Privacy Policy

The DC Group ("we", "us") is an independent hospitality and food & beverage consulting practice operated by Denis Chernenko, based in Canada and working with clients internationally. This policy explains what personal information we collect through thedcgroup.ca and our business communications, why we collect it, and what you can ask us to do with it.

Questions or requests: info@thedcgroup.ca or +1 (204) 293-0860.

Information we collect

Information you give us

• Contact form — your name, email address, company or venue name, region, and whatever you write in the message field.
• Booking a call — name, email address and the time you select, plus anything you add to the booking notes.
• WhatsApp — if you start a WhatsApp conversation with us, we receive your phone number, your WhatsApp profile name, and the messages you send.
• Email — if you write to us directly, we hold that correspondence.
• Site assistant — if you use the assistant on our website, we receive the messages you type into it.

Information collected automatically

• Analytics — pages visited, approximate location at city level, device and browser type, referring site, and time on page.
• Advertising — if you arrive from one of our ads, we receive the fact of that click and which campaign it came from.
• Server logs — standard request data including IP address, handled by our hosting provider.

We do not collect payment card details through this website, and we do not buy contact lists or use contact-broker databases.

Why we use it

• To answer your enquiry and, if it goes further, to deliver the work.
• To schedule and hold calls.
• To understand which pages and which advertising are useful, so we spend less on what is not.
• To meet legal and record-keeping obligations.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for anyone else’s marketing.

Service providers

Running a small practice means relying on established third parties. Each receives only what it needs, and each has its own privacy policy:

• Cloudflare — website hosting, security and email routing.
• FormSubmit — delivers contact form submissions to our inbox.
• Cal.com — scheduling.
• Google Analytics and Google Ads — website measurement and advertising.
• Microsoft Outlook — our email.
• WhatsApp (Meta) — if you choose to contact us that way.
• Anthropic — powers the assistant on our website.

Some of these operate outside Canada, including in the United States and the European Union, so information you send us may be processed in those countries and be subject to their laws.

Cookies and analytics

We use Google Analytics and Google Ads tags, which set cookies to recognise returning visitors and to measure whether an advertisement led to an enquiry. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and you can opt out of Google Analytics using the Google opt-out browser add-on. The website works without them.

Our business emails

We sometimes write to operators we have not met, to introduce the practice. When we do:

• We only use addresses a company has published on its own website. We do not use contact-broker databases, scraped lists or purchased lists.
• Every message identifies who we are and how to reach us.
• A request to stop is permanent and immediate. Reply with "no thanks", or write to info@thedcgroup.ca, and we remove the address and do not contact it again.
• We send at most two follow-ups, then stop regardless of whether we hear back.

How long we keep it

Enquiries that do not become work are kept for up to two years, so we can recognise you if you come back and so we do not write to you twice with the same introduction. Client records are kept for seven years to meet tax and professional record-keeping requirements. Analytics data follows the standard Google retention period. You can ask us to delete your information sooner.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

• Ask what personal information we hold about you.
• Ask us to correct it.
• Ask us to delete it.
• Withdraw consent to being contacted.
• Ask for a copy in a portable format.
• Complain to a regulator — in Canada, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

Write to info@thedcgroup.ca. We answer privacy requests within 30 days and we do not charge for them.

Security

Our website is served over HTTPS and our email and files sit behind established providers with two-factor authentication enabled. No system is perfectly secure, and we will not pretend otherwise. If a breach affected your information, we would tell you and the relevant regulator.

Children

This is a business-to-business practice. The website is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.

Changes

If this policy changes materially we will update the date at the top of this page. Substantive changes will be noted here rather than made quietly.

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