Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy was last updated on August 9, 2008.
If you have not reviewed it since that date, please do so.
You will not receive any other notice of changes to this Privacy Policy.
Privacy Information for PowerLearning21.com
PowerLearning21.com LLC, operator of PowerLearning21.com ("PowerLearning21.com" or the "Website"), recognizes the confidentiality of information that may be disclosed by Teachers and Students in registering or making purchases from our Website and we are committed to protecting your privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for this Website.
The specifics of our use of personal information are best described in the answers to the following Frequently Asked Questions:
Do you ask for personal information from your members?
Yes. We ask for your name, e-mail address, and other limited personal information when you sign up as a Teacher or Student, when you use various features on this Website, such as when Teachers upload Classes to the Website and when Students purchase Classes from us. We may ask for similar information at other times, such as when you enter contest or other promotions sponsored by us and/or one of our partners. To facilitate payment and fulfillment in connection with purchasing Classes from us, we will request personal credit card, debit card or other payment information.
As a registered Teacher or Student of PowerLearning21.com, you can also chose to share further information about yourself, your activity on the site, and your background and interests, with other users of the site. The type and quantity of profile information you share in this way is entirely your choice. See "Profiles" below for more information on how to edit and control what you allow other member to see about you in your public profile.
How do you use my personal information?
The primary use of your personal information, other than directly in connection with payment of Teachers by us and purchases of Classes by Students, is to efficiently provide you with personalized, relevant information.
We will also use registration information to let you know about new Classes and other features or offers from which we believe will be of interest to you and to address customer service needs and requests.
In distributing advertiser or sponsor messages, the advertiser is not given access to individual account information. We do not sell, rent or otherwise distribute the personal information you provide us to these advertisers for their use. Advertisers simply provide the advertising message and we then display the ad to appropriate users.
Will you disclose any of my personal information to third parties?
We will not disclose your personal information provided in connection with registration as a Teacher or Student or in connection with payment or purchases, except as described in this Privacy Statement or as may be required by law, or to protect our rights or property.
Information submitted by you online (such as information about Classes you upload as a Teacher or Classes you download as a Student, your name, address and e-mail address) may be shared with companies with which we have a commercial relationship and through which you reached PowerLearning21.com, for marketing purposes. For example, if you make a purchase with us because of an offer made through another website acting as a distributor of our products, in that circumstance you will be considered the customer of the other website as well as a customer of PowerLearning21.com. We will not, except as may be required by law, share with any other party your password, social security number or payment information.
Other circumstances where limited personal information may be disclosed are specifically described when the data is collected, or in the rules of contests or other promotions.
We do reserve the right to disclose aggregated user statistics, such as "45 percent of our users are female" or "10,000 Students indicate an interest in math" in order to describe our services to prospective partners, advertisers, and other third parties.
Under protection of confidentiality agreements, we use third party processors in some cases to help us provide services and manage our Website and relationships with you. These may include purchase and order fulfillment, credit card processing, removing duplicate information from lists, providing marketing assistance and providing other customer services. Third-party processors and providers will be given access only to that information needed to perform their support functions, and are prohibited from using it for other purposes.
As our business continues to grow, we might buy or sell subsidiaries or business units. In these transactions, customer information is often one of the transferred assets, remaining subject to promises made in existing privacy statements. Also, in the event that PowerLearning21.com LLC, or substantially all of its assets are acquired, customer information will, as a matter of course, be one of the transferred assets.
What about purchases from advertisers or other linked Websites?
If you click away from PowerLearning21.com to visit the website of any third party advertiser or sponsor, you may be asked for your credit card or other personal information in order to purchase or use products and services offered. These companies have their own privacy and data collection practices. We have no responsibility or liability for these independent policies. You should therefore review their privacy policies carefully if you have concerns about how your information may be used.
Will you use my information for direct mailings?
We will send electronic mail or other mail to you, for the purpose of informing you of features of or changes or additions to PowerLearning21.com, or of any our affiliates or business partners. If you do not want to receive such mailings, you may opt out at any time by using the unsubscribe link listed in the e-mail.
May I refuse to provide personal information to you or to accept advertising?
Visitors may access PowerLearning21.com's free services by providing a first name, last name, and e-mail address or other information that we may deem appropriate to that purpose. To gain full access to all Classes and other members-only areas, a username, e-mail address and payment (for Teachers) and billing (for Students) information are required. Because the Website is partially advertiser supported, you may not "turn off" the advertising that appears on Website's pages, but you may opt to be excluded from any e-mail advertising.
Do you use "IP Addresses" and cookies?
IP Addresses:
We do use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer our Website. Your IP address is also used to gather broad demographic information such as geographic distribution of our members and may be used to "geolocate" our members to allow us to provide services appropriate to your place of residence.
Cookies:
Contrary to popular myth, cookies do not extract private or personal information from your computer's memory, but rather, record only information you volunteer to us upon registering or visiting the Website. Cookies are tiny files placed onto the hard drive of your computer when you register at our Website that enable our server to recognize or "remember" who you are each time you return. We may make limited use of cookies to deliver content specific to your interests. For instance, we may use cookies to retain your personal preferences, hold session information for a "shopping basket," or save your password so it doesn't have to be re-entered each time you login.
You can delete or block cookies from your computer if you want to (your browser help function should tell you how to do this), but certain PowerLearning21.com services may not work correctly or at all if you delete and/or block cookies.
Advertiser Cookies:
We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads on our behalf. These companies may employ cookies and action tags (also known as single pixel gifs or web beacons) to measure advertising effectiveness. Any information that these third parties collect via cookies and action tags is completely anonymous. If you would like to opt out of our targeted advertising program, please send us a letter indicating your desire to opt out.
When do you distribute or publish information on individuals on your Websites?
Posts contributed by our Teachers and Students to Classrooms, forums, message boards, rating sections and other community areas may include information and comments on specific individuals. While we advise our Teachers and Students to be sensitive to privacy issues, we have no control over the content of these posts. If such a post violates our Terms and Conditions, you may notify send us an email to report abuse (please put the word "abuse" in the subject of the email") and we will seek to help work toward resolving the issue.
What else should I know about privacy?
The following details a few key issues mentioned in above:
Profiles
When you sign up as a Teacher and or Student, you are provided with the opportunity to create a public profile, which may be pre-populated with your chosen user name and, as you use the site, with other information. Your user name and other information will be displayed on the site when you post, comment, or interact with the PowerLearning21.com community. If you want additional privacy, you can edit your user name within your public profile to one that does not include any personally identifiable information. You can also enhance your public profile to provide additional information about yourself. Any information including sensitive information disclosed in this area becomes public and you should therefore exercise caution when deciding what you chose to disclose.
You may choose either to display your email address to other Teachers and Students or ensure that your email address is withheld.
Additional Services
If you purchase certain services from us, additional policies may apply regarding how we maintain and use that information and your rights to control that information. Our privacy policies with respect to such information will be available to you when you purchase those services.
Contests & Promotions
We may occasionally run contests or other special promotions on our Website in which we ask members or visitors for contact information (like an e-mail address) or demographic information (like a zip code, age, or income level). We use this data to send users promotional material about our company or our business partners. The participant's contact information is also used to contact him or her when necessary and may be shared with other companies for promotional purposes, but only with your prior permission and under the terms and conditions specified when you take part in the promotion. At any time, you may opt-out of receiving future mailings of this kind, or simply decline to take part in the promotions.
Contacting Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of or your dealings with this Website, you may contact us at the following address: 222 Parkman Ave., Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, or email us at Privacy@PowerLearning21.com.
