II. Cookies, Logs & Digital Finger Printing
Cookies. Cookies are small information files that are placed on your computer when you visit a website. We use cookies on our sites to:
- determine the type of operating system and browser that you and other visitors to our site are using. Some of the surveys we design will work best with certain kinds of browsers or may require certain other software to be installed, so we use this information to determine whether a participant’s computer is capable of displaying those questionnaires.
- facilitate surveys including preventing individual users from taking any given survey more than one time.
You can opt-out of cookies in the preferences or options menus of your browser. If you decide to block one or more cookies, the website may not function correctly, also survey functionality may be impaired.
If you use our sites without changing your browser settings, we’ll assume that you’re happy to receive cookies on our sites.
To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org, or www.aboutcookies.org.
Do Not Track (DNT). As no standard has been adopted for do not track signals, our sites do not respond to “do not track” signals at this time.
Log Files. web servers use log files to record data about our website visitors’ movement on the site. This is common with most websites and is used to analyze site visitor website interface and produce website traffic statistics. This information typically includes:
- the IP address of each visitor
- the time of the visit
- browser type
- ISP
- pages visited.
The log file may also keep track of what resources were loaded during each visit, such as images, JavaScript, or CSS files. The purpose is not to identify individual visitors but to monitor site traffic and trends.
Digital Fingerprints. general, digital fingerprinting technologies assign a unique identifier or “Machine-ID” to a user’s computer to identify and track the computer. We analyze publicly available information and data obtained from the computer’s web browser and from other publicly available data points, including without limitation the technical settings of the computer, the characteristics of the computer, and the computer’s IP address, to create a unique identifier assigned to the computer.
For data quality control purposes only (e.g. identifying fraudulent respondents), Touchstone Research, Inc./ChildResearch.com will:
- link or associate your unique identifier to you and any of your personal information;
- share your unique identifier with our clients and with other sample or panel providers;
- receive or obtain a unique identifier linked to you from a third party, including without limitation a sample or panel provider or a client of Touchstone Research, Inc./ChildResearch.com.
Touchstone Research, Inc. uses the following 3rd party service providers for data quality control purposes:
- Imperium: RelevantID® and RealAnswer® Technology
- Xverify: Email and address verification
Any unique identifier(s) received or obtained by Touchstone Research, Inc./ChildResearch.com and linked to a specific individual will be protected in accordance with this privacy policy.