Privacy Policy

Last Modified: November 24th, 2023

Your privacy is important to Research Etc. Inc. (“we”, “our”, or “us”, as applicable). This privacy policy (this “Privacy Policy”) describes how we collect, use, disclose, and protect your Personal Information when you visit or use our website, https://www.researchetc.com (the “Website”), when you become our client and procure or use our services (the “Services”), or when you become a respondent and participate in or respond to our surveys, focus groups, interviews, or other methods of market research.

“Personal Information” means information about an identifiable individual. Personal Information can include an individual’s opinions or beliefs, as well as facts about, or related to, the individual.

1. Consent

Typically, we ask for your consent directly to collect, use, or disclose your Personal Information. However, your consent also may be implied or implicit through your conduct when it is reasonable and legally permissible for us to do so. For example, you consent to our collection of your Personal Information when you provide information for market research.

You have the right to withdraw or decline your consent at any time. In appropriate cases, we will inform you of any implications of withdrawing your consent. However, we reserve the right to collect, use, and disclose your Personal Information without your knowledge or consent where we are legally required or permitted to do so, for example, when investigating fraud or other contravention of law, or acting in respect of an emergency that threatens you.

2. Personal Information We Collect

From our Website visitors, we collect information that you provide to us using fillable forms on our Website such as  your name and contact information and any particular inquiry you submit. We also may automatically collect certain information regarding your visit to our Website. Please see the Information We Collect Automatically section below for details. 

From our clients who procure or use our Services, we collect information from them that may include your first and last name, business email address, business and/or mobile telephone numbers, your organization’s name, your organization’s billing and account information, and information concerning your use of our Services. Please note that business information including business contact information collected for business purposes is not generally considered Personal Information.

For respondents who participate in or respond to our surveys, focus groups, interviews, or other methods for market research (“Respondents”), we may collect your name, contact information, industry of employment, age, gender, location of residence, other demographic information, the fact of your participation in our market research or your interest in doing so, as well as your opinions, beliefs, and other responses to our questions. We may collect this information directly from Respondents or from third parties as described in the Personal Information We Collect from Third Parties section below.  

If you choose to provide us with another individual’s Personal Information, you represent and warrant to us that you have that other individual’s permission to do so.

We limit the amount and type of Personal Information that we collect to that which is necessary for our purposes, which are outlined in the How We Use Your Personal Information section below.

2.1 Personal Information We Collect Automatically

As you navigate through and interact with our Website, we use necessary or essential cookies that are required for the operation of our Website and use of its features, and therefore cannot be switched off in our systems. We may also use functional cookies to remember the choices you have made and to personalize your visit to our Website, or analytical / performance cookies to gather certain information about your visit, browsing actions, and patterns to distinguish you from other visitors, and to measure the effectiveness of our Website. Functional and analytical /performance cookies are optional.

A cookie is a small file that is stored on your computer or mobile device by a website in order to remember information about your browsing history or your device when you return to that website. Some cookies are “session cookies” that are deleted at the end of your browsing session while some are “persistent cookies” that remain between sessions until they expire or you delete them. Similar tracking technologies are pixels, web beacons or other technologies that store or access information on your computer or device.

We may collect the following Personal Information about your visit to our Website: your Internet Protocol (IP) address and the general geographic location associated with your IP address (known as IP geolocation), information about your computer or mobile device such as your browser type, the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our Website, the date, time and duration of your visit, whether you are a first time or returning visitor, content you viewed and searched, recorded images such as forms you populated, and your interests and demographics.

You may disable cookies in your browser settings and clear your cache of previously installed cookies. However, if you disable cookies, our Website may not function properly and your customized use of our Website may be hindered.

From time to time, our Website may contain links to and from third party websites. Any Personal Information that you provide through these websites is not our responsibility and not subject to this Privacy Policy. If you follow a link to any other websites, please note that these websites may have their own privacy notices, which will set out how your information is collected and processed when visiting those websites.

2.2 Personal Information We Collect From Third Parties

We often use third party providers, also known as panel providers, to identify potential Respondents. We collect certain information provided to us by our panel providers including industry of employment to determine if there is a conflict for participation in our market research. Assuming no such conflict exists, we collect age, gender, location of residence, other demographic information, and other questions specific to the relevant topic for our market research. We may share such non-identifiable information with our clients. We may also collect Respondent names and email addresses provided to us by our panel providers for the purposes of contacting Respondents to participate in further market research activities but only if they opt into do so. You consent to our collection of your Personal Information from these third parties and to the subsequent sharing with our client as described in this Privacy Policy.

2.3 Minors Under Age 16

Our Website and Services are intended for business use, and we do not expect them to be of any interest to minors. We do not intentionally collect any Personal Information of individuals below the age of 16 or other statutory minimum. We obtain consent from the legal guardians of Respondents ages 16 or under before we engage in any communication with them for market research purposes.

3. How We Use Personal Information

We may use your Personal Information for the purposes disclosed to you at the time ofcollection, or as required or permitted by law, including for the following:

• To carry out market research;

• To advertise, market, and deliver our Services;

• To understand how to improve our Services;

• To create accounts for clients to give them access to shared information, and to manageclient contracts and relationships;

• To communicate with potential and existing clients, and with potential and existingRespondents, including by way of emails, online chats, video conferencing, andtelephone calls;

• To maintain and optimize our Website, measure the effectiveness of our Website,personalize your visit to our Website, and improve your user experience;

• To protect the security or integrity of our Website, our Services, and our business;

• To enforce our terms of service and agreements, and collect payment of our invoices;

• To resolve disputes;

• To troubleshoot problems; and

• To prevent fraud and other prohibited or illegal activities.

4. How We Share Personal Information

We may disclose or otherwise share your Personal Information and information about your visit to our Website to the following persons or in the following circumstances:

• To fulfill the purposes for which you provide the Personal Information including conducting market research and providing reports on our findings to clients;

• To contractors, service providers, and advisors that we use to support our business such as payment processors;

• To service providers that we use to establish, maintain, support and optimize our Website.

• These service providers may collect and retain indefinitely aggregated, de-identified or anonymized information about visits to our Website to evaluate, provide, protect or improve their services (including developing new products and services).

• To comply with any court order, subpoena, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request, in accordance with applicable law; and

• As part of a sale, merger, change in control, or in preparation for any of these events, in accordance with applicable law.

We never sell your Personal Information to any third party.

5. How We Secure Personal Information

We are committed to protecting the security of your Personal Information and information about your visit to our Website. We use reasonable physical, administrative, and technical safeguards designed to help protect such information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure. We have implemented best-practice standards and controls in compliance with internationally recognized security frameworks. We use encryption technologies to protect data at rest and in transit. We comply with Canadian privacy laws and privacy laws from other relevant jurisdictions to protect the Personal Information we hold or control. We also comply with the Canadian ResearchInsights Council (CRIC) Canadian Code of Market, Opinion, and Social Research and DataAnalytics.

6. Transferring Personal Information

We may transfer your Personal Information and information about your visit to our Website outside of Canada, including to the U.S., for storage and processing for the purposes described in How We Use Your Information. We use contractual and other means to ensure the information is protected while in the foreign jurisdiction, however, your Personal Information may be still accessible to law enforcement agencies, government agencies, courts, and national security authorities of the foreign jurisdiction.

Note to Quebec Residents: Your Personal Information and information about your visit to our Website may be transferred outside the Province of Quebec.

7. How Long We Keep Personal Information

We keep Personal Information as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected or as otherwise required or permitted by law. Thereafter, we may de-identify or anonymize your Personal Information and retain it indefinitely for study or research purposes or as otherwise permitted by law.

8. Your Rights

You have certain rights pursuant to applicable privacy laws regarding your Personal Information including, but not limited to, the right to:

• Withdraw your consent to the communication or any of the uses of your Personal Information as described above;

• Access your Personal Information that we have on file about you, discuss the accuracy and/or completeness of your Personal Information, and have your Personal Information rectified or corrected;

• Request information regarding the processing of your Personal Information including asking questions about our policies or practices regarding our use of service providers; and

• Lodge a complaint about our privacy practices.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights or any other rights granted to you by applicable privacy laws, you may do so by contacting our Privacy Officer using the contact information provided below.

9. How to Select Your Communications Preferences

You may choose to receive or not receive marketing communications from us. Please click the “Unsubscribe” link in the email we sent you to stop receiving marketing communications. Even if you opt-out of receiving marketing communications, we may still communicate with you regarding other non-marketing matters such as the delivery of our Services, security and privacy issues, servicing your account, fulfilling your requests, or administering any program in which you may have elected to participate.

10. Changes to Policy

Our commitment to your privacy includes periodically reviewing our privacy policies and practices. Accordingly, we may change this Privacy Policy from time to time and the revised policy will be posted to our Website effective as of the revised date stated on the revised policy. It is therefore important that you review this Privacy Policy, as it may be amended from time to time, regularly.

11. Contact Information

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact our Privacy Officer at: