Asking is not
selling.

Because the two sit under different legal regimes, and the obligations attach to the activity rather than to what you call it. Research collects information in order to understand. Direct marketing approaches a person in order to sell. If a contact gathered for research is later used to sell to that person, the exercise has become marketing and the marketing rules apply to it, including to the part that genuinely was research. Settling it before fieldwork avoids that retrospective problem entirely.

No, and we would decline the instruction. Research answers are not used to sell to the person who gave them, and research contact data is not supplied or resold as prospecting files. Beyond the legal position, it destroys the thing that makes research work: people answer honestly when they believe they are being asked rather than sold to, and a single breach of that teaches an entire panel otherwise.

It is the national list, established under the Code of Economic Law, on which consumers register to stop telephone canvassing. Calling lists aimed at consumers have to be screened against it before any call is made. Failing to screen is an infringement rather than an administrative slip. Separately, automated calling systems and fax used for direct marketing need prior consent, and email to individuals needs consent subject to a narrow exception for existing customers and similar products.

Immediately, and the right is unusually strong. Objection to processing for direct marketing purposes is absolute: it can be exercised at any time, free of charge, and it is not balanced against the controller's interests the way other objections are. Once made, the data must no longer be processed for those purposes. We also apply it across every channel rather than only the one it came in on, because honouring it by email while continuing to call is not honouring it.

No. Selling under the guise of research is a practice we decline, and it is the reason the boundary gets stated so firmly on this site. An approach presented as a survey which is actually a sales approach misleads the person answering and contaminates genuine research for everyone else. If you want to sell to people, we can do marketing openly and properly. It will work better anyway, because people can tell.

No, and that is not a limitation to apologise for. A finding is what the fieldwork produced, not what the client hoped it would produce, and research commissioned to confirm a decision already taken is an expensive way to be reassured. If the answer comes back unhelpful, you will get it as it is, with the method and its limits stated so you can judge how much weight it carries.