Ask The Consultants™ logo

The Right Match, Both Ways.

Privacy Policy

Effective Date: October 25, 2026
Last Updated: October 25, 2026

1. Who We Are

Ask The Consultants (“ASK,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is operated by Ask The Consultants LLC, a Kentucky limited liability company. Certain technology, evaluation methodologies, trademarks, and intellectual property used in operating the network, including Precision Logic Architecture™ and the Strategic Compatibility Assessment, are owned by ASK or its licensors. ASK is headquartered in Kentucky, and this Policy is written to meet the Kentucky Consumer Data Protection Act where it applies, together with any other state law that applies to a particular person or activity.

This Privacy Policy explains how ASK collects, uses, discloses, retains, and protects personal information through asktheconsultants.com, the provider intake and assessment process, membership administration, communications, security and abuse-prevention functions, and related operations. The Acceptable Use Policy governs permitted and prohibited use of ASK systems; it does not reduce privacy rights that applicable law provides.

This Policy is a notice of ASK’s data practices. It is not intended to create contractual rights or duties beyond those imposed by applicable law or an agreement that ASK and the relevant person or business have affirmatively accepted. Nothing in this Policy limits a privacy right that applicable law makes nonwaivable.

Privacy contact:

Ask The Consultants LLC
support@asktheconsultants.com

To protect against spam and unsolicited mail, ASK does not publish a mailing address. If you need one for legal notices or other correspondence, email us and we will provide it.

2. Scope

ASK operates in the United States. The Site is designed primarily for startups, businesses, entrepreneurs, organizations, and professional service providers, but individuals may also browse or use public portions of the Site.

Because ASK cannot know the purpose of every visitor before the visitor uses the Site, this Policy does not rely on a blanket business to business exemption. Where a state privacy law applies to personal information ASK processes, ASK will provide the rights and protections required by that law.

The Site is not directed to companies registered outside the United States, and ASK does not intentionally market its services to them. A company’s owner or team may live outside the United States.

2.1 Notices at Collection and Just-in-Time Notices

Where applicable law requires notice at or before collection, ASK may provide a form-specific, intake-specific, cookie-banner, payment, or other just-in-time notice. Those notices supplement this Policy and may identify the particular categories of information being collected, the purposes for collection, retention criteria, and any applicable sale, sharing, targeted-advertising, or automated-processing information. If a just-in-time notice applies to a specific collection event, it should be read together with this Policy.

3. Information We Collect

3.1 Website Visitors and People Seeking Providers

When you visit the Site, our systems and service providers may automatically process technical information such as IP address, browser and device information, requested pages, timestamps, referral information, approximate region derived from IP address, security events, and similar server or network information.

A person seeking a provider generally browses the network and contacts the provider directly. ASK does not operate a lead routing system that assigns a visitor to a provider, and ASK does not receive a commission or percentage from the resulting engagement.

If you voluntarily contact ASK, submit a complaint, join a mailing list or waitlist, or otherwise communicate with ASK, we process the information you choose to provide.

If you use the “Visit this provider” form on a state page, ASK collects your email address, your company name, and which provider’s website you asked to visit, and your browser remembers that you completed the form so you are not asked again on that device. If you tick the optional box to receive provider alerts and offers, ASK adds you to its client updates list; you can unsubscribe at any time.

3.2 Applicant Company Information

When a company submits a provider intake, ASK may collect its legal and trade names; entity type; jurisdiction of formation; business address; website; year established; category and subcategory; states served; business registration information; employee and revenue ranges; delivery model; engagement characteristics; client capacity; and other operational information reasonably relevant to the intake.

3.3 Applicant Principal Information

ASK may collect the name, business title, business email, business telephone number, professional profile address, executive experience, and other business related information concerning the applicant’s owner, founder, or principal decision maker.

3.4 Governance, Licensing, Insurance, and Risk Information

ASK may ask about business standing, ownership, insurance, professional licenses or registrations, material litigation, regulatory enforcement, professional discipline, and other information reasonably relevant to admission or continued membership.

3.5 Client References

ASK may request contact details for a limited number of business references after an applicant advances beyond initial screening. The applicant is responsible for obtaining permission from a reference before giving ASK the reference’s personal contact information. ASK uses reference information to verify the engagement described by the applicant and for related network evaluation purposes.

3.6 Strategic Compatibility Assessment

ASK collects multiple-choice answers, written responses, timing information, assessment metadata, automated analysis outputs, reviewer information, and resulting admission-process records associated with the Strategic Compatibility Assessment.

The SCA evaluates business-behavior and professional-readiness characteristics relevant to ASK’s private-network standards, such as judgment, accountability, resilience in business situations, leadership consistency, ethical reasoning, communication, and responses to business scenarios. It is not designed or used as a medical, psychiatric, psychological-health, disability, or clinical assessment.

3.7 Free Text and Unrequested Sensitive Information

Some assessment fields permit written responses. Do not submit Social Security numbers, government identification numbers, payment card data, bank credentials, medical or health information, biometric data, genetic data, precise location information unrelated to the application, passwords, information about children, or confidential personal information about third parties.

ASK does not ask applicants to disclose health, medical, biometric, genetic, or similar sensitive traits for SCA scoring and does not intentionally diagnose, screen for, derive, or infer an individual’s physical or mental-health condition from assessment responses. ASK’s use of the word “readiness” refers to business behavior and professional judgment, not clinical or health status.

If ASK identifies sensitive information that was not requested and is not reasonably necessary to a lawful purpose, ASK may quarantine, redact, or delete it and may ask the applicant to resubmit the affected response. ASK intends not to use unrequested sensitive information in admission scoring.

3.8 Verification Information

ASK reviews information from lawful public sources concerning the applicant business. Verification covers the business only; ASK does not run personal background checks on owners, principals, or employees. Sources may include Secretary of State records, public court dockets, regulator and professional licensing records, government sanctions or enforcement records, and other publicly accessible sources.

ASK may rely on information supplied by the applicant and on information obtained from government databases, courts, regulators, licensing authorities, business registries, public internet sources, references, and other lawful sources. Those sources may be incomplete, delayed, inaccurate, misidentified, or later changed. ASK’s review of a source does not convert that source into an ASK representation or warranty of accuracy and does not create a duty to continuously re-screen or re-verify the person or business.

ASK’s standard verification process does not obtain a consumer report from a consumer reporting agency concerning an applicant or principal. If ASK later proposes to use a consumer reporting agency or a service that supplies consumer reports, ASK will first evaluate applicable Fair Credit Reporting Act and state-law requirements and implement any required separate disclosure, authorization, copy, pre-adverse-action, adverse-action, dispute, or other procedures. This Privacy Policy by itself is not an authorization for ASK to obtain a consumer report.

3.9 Verification and Onboarding

After an applicant meets the SCA threshold, completes review, receives and accepts a conditional offer, and pays the applicable Background Verification and Credentialing Fee, ASK may process additional information needed to complete verification and prepare the provider for membership. ASK should minimize collection of government identifiers and collect them only when reasonably necessary.

If ASK collects an Employer Identification Number, the form will instruct users not to submit a Social Security number. ASK should collect tax forms and payment related information through appropriately secured systems and minimize storage of payment account data.

3.10 Admitted Provider Information

For admitted providers, ASK processes billing contacts, payment status, membership dates, category and state, listing content, insurance and licensing updates, ownership information, compliance attestations, strike and suspension records, renewal review records, complaint information, material event notices, and other information reasonably necessary to administer membership and network standards.

3.11 Quarterly Compliance Information

ASK may collect periodic attestations concerning mandatory standing matters, such as entity status, licensing, insurance represented to ASK, listing accuracy, ownership or control changes, material regulatory or litigation developments, and material security incidents involving ASK information.

ASK does not require providers to report referrals or nominations. ASK may ask an admitted provider for a link or screenshot showing that it redistributed designated ASK content, which is a membership requirement.

3.12 Newsletter and Marketing Information

If you subscribe to marketing communications or otherwise consent to receive them, ASK may collect your name, email address, business information, communication preferences, engagement information, and suppression or opt out status.

Every commercial email will include or otherwise support an opt out mechanism as required by applicable law. ASK maintains suppression information as necessary to honor opt out requests.

3.13 Payments

Payment card or bank account information should be collected and processed directly by ASK’s selected payment processor rather than stored in ASK’s ordinary application database. ASK may receive transaction identifiers, amount, date, payment status, billing contact, last four digits where supplied by the processor, and similar payment administration information.

3.14 Cookies, Analytics, Advertising, and Form Security

The Site uses the technologies described in the Cookie Policy, including Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Google reCAPTCHA v3, a consent banner, and MailPoet. Google Analytics measures page views, traffic sources, and anonymous button and form-completion events. Form-completion events send only the name of the form, never what you typed. ASK has turned off Google signals and does not use Google Analytics demographic or interest reports.

Website chat: If you use the chat assistant on the Site, your messages are processed by Google (Gemini) to generate answers. Please don’t share personal, financial or sensitive information in the chat.

ASK uses, or may use, advertising and retargeting technologies from providers such as Google Ads, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), and LinkedIn to measure the results of ASK’s advertising and to show ASK’s ads to people who visited the Site when they use other websites and apps. These technologies may collect page URLs, referrer, IP address, device and browser information, timestamps, cookie or pseudonymous identifiers, and ad-interaction events. This is processing for targeted advertising, and you may opt out as described in Section 12 and the Cookie Policy.

ASK does not place advertising or retargeting tags on intake, assessment, payment, or other pages that collect sensitive information, and does not allow them to capture form contents or assessment answers. ASK does not use session replay, keystroke capture, or similar technologies.

ASK honors Global Privacy Control or other legally recognized opt-out preference signals where applicable law requires it.

3.15 Third Party Content and Requests

Site features such as fonts, video, maps, analytics, security tools, or embedded media may cause your browser to communicate directly with a third party. The Cookie Policy identifies current technologies after the Site’s live cookie and network audit.

4. How We Use Information

ASK may use information to:

  1. operate, secure, troubleshoot, and improve the Site;
  2. evaluate intakes and administer the SCA;
  3. conduct human review of flagged results and other results ASK selects;
  4. verify business and applicant information;
  5. communicate with applicants and references;
  6. make admission, suspension, standing, and renewal decisions;
  7. onboard admitted providers;
  8. administer listings, payments, and memberships;
  9. conduct periodic compliance and quality review;
  10. investigate complaints, fraud, misuse, security incidents, or violations;
  11. enforce agreements and protect legal rights;
  12. comply with legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, recordkeeping, and security obligations;
  13. send transactional and relationship communications;
  14. send marketing communications where permitted and honor opt outs;
  15. measure Site and campaign performance where permitted;
  16. prevent, detect, and respond to fraud, security threats, malicious activity, and abuse; and
  17. support a merger, financing, acquisition, reorganization, or sale subject to applicable privacy obligations; and
  18. create and use aggregated, statistical, or deidentified information for security, analytics, network planning, quality control, business operations, and research where permitted by law.

ASK does not use SCA essay content or assessment results to create advertising profiles. ASK does not intentionally use deidentified information to reidentify a person where applicable law prohibits reidentification.

5. Automated Processing, SCA Advancement, and Human Review

ASK uses automated assessment technology, including artificial-intelligence and natural-language-processing tools, to evaluate completed SCA responses against ASK’s structured scoring framework and established admission criteria. The automated assessment may determine whether an applicant meets the required SCA threshold and advances to the next stage.

An applicant who does not meet the required SCA threshold does not advance for that intake. For applicants who meet the threshold, ASK’s reviewers examine results the system flags for human attention and may review any other result before ASK decides whether to extend a conditional offer. Automated assessment technology therefore may determine advancement from the SCA stage, but it does not independently grant membership, activate a provider listing, or create a right to admission.

ASK may retain a limited internal decision record sufficient to identify the model or criteria version, decision stage, human reviewer where a human-review stage occurred, and a non-sensitive objective decision-reason category without preserving more personal information than reasonably necessary. This record supports consistency, fraud prevention, legal compliance, and defense of claims.

As an internal governance control, ASK does not intentionally use health status or protected characteristics as SCA scoring inputs where prohibited by law, intends to document material model or criteria changes, and may periodically test the assessment process for material consistency and error patterns appropriate to its use. These controls do not create a promise of statistical parity, error-free scoring, a particular score, or admission.

An applicant may report a factual inaccuracy in personal information used in the process. That correction right does not create a substantive appeal, require manual re-grading of an SCA failure, require disclosure of proprietary model parameters, weightings, internal prompts, thresholds, trade secrets, security controls, or confidential third-party information, or create a right to admission. Where an applicable privacy or AI law grants a right relating to automated processing, ASK will comply to the extent that law applies.

6. How We Disclose Information

ASK does not sell personal information for money.

ASK may disclose information as follows:

6.1 Service Providers and Processors

ASK uses vendors to host the Site, provide email, payment processing, security, forms, analytics, advertising measurement, communications, storage, and other operational services. Vendors may process information only for authorized purposes and subject to contractual and legal requirements appropriate to the service and data.

Current vendors include GoDaddy (hosting), Microsoft 365 (email), Google (Tag Manager, Analytics, reCAPTCHA, and Google Ads), MailPoet (newsletter and list management), Elementor (website forms stored on ASK’s own site), and the advertising platforms ASK uses, such as Meta and LinkedIn. Advertising platforms receive the technical and ad-interaction information described in Section 3.14. Other processors, including the payment processor, mailing platform, SCA storage provider, and any external NLP or AI processor, must be identified internally before live use and placed under contractual and security controls appropriate to the service and data involved. Third-party providers operate their own systems and may experience outages, errors, security incidents, or changes outside ASK’s direct control; nothing in this sentence limits any responsibility that applicable law places on ASK for ASK’s own selection, configuration, instructions, or oversight of a processor.

6.2 References and Verification Sources

ASK may contact references supplied by the applicant and may interact with public agencies or sources to verify information.

6.3 Public Listings

ASK publishes provider listing information intended for public display. SCA responses, assessment outputs, scores, internal strike records, nonpublic complaints, and internal evaluation findings are not ordinarily published.

6.4 Legal and Protective Disclosures

ASK may disclose information where ASK reasonably believes disclosure is required by law or legal process or is reasonably necessary to protect rights, investigate fraud, address security or safety threats, enforce agreements, or defend a legal claim.

6.5 Business Transactions

Information may be transferred in connection with an actual or proposed merger, financing, acquisition, reorganization, sale of equity or assets, or similar transaction, subject to applicable law. A change in ownership of ASK does not by itself terminate provider memberships.

6.6 Provider-Controlled Systems and Direct Provider Contact

A person seeking a provider generally leaves ASK’s Site or uses provider-controlled contact information to communicate directly with that provider. Information submitted to a provider through the provider’s website, email, telephone, intake form, scheduling system, payment system, file-sharing system, or other provider-controlled channel is collected by the provider under the provider’s own privacy, security, retention, and legal obligations. ASK does not control the provider’s subsequent processing merely because the provider was located through ASK. Users should review the provider’s privacy and security practices before submitting sensitive or confidential information.

7. Consumer Health and Other Highly Sensitive Data

ASK is not a health service and does not seek consumer health data for network admission or provider browsing.

Washington and Nevada, among other jurisdictions, regulate consumer health information broadly and may include information inferred or derived through algorithms. ASK therefore prohibits applicants from placing health or medical information in SCA free text unless ASK has expressly created a legally reviewed process for that information.

If ASK later intentionally collects, uses, shares, or infers consumer health data within the scope of a law such as Washington’s My Health My Data Act or Nevada’s consumer health data law, ASK will implement any required separate health data privacy policy, consent, processor terms, security controls, and rights workflow before that processing begins.

8. Data Retention

ASK uses a tiered retention approach designed to preserve records needed for legitimate business and legal defense while deleting unnecessary intake content.

8.1 Applicants Not Admitted

After a final nonadmission decision, ASK ordinarily deletes or deidentifies SCA essay content, detailed operational responses, reference contact information, and other intake substance when it is no longer reasonably necessary for the decision process, fraud or abuse prevention, legal compliance, dispute handling, security, or a legal hold.

ASK may retain a limited decision record for a reasonable defense period. The limited record may include the applicant company name, principal name, intake and decision dates, stage reached, non sensitive reason code or objective decision category, reviewer identity or identifier, version of the applicable criteria or model, and enough information to demonstrate that the process was applied consistently. The limited record is not intended to preserve the full essays or sensitive content.

8.2 Admitted Providers

ASK retains membership records while membership is active. After membership ends, ASK may retain tax and financial records for at least seven years or the period required by applicable law; accepted contracts, payment records, legal notices, compliance, suspension, strike, termination, and renewal records for the period reasonably necessary to establish or defend legal rights; and a limited evaluation audit record for a similar defense period.

SCA essay content should ordinarily be deleted within twelve months after membership ends unless a legal hold or active dispute requires longer preservation.

8.3 Marketing Information

ASK retains marketing contact information while a person remains subscribed. ASK may retain a suppression record after an opt out so it can honor the opt out.

8.4 Technical and Security Records

Logs and security records are retained for periods reasonably appropriate to security, fraud prevention, troubleshooting, legal defense, and operational needs.

8.5 Legal Holds

ASK may suspend ordinary deletion when information is reasonably relevant to a threatened or actual claim, audit, investigation, subpoena, preservation duty, or other legal obligation.

9. Security

ASK maintains administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to be reasonable for the nature and volume of the personal information ASK processes. ASK’s security program is intended to include access control, authentication, vendor management, risk assessment, incident response, data minimization, secure disposal, staff training, and protections for transmission and storage appropriate to the data involved.

ASK will maintain a written information security program before accepting live intake data and will review it periodically. Specific technologies may change as ASK’s systems evolve; this Policy does not promise that any system is invulnerable.

No transmission, database, or security control can guarantee absolute security.

10. Incident Response and Breach Notification

ASK maintains an incident response process for suspected unauthorized access, acquisition, disclosure, loss, or misuse of personal information.

All fifty states have breach notification laws with different definitions, deadlines, content requirements, and regulator notification rules. When an incident occurs, ASK will evaluate the residence of affected individuals and the laws applicable to the incident and will provide legally required notifications.

11. Your Privacy Rights

Depending on where you live and whether a particular state law applies to ASK, you may have rights to request access, confirmation, correction, deletion, portability, information about processing, or opt out of targeted advertising, sale, certain sharing, or qualifying profiling.

A growing number of states have comprehensive privacy laws, and their scopes, thresholds, effective dates, exemptions, definitions, and available rights differ. ASK therefore evaluates applicability based on the relevant person, processing activity, state, and ASK’s status under the law rather than treating every state statute as automatically applicable to every interaction.

ASK may choose to honor some privacy requests even when a particular statute does not require it, but voluntary handling of a request does not concede that a particular statute applies. A request may be limited, denied, or delayed where applicable law permits, including to protect the rights of others, preserve legal claims or evidence, maintain security, prevent fraud, protect trade secrets or confidential business information, comply with law, or address information ASK is not required or permitted to disclose.

Kentucky residents. Where the Kentucky Consumer Data Protection Act (KRS 367.3611 et seq.) applies to ASK, a Kentucky resident may ask ASK to confirm whether it processes the resident’s personal data and to access it; correct inaccuracies; delete personal data the resident provided or ASK obtained about the resident; obtain a portable copy of personal data the resident provided; and opt out of the processing of personal data for targeted advertising, the sale of personal data, or profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects. ASK does not sell personal data for money. ASK does process personal data for targeted advertising, and you may opt out through the consent banner’s preferences link, a Global Privacy Control signal, or by emailing support@asktheconsultants.com with “Opt Out” in the subject line. ASK will not discriminate against anyone for exercising these rights.

How to submit a request. Email support@asktheconsultants.com with “Privacy Request” in the subject line. You do not need to create an account. ASK may verify identity and authority before acting. ASK will respond within 45 days after receiving the request. If more time is reasonably necessary, ASK may extend that period once by up to 45 additional days and will tell you within the first 45 days, with the reason. ASK will respond to one request per person each year free of charge, and may charge a reasonable fee or decline a request that is manifestly unfounded, excessive, or repetitive, as the law allows.

How to appeal. If ASK declines to act on your request, ASK will explain why. You may appeal by replying to that decision with “Privacy Appeal” in the subject line within a reasonable time. ASK will respond to the appeal in writing within 60 days after receiving it and explain the result. If ASK denies your appeal, you may submit a complaint to the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General, Office of Consumer Protection, at ag.ky.gov, or to the attorney general of the state where you live.

12. Targeted Advertising, Sale, Sharing, and Global Privacy Control

ASK does not sell personal information for money. ASK uses advertising and retargeting technologies, which is targeted advertising under Kentucky law and similar laws. You may opt out of targeted advertising at any time through the consent banner’s preferences link, a Global Privacy Control signal, or by emailing support@asktheconsultants.com with “Opt Out” in the subject line. Certain privacy laws define “sale” or “sharing” more broadly and may treat advertising or cross context tracking disclosures as regulated transfers.

Where applicable, ASK will provide required opt out controls before or when it activates advertising or retargeting technologies and will honor legally recognized opt out preference signals such as Global Privacy Control. A recognized browser or device signal generally applies to the browser, device, or profile that can reasonably be associated with the signal, unless applicable law requires broader treatment.

Advertising and conversion tags should not be permitted to collect SCA essay text, form field contents, sensitive information, or information beyond what is reasonably necessary for measurement. A withdrawal of optional tracking consent or targeted-advertising permission generally operates prospectively and does not itself require deletion of information already lawfully collected unless applicable law provides a deletion right or otherwise requires deletion.

13. Children

The Site is intended for adults and is not directed to children under eighteen. ASK does not knowingly solicit intakes from minors. If ASK learns that it collected personal information from a child in a context requiring parental consent or deletion, ASK will take appropriate action.

14. Marketing Communications

Commercial email from ASK will comply with applicable marketing law. ASK will use accurate sender information, nondeceptive subject lines, a valid postal address, and a working opt out mechanism for commercial email, and will honor opt out requests within the period required by law.

Transaction, security, membership, renewal, payment, standing, and similar relationship notices may continue after a marketing opt out where legally permitted because they concern an existing transaction or relationship rather than marketing.

15. International Access

Ask The Consultants™ operates in the United States and serves companies registered in a U.S. state that serve U.S. clients. A company’s owner or team may live outside the United States. The Site is not directed to companies registered outside the United States. Information is processed in the United States and may be processed by U.S. service providers.

A person who accesses the public Site from another country does so on the person’s own initiative. ASK will not rely on this sentence to avoid a law that applies notwithstanding ASK’s U.S. targeting posture.

16. Changes to This Policy

ASK may update this Policy as its systems, vendors, tracking technologies, data practices, or legal obligations change. ASK will revise the Last Updated date and provide additional notice where applicable law requires it for a material change.

No tracking or advertising technology should be activated in a manner that makes this Policy or the Cookie Policy materially inaccurate.

17. Relationship to Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy

The Terms of Service govern contractual disputes concerning Site use, intakes, and membership, and are governed by Kentucky law. The Acceptable Use Policy describes prohibited misuse and may support security, fraud-prevention, abuse-detection, and enforcement activity described in this Policy. Privacy rights that applicable law makes nonwaivable are not limited by a contractual choice of law, forum clause, or acceptable-use restriction. Nothing in this Policy creates a duty for ASK to continuously monitor a provider, applicant, third-party source, vendor, or public record except to the extent applicable law imposes such a duty.

18. Contact

Ask The Consultants LLC
support@asktheconsultants.com

To protect against spam and unsolicited mail, ASK does not publish a mailing address. If you need one for legal notices or other correspondence, email us and we will provide it.