1. Scope
This policy covers personal information handled by USMarket Inc, 3835 Hixson Pike, Chattanooga, Tennessee 37415, telephone (423) 633-1342. It applies to this website, to enquiries and briefs sent to us, to our work for clients, and to primary research we conduct.
Where we carry out research as a service provider for a client, we handle personal information on their instructions and for the purposes of that engagement only.
2. What we collect
From enquiries. The name, organisation, telephone number and any description of your project that you give us in a brief or on a call, plus our notes of that correspondence.
From clients. Contact details for the people we work with, engagement documents, and material you send us for the study. We ask clients not to send us personal data they do not need us to have.
From research participants. Name, role, employer, contact details, the responses you give in an interview or survey, and any incentive payment records. Interviews are recorded only with consent.
Automatically. Standard server log data when you visit the site, IP address, date and time, pages requested, referring page and browser type.
3. How we use it
We use personal information to answer enquiries and prepare proposals; to deliver and administer engagements; to recruit and interview research participants and pay incentives; to keep our own business, accounting and tax records; to secure the website; and to comply with legal obligations.
We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for advertising or for automated decision-making about individuals. We do not send marketing email to people who have not asked for it.
Where privacy law requires a legal basis, we rely on performance of a contract for client work, consent for research participation and any recording, and legitimate interests for answering enquiries, securing our site and keeping records.
4. Research participants
Participation is voluntary. Before an interview we tell you the purpose of the research, roughly how long it will take, and how your responses will be used. You may decline any question, ask us to go off the record, or withdraw during the interview or within fourteen days afterwards, in which case your responses are removed from the analysis where it is still practicable to do so.
Unless you give explicit permission, your identity and contact details are not disclosed to the client who commissioned the study. Responses are reported anonymised or aggregated, and verbatim quotes are attributed by role and segment rather than by name.
We do not use research interviews to sell anything, and we do not pass participant contact details to clients or to other researchers for their own use.
5. Cookies and analytics
This site uses only the cookies needed to serve pages and keep the session secure. It does not set advertising or cross-site tracking cookies, and it does not embed social media trackers.
If we introduce analytics, it will be a privacy-preserving measurement of aggregate page traffic, disclosed here before it goes live. You can block or delete cookies in your browser; the site will continue to work.
6. Sharing
We share personal information only with service providers who help us operate, website hosting, telephony, survey and transcription tools, participant recruitment panels, payment and accounting providers, under contracts that limit them to our instructions and require confidentiality and security.
We also disclose information where the law requires it, to respond to a valid legal process, to protect our rights or the safety of others, or in connection with a merger or sale of the business, in which case the recipient remains bound by this policy. We do not otherwise disclose client or participant information to third parties.
7. Retention
Enquiries that do not become engagements are kept for twelve months. Engagement records, deliverables and the underlying analysis are kept for seven years, which matches our accounting and professional record-keeping obligations.
Participant contact details and raw recordings are kept only as long as the study needs them and are deleted within twelve months of the study closing, unless you consented to be contacted about future research. Anonymised research data may be kept longer, because it no longer identifies anyone.
8. Security
Client material and research data are held on access-controlled systems, encrypted in transit and at rest, with access limited to the people working on the engagement. Staff and contractors are bound by confidentiality obligations and trained on handling research data. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your personal information we will notify you and any regulator as the law requires.
9. Your rights
You may ask us what personal information we hold about you and receive a copy of it; ask us to correct it if it is wrong; ask us to delete it; ask us to restrict or object to a particular use; and withdraw consent you have given, including consent to be recorded or re-contacted.
Write to USMarket Inc, 3835 Hixson Pike, Chattanooga, TN 37415, email info@usmarketinc.com or call (423) 633-1342. We respond within thirty days, and may ask for enough information to confirm who you are. Exercising these rights costs nothing and will not affect how we treat you. If we hold your information only on a client’s behalf, we will pass your request to that client and tell you we have done so.
10. California residents
If you are a California resident, you may request the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the sources, the purposes and the categories of recipients; request deletion or correction; and be free from discrimination for exercising those rights.
We do not sell personal information and do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, so no opt-out of sale or sharing is needed. Requests go to the address or telephone number in section 9, and an authorised agent may act for you with written proof of authority.
11. If you are outside the United States
We are based in Tennessee, and information you give us is processed in the United States, where privacy law differs from that of your country. Where we interview participants in the United Kingdom, the European Economic Area or elsewhere, we rely on consent for the interview and use appropriate transfer safeguards, including standard contractual clauses where they apply.
12. Children
Our services are for organisations, and this website is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under sixteen, and we do not interview minors. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.
13. Changes and contact
We update this policy when our practices or the law change, and the effective date above shows the current version. Material changes will be described at the top of this page for at least thirty days.
Questions about privacy, or a request under section 9, go to USMarket Inc, 3835 Hixson Pike, Chattanooga, TN 37415, info@usmarketinc.com or (423) 633-1342. Our commercial terms are set out in the Terms of Service.
Our commercial terms are set out in the Terms of Service.