Terms and Conditions

1. Who we are and acceptance of these Terms

These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern your use of the xDV DataVault platform ("the Platform", "we", "us", "our"), operated by xDV DataVault Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales. By creating an account or using the Platform you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the Platform.

2. What xDV DataVault does

xDV DataVault is a premium market-research platform. Members answer questionnaires and choose to share data with their explicit consent, and are paid for approved contributions. Businesses commission research, receive consented, pseudonymised insights, and can purchase access to analytics.

We are a market-research and data-insights business. We are not a bank, an investment platform, or a payment institution, and nothing on the Platform is an invitation to invest.

3. Your account

3.1 Registration. You must be at least 18, provide accurate and complete information, and keep it up to date.

3.2 Security. You are responsible for keeping your login credentials confidential and for activity on your account.

3.3 Account types. You can register for one of two account types:

• Individual — for people who take part in research and are paid for approved contributions.

• Corporate — for organisations that commission questionnaires and purchase data insights.

Access to our analytics products is purchased through the same registration and purchase forms and is administered separately as part of your Corporate account. It is not a separate account type.

3.4 Verification. Corporate accounts must complete identity and business verification before commissioning research.

4. Consent and your data

4.1 You control what you share. Participation in any questionnaire or data-sharing programme is voluntary and based on your explicit consent, which you can withdraw at any time for future use.

4.2 Data shared with corporate customers is pseudonymised before sharing: your name, contact details, identity-verification and payout information are never shared, and personal details are removed from free-text answers. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your data.

4.3 You may request deletion of your personal data at any time, subject to legal retention requirements (see also section 5.7 below on what happens to earnings when you close your account).

5. Earnings, payouts and referrals

5.1 What your balance is — and is not. Your earnings balance represents earnings owed to you, not stored value. It is a record of money we owe you for approved use of your data and approved questionnaire responses. It is not a deposit, a wallet, stored value or electronic money; it earns no interest; and it cannot be used to pay for anything on or off the Platform. We do not provide payment services. You accrue a right to be paid, and we pay you by bank transfer when you withdraw.

5.2 How you earn. You earn amounts for approved questionnaire responses, approved data-sharing contributions and referrals. Data-sharing contributions are rewarded when your data is actually used in analytics: you receive a share of a monthly pool funded by subscription and usage revenue, released to you monthly and trued up at your data's usage anniversary. This applies the same way regardless of which subscription tier the business using your data is on. The share of the pool we pay out is published on the Platform and may change for future periods; changes never reduce amounts you have already earned. Questionnaire and referral earnings continue to be paid at the rates published on the Platform at the time you take part.

5.3 Approval of responses. Responses are reviewed before earnings are credited. To be approved, a response must be complete, genuine, internally consistent and responsive to the questions asked. We may reject responses that fail these standards (for example, straight-lining, contradictory answers, or automated completion), in which case no earning is credited.

5.4 Withdrawals. You can request a withdrawal once your balance reaches £20 (the current minimum, as published on the Platform). Withdrawal requests are reviewed by our team and, once approved, paid by bank transfer to the bank account you have registered. Payouts are generally made within 5 working days of approval; once a payment has been issued, it typically clears to your bank within 24–48 hours. We do not offer instant payouts. You are responsible for providing valid bank details; we are not responsible for delays caused by incorrect details.

5.5 Beta phase — payouts held. During our Beta phase, approved earnings accumulate in your account but are not paid out. Your earnings build up now and become payable when the Platform officially launches (see the Beta notice shown on the Platform). The £20 minimum and the withdrawal process in section 5.4 apply once payouts begin at launch. Holding payouts during Beta does not reduce or remove any earnings you have accrued.

5.6 No fees on payouts. We absorb payment-processing costs. You receive the full amount you withdraw — we do not deduct transaction or transfer fees.

5.7 Closing your account and future earnings. You can withdraw your available balance before you close your account, subject to the minimum withdrawal amount (section 5.4). After you ask to close your account there is a period during which you can reinstate it; once that period ends and your account is permanently deleted, any unwithdrawn balance remaining at that point is retained by xDV DataVault and is no longer payable to you. Your balance is a record of earnings owed under these Terms — not a deposit, wallet or stored value (section 5.1). Separately, if you close your account you also forfeit future earnings on data you have already contributed: pseudonymised data you contributed may continue to be included in datasets and analytics for up to 3 years after closure, and any revenue it generates after closure belongs to xDV DataVault.

5.8 Referrals. If you refer someone who joins the Platform, you (the referrer) earn a referral reward — currently £0.20, as published on the Platform — credited when the person you referred has their first questionnaire response approved. Referral earnings count towards your balance and are subject to the £20 withdrawal minimum. The person you refer does not receive a referral payment. Referral amounts and conditions may change for future referrals, as published on the Platform.

5.9 Tax. You are responsible for any tax due on your earnings.

6. Corporate customers: questionnaire funding, budgets and recourse

6.1 How questionnaire funding is priced. When a corporate customer launches a questionnaire, it funds a reward pool for participant payments plus our platform fee. The reward pool is the reward per approved response multiplied by the number of responses commissioned. The reward per response is a minimum of £1 (you may choose to pay more per response to attract participants). We add a platform fee and VAT at 20%. The platform-fee rate, the VAT, and the full total are shown to you on the Platform and in your order before you confirm and pay — please review them at the point of purchase. Rates may change from time to time and the rate applied is the one displayed at the time of your order.

6.2 Committed budget. The reward pool and platform fee for a questionnaire are collected in advance and held by us against payouts for that questionnaire ("committed budget").

6.3 Release on approval. When we approve a participant's response under section 5.3, the corresponding amount of the reward pool is released to fund that participant's earning. Approval is carried out by our review team against the quality standard in section 5.3.

6.4 Unused reward pool. Reward-pool budget that is not used (for example, because the questionnaire closes before reaching its target number of approved responses) is returned to the corporate customer in accordance with our Refund Policy.

6.5 Corporate recourse on approvals. If a corporate customer believes responses were approved that do not meet the quality standard, it may raise a review request within 14 days of the responses being made available. We will re-review the disputed responses; where we agree a response should not have been approved, we will credit the corresponding amount back to the customer's committed budget or refund it. Our re-review decision is final, subject to your statutory rights.

6.6 No processing surcharges. We do not add payment-processing charges on top of published prices.

7. Analytics subscriptions, fees and VAT

7.1 Analytics subscriptions. Access to our analytics products is provided on an annual subscription basis to Corporate accounts. Subscription tiers, the access they include, and any credit-based usage and top-up mechanics are as set out on the Platform and in your subscription agreement at the point of subscription. Pricing and credit mechanics may change for future subscription terms; the terms that apply to you are those in force when you subscribe or renew.

7.2 Fees. All fees payable by corporate customers — questionnaire funding (section 6) and analytics subscriptions — are as published on the Platform and in your order or subscription agreement at the time of purchase.

7.3 VAT. Displayed prices for money payable to us are inclusive of VAT at 20% ("inc. VAT"), and the VAT element is itemised on your receipt or invoice. VAT applies only to amounts you pay to us (questionnaire funding fees and analytics subscriptions). VAT is never charged on participant payouts — earnings paid to members are not a supply for VAT purposes.

7.4 Permitted use — no resale. Data, insights, reports and analytics a Corporate account accesses via the Platform ("xDV Data") are licensed for that account's own internal business use only. Corporate customers must not resell, redistribute, sub-license, republish, on-sell, syndicate, transfer or otherwise make xDV Data available to any third party (whether for consideration or free of charge), nor use it to build or train a competing data or analytics product. Any such act is a material breach of these Terms and of the ethical-use undertakings behind the "Ethically Sourced Data · via xDV DataVault" mark, and may result in immediate suspension or termination and revocation of the mark. This restriction protects the consenting members whose data it is.

8. Prohibited activities

You must not:

• provide false or misleading information, or create fake accounts;

• attempt to manipulate the Platform, the approval process, payments or the referral programme;

• submit automated, duplicated or fraudulent questionnaire responses;

• interfere with the operation or security of the Platform;

• infringe intellectual-property rights or violate any applicable law.

9. Intellectual property

The Platform and its content are owned by xDV DataVault Ltd or its licensors. You retain ownership of the data you provide; you grant us the licence to use it as described in these Terms and our Privacy Policy, including the post-closure use described in section 5.7.

10. Liability

The Platform is provided with reasonable skill and care. To the maximum extent permitted by law, our liability to corporate customers is limited to the amounts paid to us in the 12 months before the claim. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law (including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or fraud), and nothing affects consumers' statutory rights.

11. Suspension and termination

You may close your account at any time (see section 5.7 for what happens to earnings). We may suspend or terminate accounts that breach these Terms; where we do, we will tell you why unless the law prevents us.

12. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. For material changes we will give you reasonable advance notice by email or on the Platform. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

13. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction (consumers may also have rights in their local courts).

14. Contact

Questions about these Terms: legal@xdv-datavault.com