Privacy Policy
WELCOME!
We take your privacy seriously and know you do too. This Privacy Policy is here to help you understand how we collect, use, disclose, and process your personal data. We also describe your choices and rights with respect to how we process your personal data. Please read this policy carefully.
WHO WE ARE
This is the privacy policy of The Link Group, a marketing research firm based in Atlanta, GA, USA. We are an independent marketing research firm providing research and consulting services to companies based in the US, Europe and Asia.
WHAT THIS PRIVACY POLICY COVERS
This policy covers how The Link Group treats personal information that we collect and receive during the course of market research studies that we conduct on behalf of our clients. Personal information is information about you that is personally identifiable like your name, address, email address, or phone number, and that is not otherwise publicly available.
This policy does not apply to the practices of companies that The Link Group does not own or control, or to people that The Link Group does not employ or manage.
This Privacy Policy does not apply to information collected by third parties—for example, when you join an online research panel or agree to be included in a local research facility’s respondent database – unless and until we receive your information from those parties. Some third parties may place additional restrictions on our use of your personal data, in which case, portions of this Policy may not apply to you. Please review any third parties’ privacy policies before disclosing information to them.
INFORMATION COLLECTION AND USE
When you participate in market research studies with us, The Link Group sometimes collects personal information, such as your name, location or contact information or e-mail address. We do this to be able to contact you for payment of research incentives, to contact you for potential future research efforts, to provide information you may have requested during participation in a research study, or for use in aggregate data analysis for the research project in which you are participating. We may occasionally combine information about you or your organization that we have with information we obtain from other sources, such as the Dun & Bradstreet database or other research sample sources.
The Link Group uses the information we collect for demographic analysis of research data. All data reporting that we do for our research clients is anonymized; your research responses will never be associated with you by name.
We operate under the principle of data minimization; that is, we collect only the personal data necessary for each research project, and we limit access to personal data to those who need it to complete the project.
The Link Group will inform respondents in detail as to what personal data they agree to share when participating in research.
CHILDREN
The Link Group will not contact children under age 13 for research purposes without a parent’s permission.
The Link Group will not ask a child under age 13 for more personal information, as a condition of participation in research, than is reasonably necessary to participate in a research study.
INFORMATION SHARING AND DISCLOSURE
The Link Group does not rent, sell, or share personal information about you with other people or nonaffiliated companies without your consent. The Link Group is required to disclose personal information in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements, and The Link Group assumes liability in cases of onward transfers to third parties.
VIDEO AND AUDIO STREAMING AND RECORDING
The Link Group sometimes records or streams research sessions, such as focus groups, one-on-one interviews, or telephone interviews, for observation, note taking and documentation purposes. If we do so, we will inform our research participants what we will be recording and who will have access to the live stream or recording prior to recording; respondents will be informed of this process during recruiting for research sessions and will be asked to give their informed consent at that time. Respondents will have the opportunity to decline to participate in research and will give them the opportunity to decline to be streamed or recorded. Research respondents must grant us permission to record for us to proceed.
HOW WE USE COOKIES
We do not use cookies for our company website (www.tlg.com), but we or our survey platform providers may use cookies for our online surveys to ensure proper site functionality, track survey completion status, and assist in proper authentication.
Some cookies are necessary for a survey to operate correctly and securely, and to prevent a research respondent from taking the same survey multiple times. We may use cookies to collect information about how survey respondents interact with surveys. This information may be analyzed how users use surveys, detect problems with our surveys, and help us improve our surveys. Cookies also help our survey hosting servers manage the traffic through load balancing / distributing the traffic across our different servers.
We do not use targeting or advertising cookies.
YOUR ABILITY TO EDIT AND DELETE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
With the exception of individuals whom we may recruit for participation in an ongoing research panel, we do not maintain information on you as an individual; we do not create user accounts, maintain preferences or “account information” as we do not have user accounts for our research participants. We typically recruit participants for market research studies through our external research partners, such as focus group facilities or research panel providers, and they in turn maintain your contact information. If you have questions about how those facilities or panel providers house and maintain your information, please contact them directly; you can also contact us, and we will help you get in contact with the specific facility or panel provider as needed.
For research panels that The Link Group manages, panel members will have access to their individual account information so that they can modify or update their personal information, such as name, occupation, e-mail address or other pertinent information. The mechanism for updating such information will be shared with panelists at the time they enroll in a panel.
Anyone who wishes to opt out from contact for research studies may do so at any time by sending an e-mail to optout@tlg.com.
Note that The Link Group often works with outside research sample providers, such as EMI, M3 or Sago. In these cases, we rely on those companies to provide research participants who have agreed to participate in research studies. If we contact you through one of these providers, you may still opt out with us and you may also contact us to determine which source we used to obtain the information necessary to contact you.
CONFIDENTIALITY AND SECURITY
We implement reasonable administrative, technical, and procedural security measures to safeguard the Personal Data you provide to us. We limit access to personal information about you (name, e-mail address, mailing address, phone number) to employees who we believe reasonably need to come into contact with that information. We have physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with US and international federal regulations to protect personal information about you.
EU-US AND SWISS-US DATA PRIVACY FRAMEWORK
The Link Group is located in the United States, and we collect, store, and process your personal information in the United States. These activities are governed by applicable United States laws and regulations in this Privacy Policy. The Link Group is subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The Link Group complies with the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (EU-U.S. DPF) and the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (Swiss-U.S. DPF) as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The Link Group has certified to the U.S. Department of Commerce that it adheres to the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (EU-U.S. DPF Principles) regarding the processing of personal data received from the European Union in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF. The Link Group has also certified to the U.S. Department of Commerce that it adheres to the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles) regarding the processing of personal data received from Switzerland in reliance on the Swiss-U.S. DPF.
If there is any conflict between the terms in this privacy policy and the EU-U.S. DPF Principles and/or the Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles, the Principles shall govern. To learn more about the Data Privacy Framework (DPF) Program, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/
In compliance with the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles, The Link Group commits to resolve complaints about your privacy and our collection or use of your personal information. Swiss and EU citizens with inquiries or complaints regarding this privacy policy, or who wish to file a complaint or dispute related to or arising out of your use of our sites, should first contact The Link Group at privacy@tlg.com
or by mail at:
The Link Group Privacy Team
7000 Peachtree Dunwoody Rd.
Building 10
Sandy Springs, GA 30328
United States
or by telephone (please leave a voice mail for the privacy manager)
1-888-954-6537
The Link Group also commits to refer any unresolved complaints concerning our handling of personal data received in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF and the Swiss-U.S. DPF to Privacy Trust, an alternative dispute resolution provider based in the United Kingdom.
If you do not receive timely acknowledgment of your DPF Principles-related complaint from us, or if we have not addressed your DPF Principles-related complaint to your satisfaction, please visit our company’s listing at the Privacy Trust website at https://www.privacytrust.com/drs/thelinkgroup for more information or to file a complaint. The services of Privacy Trust are provided at no cost to you. You can see our li
The Link Group will make reasonable efforts to provide reasonable access to any of your personally identifiable information we maintain within 45 days of your request. We provide this access so that you may review, correct, amend, or request deletion of your data. If we are unable to process your request within 45 days, we will tell you when we are able to provide access. In the unlikely event that we are unable to grant you access, we will explain why we cannot do so. Under certain conditions, individuals may invoke binding arbitration.
CALIFORNIA CONSUMER PRIVACY ACT (CCPA)
The CCPA requires that organizations are transparent about and tell individuals what personal information they collect and store, how it is used, and how to ensure that personal information is adequately secure. The CCPA gives the consumer rights to access and port and to delete their personal information, to optout of having their personal information sold and to not suffer discrimination for asserting their rights by way of affecting the services and prices that the organization offers. You can read the details of our CCPA policy at https://www.tlg.com/ccpa.
QUESTIONS, SUGGESTIONS AND COMPLAINT RESOLUTION
If you have an information privacy inquiry and feel that your inquiry has not been addressed to your satisfaction, please contact us directly at privacy@tlg.com. We will make every effort to address your concerns.
If you have questions or suggestions, please contact us at:
The Link Group Privacy Team
7000 Peachtree Dunwoody Rd.
Building 10
Sandy Springs, GA 30328
1-888-954-6537 (please leave a voicemail for the privacy manager)
CHANGES TO THE LINK GROUP’S PRIVACY POLICY
The Link Group may update this policy. We will notify you about significant changes in the way we treat personal information by placing a prominent notice on our website.
Last revised: 19 September 2023
