YouGov was founded in the UK in 2000, and is considered the pioneer of online polling and market research.

During the most recent US election cycle YouGov successfully predicted the outcome of the Presidential race as well as a number of Senatorial races, and successfully predicts election results around Europe. YouGov is not only extremely accurate with its predictive forecasts, but is also the only top performing research firm that utilizes online polling exclusively to predict election results.

YouGov has offices in the US, UK, Europe and the Middle East.

YouGov Results in 2010 US Elections

YouGov's general population samples are selected from its panel to match the distribution of demographics and other characteristics in the adult U.S. population: age, race, gender, education, employment, income, marital status, number of children (from the 2010 American Community Survey), voter registration, time and location of internet access (from the Current Population November 2010 and October 2009 supplements), interest in politics, religion, and church attendance (from the Pew Religious Landscape Survey of 2008).

Stratified subsamples (on four demographics) are selected from YouGov's opt-in panel and invited to participate in surveys. Samples are weighted by propensity score deciles estimated from the remaining variables using a case-control logistic regression.

The information our users provide is confidential. We do not sell or disclose this personal information to anyone at any time although we may report the information in aggregate form (e.g., "65 percent of those aged 65+ reported a high level of interest in the presidential debate").

Non-Personal Information

Without registration to the YouGov panel, the only information we may collect is non-personal information through the use of cookies or web beacons.

Cookies are used to monitor web usage, facilitate login and to restrict the underage (under 18) use of the tools. We do not link non-personal information from cookies to personally identifiable information without permission, and do not use cookies to collect or store personal information.

Web Beacons may be used to collect non-personal information about the use of our website and emails only.

Personally Identifiable Information

To register with YouGov, we require respondents to submit personally identifiable information such as name, mailing address and e-mail address. We use this personally identifiable information to gather opinions on questions about your local political jurisdictions, and to send you e-mails about website maintenance etc.

Identifiable Information is used for research purposes, and is not used for sales solicitations. With surveys sponsored by a third party, only aggregate non-identifiable information is reported to the sponsor. Personally identifiable information collected through surveys will be used only by YouGov and its operations contractors, and will not be given or sold to a third party without the panelist's consent.

Disclosure of Information

Except as set forth in this Privacy Policy or as specifically agreed to by you, YouGov will not disclose any personally identifiable gathered on our websites except: (1) to comply with valid legal requirements; (2) to reduce fraud or criminal activity; (3) to protect the legal rights of YouGov, our customers, our Websites, or the users of our Websites; (4) to allow a purchaser of a YouGov (a division, or as a whole), to continue using your information to serve you or as otherwise permitted by this Privacy Statement; or (5) in special cases, such as a physical threat to you or others.

For full details of our Privacy Policy please go to http://today.yougov.com/privacy/