Privacy Policy

Article 1 (Purposes of Processing Personal Information)

Olive Tree, an incorporated association (사단법인 올리브트리) (hereinafter the "Operator"), operates the Link Asia service (linkasia.net) and processes personal information for the following purposes. The personal information being processed shall not be used for any purpose other than those set out below, and where the purpose of use changes, the Operator will take the necessary measures, such as obtaining separate consent.

1. Member registration and management: Identity verification in connection with the use of member services, identification of individuals, confirmation of intent to register, and prevention of fraudulent use of the service
2. Provision of services: Provision of news content, provision of personalized services, delivery of newsletters, management of the writing and publishing of contributions, and sending of notification emails to contributors (welcome and publication notices)
3. Community operation: Operation of the community board, and provision of comment and reaction (like) features
4. Provision of AI features: AI summarization and translation of collected news and contributions, and the AI writing assistant
5. Service improvement: Analysis of usage statistics, analysis of content usage patterns, and improvement of search quality
6. Push notifications: Notifications of major news, notifications of changes in contribution status, and delivery of service announcements
7. Marketing and advertising: Information on events and delivery of service-related announcements (only where the user has consented)

Article 2 (Items of Personal Information Collected)

Article 3 (Retention and Use Period of Personal Information)

1. Personal information is destroyed immediately upon withdrawal of membership. However, where retention is required under relevant laws and regulations, it is kept for the applicable period.
2. Records of labeling and advertising under the Act on the Consumer Protection in Electronic Commerce, Etc. (전자상거래 등에서의 소비자보호에 관한 법률; the "E-Commerce Act"): 6 months
3. Records of access: 3 months (Protection of Communications Secrets Act (통신비밀보호법))
4. Activity logs (records of views, shares, searches, and tag clicks): 1 year
5. Newsletter subscription information: destroyed immediately upon unsubscription or withdrawal of membership
6. Push tokens: destroyed immediately upon deactivation or withdrawal of membership
7. Consent records (ConsentLog): 3 years after withdrawal of consent (E-Commerce Act)
8. AI writing assistant API keys and conversation content: destroyed immediately upon deletion by the user or withdrawal of membership
9. Search logs: 6 months after collection (anonymous data)

Article 4 (Cookies and Local Storage)

The Operator uses the following cookies and browser storage in the course of providing the service.

1. Cookies

2. Local Storage (localStorage)

3. Advertising Cookies

The Operator displays advertisements through Google AdSense. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve advertisements based on users' prior visits to this site or other sites.

Users may opt out of personalized advertising by the following methods:

• Turning off personalized advertising in Google Ad Settings
• Opting out of personalized advertising by participating companies all at once at aboutads.info
• Users in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland may refuse or change their settings in the consent dialog displayed when accessing the site.

Even if a user opts out of personalized advertising, advertisements will continue to be displayed, and advertisements unrelated to the user's interests will be shown.

Users may refuse or delete the storage of cookies through their browser settings. However, if essential cookies are refused, the use of some services may be restricted. Login-related information (linkasia_token, linkasia_refresh_token, linkasia_user) is deleted upon logout, and search terms and screen settings may be deleted by the user directly in the browser.

Article 5 (Automatically Collected Information and Activity Logs)

The Operator automatically collects the following information in the course of providing the service.

1. User Activity Logs (UserActivity)

Records of the following types of activity are collected in the course of a logged-in user's use of the service.

• VIEW: When a contribution is viewed, the contribution ID, session ID, and dwell time are recorded.
• SHARE: When a contribution is shared, the share target and method are recorded.
• SEARCH: The search keywords and the number of search results are recorded.
• CLICK_TAG (tag click): Information on the tag clicked is recorded.

Activity logs include the session ID, dwell time, and metadata (in JSON format), and are used solely for the purposes of content recommendation and improvement of service quality.

2. Anonymous Search Logs (SearchQueryLog)

To improve search quality, search keywords, the number of search results, and the time of search are collected. This data is processed anonymously and is not attributed to any specific user.

Article 6 (Provision and Sharing of Personal Information to Third Parties)

The Operator processes users' personal information only within the scope specified in Article 1 and does not provide it to third parties without the user's prior consent. However, the following cases are exceptions:

• Where the user has given prior consent
• Where required by law

Collection of Information Through Third-Party Services

Information collected through Google Analytics is stored on Google's servers, and the Operator uses it solely for statistical analysis purposes. Users may refuse such collection by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

Article 7 (Entrustment of Personal Information Processing)

To provide the service smoothly, the Operator entrusts personal information processing tasks as follows:

Where a user registers their own API key in the AI writing assistant and selects an AI service (such as Google Gemini, OpenAI, or Anthropic Claude), the content entered by the user and the reference materials are transmitted to that AI service under the user's own account, and their processing is governed by the privacy policy of that service.

Article 8 (Newsletter Service)

The Operator provides a newsletter service and processes personal information in connection therewith as follows.

1. Items collected: Email, preferred language, time zone, delivery zone
2. Email verification: An email verification procedure is conducted upon application for subscription, and a verification token is issued.
3. Delivery frequency: Newsletters are sent daily (every day at 09:00 KST) and weekly (every Monday).
4. Unsubscription: Users may cancel their subscription at any time through the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the newsletter. Upon unsubscription, the related information is destroyed immediately.
5. Bounce management: The number and date/time of email delivery failures (bounces) are recorded to manage email quality. If the number of bounces exceeds a certain threshold, delivery to that email address is automatically suspended.

Article 9 (Push Notification Service)

The Operator provides mobile and web push notification services and processes personal information in connection therewith as follows.

1. Items collected: User ID, device token (Expo Push Token), platform information (iOS/Android/Web), activation status
2. Delivery method: Notifications are sent in batches (of 100) through the Expo Push API.
3. Opting out: Users may deactivate push notifications in the app settings or device settings. Upon deactivation, the device token is marked as inactive on the server.
4. Token management: Invalid tokens (e.g., due to deletion of the app) are automatically cleaned up upon delivery failure.

Article 10 (Community Service)

The Operator operates a community board and processes personal information in connection therewith as follows.

1. Posts: The title, body text, and author information written by the user are collected. Posts are disclosed to other users.
2. Comments: The comment content and author information written by the user are collected. Comments are disclosed to other users.
3. Likes (reactions): Users' like reactions to contributions and comments are recorded.
4. Deletion: Users may delete posts and comments they have written, and upon deletion, the related data is destroyed.

Content posted in the community is public information that may be viewed by other users; therefore, please take care not to include sensitive personal information in posts and comments.

Article 11 (Rights and Obligations of Data Subjects)

Users may exercise the following rights:

1. Request access to personal information
2. Request correction where there are errors, etc.
3. Request deletion
4. Request suspension of processing
5. Withdraw consent to receive marketing communications
6. Unsubscribe from the newsletter
7. Opt out of push notifications
8. Refuse Google Analytics collection (by installing the browser add-on)
9. Opt out of personalized advertising (Google Ad Settings)

The above rights may be exercised through the profile settings within the service, the settings menu of each service, or by email (contact@linkasia.net).

Article 12 (Measures to Ensure the Security of Personal Information)

The Operator takes the following measures to ensure the security of personal information:

1. Password encryption: One-way encryption using the BCrypt hash algorithm
2. Transmission encryption: Encryption of all data transmission segments via SSL/TLS
3. Authentication tokens: JWT (HMAC-SHA256)-based authentication; access tokens expire after 24 hours and refresh tokens expire after 7 days
4. Access rights management: Role-based access control (separation of member, contributor, editor-in-chief, and administrator roles)
5. File upload security: Only permitted file formats may be uploaded (whitelist method)
6. Retention of access records: Retention of personal information access records and prevention of their forgery or alteration
7. Infrastructure security: Access control through security groups, network ACLs, etc. in the AWS cloud environment

Article 13 (Overseas Transfer of Personal Information)

The Operator may transfer personal information overseas as follows in order to provide the service:

The service infrastructure (AWS) is operated in the Asia Pacific (Seoul) Region (ap-northeast-2), and users' principal personal information is processed within the Republic of Korea.

Article 14 (Chief Privacy Officer)

• Operator: Olive Tree, an incorporated association (사단법인 올리브트리)
• In charge: Link Asia Privacy Team
• Email: contact@linkasia.net

Users may direct any inquiries, complaints, requests for remedies for damages, and other matters relating to personal information protection arising in the course of using the service to the person in charge above. The Operator will respond to and handle users' inquiries without delay.

Article 15 (Amendments to the Privacy Policy)

This Privacy Policy may be amended to reflect changes in laws and regulations or in the service. In the event of an amendment, notice will be given through the announcements within the service at least 7 days before the effective date, and where there is a material change to users' rights, notice will be given at least 30 days in advance.

• Version 1.0: Effective March 1, 2026
• Version 2.0: Effective April 17, 2026 (added provisions on cookie policy, activity logs, provision to third parties, push notifications, newsletter, community, and overseas transfer)
• Version 3.0: Effective October 6, 2026 (identified the Operator; reflected account unification and immediate publishing of contributions; added entrustment and overseas transfer for AI summarization and translation, and the AI writing assistant; updated the list of stored items)

Article 16 (Governing Language)

This English version is provided for convenience. In the event of any discrepancy or conflict between the Korean and English versions, the Korean version shall prevail.