Here is a profile of buyer criteria for institutions considering SurveyGold.

Statement on vendor reputation, maturity in cloud applications and independent third-party assessments of vendor safeguards and processes.  Vendor’s right to change the terms of use at any time and in any way without the permission of the user and frequently without notifying the user.

Regarding vendor safeguards and processes, in November 2015 SurveyGold changed to the HostingSource.com web hosting service for our web services, which are critical to the online features of any SurveyGold application. HostingSource.com is located in Secaucus, New Jersey, USA. Their data center is HIPPA compliant and employs a parallel, redundant, multi-tiered network architecture. All data links provide Tier 1 bandwidth. Their privacy policy meets all standards as set forth by U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information. This ensures excellent performance, up-time and data protection.

Regarding our reputation, we have been serving a global customer base since 1999. We received a 9.5 out of 10 rating for three years in a row from the independent review site TopTenReviews and also have high ratings from CNET/Download.com where over 60,000 users have downloaded and used our SurveyGold application.

​We manage our support services pro-actively and have a high response rate to inquiries, with approximately 50% being responded to in one hour or less. To give you a lens into how widely used our SurveyGold application is, take a look at this representative sample of our customer list.

Regarding our right to change the terms at any time, we have gone on record regarding our view of the data ownership and sacred trust. Simply said, if we blow that promise, we blow our brand. Trust is an essential part of our brand promise.

We also have published website notices specific to SurveyGold software, documents and links as well as general legal notices.

What is the exit strategy for disengaging from the vendor or service to fully delete all data from their service including distributed or back-up copies?  How will we be able to recover our data from the vendor, especially in cases where the vendor shuts down. 

The SurveyGold solution delivers the data to the SurveyGold application which records it in the SurveyGold database application...all of which reside on the survey author's computer. SurveyGold application users have access to this data forever, even if Golden Hills Software goes out of business. SurveyGold application licenses are perpetual, which means that they never expire, so you will never be locked out of the SurveyGold application.

As part of normal practice, the SurveyGold application provides the ability to backup and restore the SurveyGold database using your own data storage solution (e.g., network folder, USB drive).

So, the bottom line is that the SurveyGold solution puts you in possession of your data. 

Vendor statement on: privileged user access, data location, data segregation, data ownership, recovery/data availability, return of data, change management, user provisioning and de-provisioning,  personnel practices, incident response plans, and investigative/management support.

Statement on encryption. Transmission of data to the vendor site must be encrypted. The data must also be encrypted at the vendor.

Our Privacy Policy describes how we encrypt and secure all SurveyGold data. Refer to the topic entitled "How Do We Protect Your Information?".

Our SurveyGold Online Services services manage, process and track your SurveyGold data. These services are built upon the world-class data center operating environment of our web hosting partner, HostingSource.com. 

All of our servers are actively monitored and regularly scanned to be compliant with PCI Security Standards.

Please provide a system architectural diagram as to how your software works.  For example, you mention the SurveyGold software on our computer.  We need to know more details about any impact of your software on our computer devices and if it interacts with your cloud hosted app, etc.

SurveyGold Response
This conceptual diagram of the SurveyGold solution describes the relevant details:

SurveyGold application - (surveygold.exe) A Windows application that installs on the survey author's computer. It is a stand-alone application that uses HTTPS (Port 443) to interact with SurveyGold Online Services. SurveyGold interacts with Microsoft Word, if it is detected on the computer, for the purposes of publishing reports and producing surveys in Word format. There are no other interactions with the SurveyGold application except for the following:

SurveyGold database application - (rteng9.exe) Sybase SQL Anywhere (SSA) is the database application that installs as part of the SurveyGold setup program. SurveyGold employs SSA for the purposes of securely and efficiently managing and tracking survey data.

SurveyGold updater application - (update.exe) This application installs as part of the SurveyGold setup program. SurveyGold uses it to provide software updates. 

SurveyGold online services - A set of online services employed by the SurveyGold application and accessible via surveygold.com (IP address: 206.72.194.40) and surveygoldcloud.com (IP address: 206.72.194.52​) for the purposes of publishing web surveys, collecting responses, acquiring SurveyGold application updates and other online features.