Brave G.
Both Participants & Researchers Should Avoid This Company
After 3 years of giving good solid data to many research projects, and having a perfect 5 star 850 rating with zero rejections and positive feedback from researchers, I was downgraded to 1 star with restricted access to any new studies (which means, no studies available to me at all). In effect, a black-listing ban with no explanation. This is an extremely unethical company who then went on their subreddit and lied to all participants about their new system. Part of this new system is to penalize participants who return a study for any reason, whether that be a technical issue or the participant discovers they are not the right fit that the researcher is aiming for, or anything in between. This single factor alone compromises many researcher's projects according to the standard rule set by their IRB (internal review board) that participants in research must be allowed to exit a study without penalization. Therefore, if you've gotten your research done through Cloud Research, your studies are now invalidated. Cloud Research has been documented for back tracking on this specific point by removing it from their graphic that participants see on their rating score, likely from fear of legal retaliation, but it is obviously a metric that has been used to penalize many participants and many will testify that the screenshots of this unethical action are legitimate. So, this warning is not only for participants, but for researchers too. Using Cloud Research Connect is not only a waste of time for participants, it is a waste of money for researchers. I will not be surprised to see a class action lawsuit filed against this company.