Classroom Connect | Privacy Policy

Table of Contents
Introduction
Who We Are
How to Reach Us
What Information We Know About You and How We Use It
Privacy Policy for Children Under 18 Years of Age
How to Access Your User Information
How to Change Your User Information
When We May Be Forced to Disclose Your Information
Opting Out and Opting In
Links to Other Sites
Security
Legal Disclaimer
Notification of Changes
Your Acceptance of These Terms
Privacy References
TRUSTe Licensee
Copyright Notice

INTRODUCTION
Classroom Connect cares about protecting your online privacy. We will not disclose any of your personal information to third parties without your consent. To let you know how we collect and use your information, we have established the following privacy policy. Since this policy may change from time to time, please refer to it regularly.

Children's online privacy is a top priority for both Classroom Connect and our community of educators and families. We encourage you to read our “Privacy Policy for Children Under 18 Years of Age” to be aware of how we treat personally identifiable information collected from children. Also, so schools can learn more about how to protect children's privacy on the Internet, TRUSTe has reviewed and approved this privacy policy.

WHO WE ARE
The following Web sites are all owned and operated as a single "Site" by Classroom Connect, Inc., a Delaware corporation:
http://www.classroom.com, http://cu.classroom.com, http://educator.classroom.com, http://tech.classroom.com, and http://portal.classroom.com/. To learn more about our company, see About Us.

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HOW TO REACH US
Our general mailing address is:

Classroom Connect, Inc.
8000 Marina Blvd.
Suite 400
Brisbane, CA 94005
USA

Our toll-free phone and fax numbers are:

(800) 638-1639 (Phone)
(888) 801-8299 (Fax)

To contact us about privacy issues, please email:

privacy@classroom.com

For more information on how to reach us or to get directions to our offices, please visit Contact Us. We use email links located on our Contact Us pages to allow you to contact us directly with any questions or comments you may have. We read every message that we receive and try to reply promptly, answer your questions, and note your comments. We may also file your comments to improve the Site and our services, or review and discard the information. Your personal information is only shared with third parties with your explicit permission.

WHAT INFORMATION WE KNOW ABOUT YOU AND HOW WE USE IT

Although we may collect certain information from you as discussed below, please be reassured in knowing the following:

we do not use any information about where you personally go on our Site, nor do we give such information out to third parties except in aggregate format, as described in the section, “Information That We Independently Derive From Your Use of Our Site” under the sub-section, “Aggregate Information”
we do not give out your name, telephone number, credit card or other personal information, unless you (or, if you are a child under the age of 18, your parent, your guardian, or teacher) authorize us to do so or except where needed to deliver a product or service you ordered;
unless you are an adult and you personally divulge personal information, we will not give out information that would link your profile, user ID, or nickname with your actual name without your (or, if you are a child under the age of 18, your parent's, guardian’s, or teacher's) prior consent; and
we will always give you (or your parent, guardian, or teacher) the opportunity to access and correct your personal contact and billing information at any time.

For some Classroom Connect products, a school district-appointed administrator may be given privileges that provide usage statistics for educators within that district.

In addition, Classroom Connect utilizes third party services to provide security and credit card verification for any credit card purchases made through our various sites. When you purchase products and services via a credit card on Classroom Connect websites, we will share your credit card information to that provider who will secure and verify that information.

These third parties are prohibited from using your personally identifiable information for any other purpose.

Personal Information That You Give Us

There are various areas on our Site where we either require or permit you to transfer personal information voluntarily. We use this personal information only for the specific purpose indicated at the time you input such information. In addition, we never divulge such information to third parties without your consent. These areas include:

Educator profile information. By providing certain personal information to Classroom Connect, you receive enhanced services and functionality from our Site. In order to complete your profile information, we sometimes ask you for information, such as your first and last name, age, email address, primary role, school affiliation, school name, school address, school zip code, and grade levels and subjects most relevant to you. We also ask whether or not you'd like to receive email from Classroom Connect. This option to receive email is meant for teachers and administrators and is not offered to users under age 18. If teachers opt to use the student tracking feature within our Connected Tech program which allows them to track individual student progress, teachers will be asked to enter student profile information including, first name, last name, ID, grade, date of birth, gender, username, password, and school. Classroom Connect does not use any of the information entered in the Educator Profile for its own purposes.

Email Discussion Group Lists. Classroom Connect's free discussion-oriented email lists connect educators, keep them up-to-date with Internet resources, and provide the latest Classroom Connect news. Classroom Connect also maintains an opt-in marketing email list. This is described further in the section, “Opting Out and Opting In.” Our email discussion-oriented lists are hosted by expert educators, as well as Classroom Connect staff. Educators may give us their names and email addresses in order to subscribe to the email lists they choose. This information (name and email address) is not shared with any third parties. At any time, the educator may unsubscribe from such email lists.

In addition to the email discussion group sign-up, there may be other times we request or acquire your email address, such as when you email us with questions or comments. We will only use your address to respond to emails from you, forward and send your emails to those working for or on behalf of Classroom Connect who may be able to respond to you, send information to you concerning your account, and inform you of updates to our Web site and product offerings, if you have opted in for such notification. Classroom Connect DOES NOT share email addresses or any other personal information about our members or subscribers with advertisers, business partners, sponsors or other third parties without your consent. Our email lists are not intended for children.

Message boards and Postings. Classroom Connect offers message boards and other similar posting opportunities. Please see our Terms of Use before using such boards and/or postings and make sure to post only information that you are comfortable sharing. We have separate boards for K–12 students and educators. All messages posted by K–12 students to Classroom Connect-hosted boards are first reviewed by us. Message boards accessed by educators are subject to our Terms of Use. In addition, in order to keep our student boards safe, it is our policy not to allow students to post personally identifiable information (PII). We therefore make every effort to remove, edit, or restrict all such postings from these student-oriented boards.

For some Classroom Connect products, students and teachers can post their classroom projects in the form of text, graphic, html, sound, or other multimedia files to our Site. Please see our Terms of Use, which provides for certain restrictions and licenses before K–12 students or children may use or be allowed to post to these galleries. As with the message boards, it is our general policy not to allow K–12 students to post PII. For this reason, we first review the intended posts before allowing any actual posting. Any personal information is removed from the student’s submission prior to posting it for view by other online subscribers.

Online Purchasing. Classroom Connect offers users the opportunity to buy products online. Like other retailers and direct marketers, we record information about such purchases. When you buy from us online, our system automatically gathers purchase data, and we also record information about purchases made through our telemarketing, mail order, and marketing operations. We may review these statistics to decide what kinds of products and services appeal most to our users as a group and improve our offerings. We give you the option to choose between online and telephone-based purchase options. Product ordering is only intended to be by teachers, administrators, and interested parents/guardians and is not offered for users under age 18.

If you choose to order offline, we request payment information, such as credit card number and expiration date. We also ask for your billing and shipping information, which includes name, title, school name, address, email address, and phone number. This information is only used for the purpose of completing your order.

If you order online, we require your billing information exactly as it appears on your credit card statement so that we can process your order. Online orders also require your name, address, phone number, and email address. Email is required so that we can send you a confirmation of your order. Once again, the information you provide is used solely for the purpose of completing your order.

Information That We Independently Derive From Your Use of Our Site

Aside from any information you may voluntarily disclose to us, there is other, less obvious, information that we might gain from you. We use such information to improve the content of our Web site. In addition, we keep records in your account history of your contact with Classroom Connect, any complaints you may have about other members’ online behavior, and any reported violations of our Terms of Use that you or someone on your account may have committed.

Computer Information. We automatically query your computer for information about your computer system, such as the speed of your modem, error messages you may have received, or operating system type, to help us fit our services to your individual needs and to help us diagnose problems you may be having with your system. We use an identifier in the form of a user ID to give you access to subscription-based products.

Geographic Location. We may use information about your geographical location to provide localized service. By knowing where your computer is located, we can provide faster service by sending your server localized content. Also, we may use your zip code or time zone to make sure certain information you see is accurate for you.

Aggregate Information. Our system automatically gathers information about the areas you visit on our Site. We use this navigational information in the aggregate to understand how our users (be they educators or K–12 students) as a group use our service, so that we can make our Site more useful. We may also share this aggregate statistical information with our partners or other outside companies, but in doing so, we never disclose individual names or personal navigational information. Some examples of how we aggregate such information are as follows:

Cookies. Cookies enable you to interact with Classroom Connect’s subscription-based Web sites. By communicating with our Site when you sign in, cookies speed up and ease your navigation, which saves you from having to retype your user ID and Password every time you access our Site. Cookies allow us to customize the information we provide according to your profile and preferences. Widely used on the Internet, cookies have become an industry standard. Although a cookie cannot, in and of itself, identify you, it can identify your computer.

Your browser is most likely set up to accept cookies automatically. If you’d like to disable cookies, you may do so by adjusting the options or preferences in your browser. However, by doing so, you will lose some, or in some cases all, of the functionality of Classroom Connect’s Web pages, will not be able to fully access our subscription Web sites, and will lose ability for personalization. We use cookies to enable sign-in, membership, and personalization, as well as in conjunction with our online purchasing to keep track of your order, and to record billing and shipping address. Cookies used to purchase items online will generally expire after two weeks. We use cookies to keep track of your user session and click-stream data, as well as to tailor Web content to your interests and/or to personalize our Site (an example of personalization is when your user name automatically appears on our Site when logged in to a subscription-based product).

IP Addresses. An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you begin service with an Internet Service Provider. Classroom Connect collects IP addresses for the purposes of system administration and to audit the use of our Site. Each time you sign in to our Site and each time you request one of our pages, our server logs your IP address. Although we log your session with us, we will not normally link your IP address to anything that can enable us to identify you. However, we can and will use IP addresses to identify a user when we feel it is necessary to enforce compliance with our rules or Terms of Use or to protect our service, Site, customers, users of our Site, or others.

Classroom Connect may require other information for tracking and/or verifying compliance with Classroom Connect policies, fulfilling any prizes or promotions we may offer, as well as abiding by federal, state, and local laws, and/or for editorial and feedback solicitation purposes. In addition, from time to time, we may use your information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices materially change at some time in the future, we will contact you (or post such change to the Site) before we use your data for these new purposes. At that time we would notify you of the policy change and provide you with the ability to opt in or opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, please periodically check our Site, especially this privacy policy.

PRIVACY POLICY FOR CHILDREN UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE

We understand that our student users who are under 18 years of age need special safeguards and privacy protection and it is our intent to fully comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (or "COPPA"). In addition, we realize that children may not understand all the provisions of our policy or be able to make thoughtful decisions about the choices available to adult members. For this reason, we have special privacy policies to protect children using areas on the service specifically designed for them. However, we urge all parents, guardians, teachers, and classroom administrators to teach their children and/or students about protecting their personal information while online. A good starting point for learning about children’s privacy online is the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s privacy section. It is important to understand that only certain portions of our site are intended for or directed at children under the age of 18 years old. On the Site, we explicitly discourage users under 18 from submitting personal information. If a child submits personal information, that information is immediately discarded by an authorized Classroom Connect representative and is manually withheld from the content that is posted to areas of the site that are viewable by other online subscribers.

The only information that will be collected from children will be information received from the children in response to their teachers’ assignments and requests. While this information will generally not be personally identifiable information or third party personally identifiable information, to the extent that it is, we will do the following before posting that information to a community shared by other subscribers:

Maintain reasonable security procedures to protect personally identifiable information from the child or third party personally identifiable information from the child.
Ensure that no information from or about children under 18 years of age is knowingly used for any marketing or promotional purposes whatsoever, either inside or outside Classroom Connect.

In addition to the above protections, we will also:

require the student’s teacher to accept this privacy policy and our Terms of Use before giving the child access to our Site;
not offer a special game, prize, or other activity to give more personal information than is needed to participate in that activity; and,
monitor all the student message boards and student posts made on our Site. If Classroom Connect believes that the subject matter is inappropriate, we will refrain from posting the message on our Site, or we may remove all personally identifiable information.

Parents have the right to request access to their child's personal information or request deletion of the child's personal information. The parent may exercise these rights by contacting their child's school or teacher directly.

If you have questions or concerns regarding our privacy policy and children, please contact us by email at privacy@classroom.com.

If you have more questions or concerns about how to safeguard children's privacy, there is a lot of great information on the Federal Trade Commission's Web site.

What Educators Can Tell Kids That They Can Do To Keep Safe Online

Always use a nickname when posting in public areas, or use only your first name. Never use your last name.
Never give out personal information.
If you receive email from a stranger, tell your teacher or parent before replying.
Keep your password a secret.
Look at any site’s privacy policy to see how that site uses personal information.

HOW TO ACCESS YOUR USER INFORMATION

To access your user information in your profile, users must first sign in to the Site. After signing in, view your profile where you can review and/or update your information. If you need help, please email help@classroom.com.

You can also email help@classroom.com to get access to transaction information (e.g., dates on which you made purchases, amounts and types of purchases), communications that you have directed to our Site (e.g., emails, user inquiries, and contact information, such as name, address, or phone number). Via email request to help@classroom.com, you also have the ability to have any inaccuracies corrected in your contact information as further described below.

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR USER INFORMATION

You can access your profile, as described above, to change or update your user information. To edit or delete a message board or project post, please email help@classroom.com. We encourage you to correct, update, or remove the personal data that you have given to us. If you have any questions about changing your user information, please email help@classroom.com.

WHEN WE MAY BE FORCED TO DISCLOSE YOUR INFORMATION

Classroom Connect may disclose user information in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) Classroom Connect’s rights or property or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities. Classroom Connect may also disclose user information when we believe in good faith that the law requires it.

OPTING OUT AND OPTING IN

Classroom Connect believes that you should have the ability to opt in or opt out, as the case may be, of certain uses of your personal information. Thus, where you see a checkbox allowing you to "opt in" or "opt out" of us using your information for its clearly designated purpose, please do so. We believe this policy will keep you in full control of your personal information and the communications directed to you. If at any time you object to the use of your information for any reason, you may stop that use either by email request to help@classroom.com or by changing your user information in your profile, as described above.

To stop receiving Classroom Connect company email, visit your profile and indicate that you no longer wish to receive Classroom Connect company email. You may also opt out from receiving such emails by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link in a Classroom Connect company email or may contact customer support at help@classroom.com.

In addition, for some of Classroom Connect’s professional development products, educators may opt in to having their profile displayed to other subscribers. As with the choice to receive company email, an educator may visit his or her profile and opt to not have the profile be viewable by others.

LINKS TO OTHER SITES

Linking to other sites is an integral part of the functionality of the Internet, including the Classroom Connect Site. Any link to a page that displays a URL of a non-Classroom Connect site (refer to the “Who We Are” section of this policy for a list of our sites) in the address window of your browser is a link to a site outside of our service. This includes links to our partners, library/resource links, and links to any other advertisers and partners that may link to Classroom Connect or are part of a co-branding agreement, as well as other suggested links or links our users may post. These other sites may send their own cookies to you, collect data, or solicit personal information. Although we monitor the sites that we link to and make every attempt to ensure their quality, we cannot guarantee and are not responsible for the content of outside sites.

Please keep in mind that whenever you give out personal information on other Web sites (for example via message boards or chat rooms), that information can be collected and used by people you don’t know. While Classroom Connect strives to protect our visitors' personal information and privacy, we cannot guarantee the security and privacy of any information you disclose at other Web sites, and you do so at your own risk.

SECURITY

We take every precaution to protect our users’ information. To protect your online order data, Classroom Connect uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology provided by VeriSign. This technology is the industry standard for providing secure online transactions. When you enter your name, address, credit card number, and other information in an order form, SSL encrypts the data so that it cannot be decoded as it travels over the Internet.

You can check the security of your connection by looking at the address in your browser window. After you have accessed a secure server protected by SSL, the first characters of the address will change from "http" to "https." To learn more about SSL, follow this link: http://corporate.classroom.com/OnlineStore.pdf.
While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also do everything in our power to protect user information offline. Our company regularly updates employees on privacy issues via email and verbal announcements. Only authorized employees have access to sensitive information online. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific task, such as customer support, have access to customers' personally identifiable information. Only Classroom Connect staff are allowed to access or alter any information stored at Classroom Connect.

To help protect your account, please keep your password secure. We suggest that you pick a non-obvious password that mixes numbers and letters. In addition, we recommend that you do not divulge your password to anyone. Classroom Connect will never ask you for your password in an unsolicited phone call or email. Ultimately, you are responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your passwords and any account information.

Remember to sign out of your Classroom Connect user session by clicking the sign/log out button, and close your browser window whenever you leave your computer. This is to ensure that others cannot access your personal information, because your computer may be accessible to others or used in a shared setting, such as a school computer lab, library, or Internet café.

Classroom Connect’s policy does not extend to anything that is inherent in the operation of the Internet, and therefore beyond Classroom Connect’s control, and is not to be applied in any manner contrary to applicable law or governmental regulation.

If you have any questions about the security of our Web site, please email privacy@classroom.com.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER

We may disclose personal information when required by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary in order to conform to the edicts of the law or comply with a legal process served on our Web site.

NOTIFICATION OF CHANGES

We will notify you directly via email if there is a material change in our privacy practices. We will also post the changes in our Privacy Policy 30 days prior to a change.

YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THESE TERMS

By using this Site, you signify your assent to the Classroom Connect Privacy Policy and the Terms of Use. If you do not agree with these policies, please refrain from using our Site. Your continued use of the Classroom Connect Web site following a reasonable notice of changes to these terms will mean you accept those changes.
If you have questions or concerns regarding this Web site's Privacy Policy and/or Terms of Use, please contact us via email at privacy@classroom.com.

PRIVACY REFERENCES

General
Classroom Connect Terms of Use
TRUSTe

Children's Internet Privacy
U.S. Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) privacy section
FTC's KIDZ Privacy section

TRUSTe LICENSEE

This confirms that Classroom Connect is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to build users’ trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices. Because Classroom Connect wants to demonstrate its commitment to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe. By displaying the TRUSTe trustmark, this Web site has agreed to notify you of:

1. What personally identifiable information of yours or third party personally identifiable information that is collected from you through the web site;

2. The organization collecting the information;

3. How the information is used;

4. With whom the information may be shared;

5. What choices are available to you regarding collection, use, and distribution of the information;

6. The kind of security procedures that are in place to protect the loss, misuse, or alteration of information under Classroom Connect control;

7. How you can correct any inaccuracies in the information.

If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact Classroom Connect by email at privacy@classroom.com. If you do not receive acknowledgment of your inquiry or your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, you should then contact TRUSTe at http://www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php. TRUSTe will then serve as a liaison with Classroom Connect to resolve your concerns.