding points. To be clear, we cannot force other companies to adhere to these points of conduct (if we could we would); but we can stop doing business with companies whom we believe fail to live up to the code. And this is what we do our little piece of making the internet a safer place for all consumers.

Our parting piece of advice: There are many excellent businesses and service providers online - before you agree to work with someone, insist that they adhere to some form of code of conduct that is straightforward and easy to understand. If not, keep looking and you'll find someone who wants to earn your business and your trust.

The VisionHero code of conduct is our commitment to you and our partners to behave in a responsible manner, work with like-minded companies, and to be faithful stewards of our customers trust.

1. We will never share, sell, or transfer your personal data without your consent. Period. This is simple and straightforward and we've never understood why this is so hard for companies to agree not to do.
   
   
2. We will not contact you about products or services if you have asked us not to.
   
   
3. We will not knowingly partner with companies that fail to live up to these standards. To be fair, we cannot compel our partners to behave a certain way (if we could we would and the world would be a better place) nor can we police their every action. But if we do find that folks have not lived up to their commitments we will stop doing business with them (our contracts allow us to immediately stop business with anyone found violating our code of conduct). To that end, we encourage consumers to send us any spam or report unwanted telemarketing calls received after using our service so we can track down the offender; we also get regular updates from local government agencies to make sure that any company with whom we work is not under investigation for or charged with any crime relating to its business practices.
   
   

Again, it is not an operating requirement for companies to provide a code of conduct but with the many excellent choices on the internet we think it's crazy not to insist on one (that isn't written in complicated legal-speak with so many outs and qualifications that you KNOW they're going to sell your data) and we hope you agree.