Privacy Policy
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Noodle Education, Inc. (“Noodle” or “we” or “us”). Noodle is dedicated to giving students, parents and educators access to a comprehensive network of information to enable the discovery of educational opportunities at every stage of learning.
Because Noodle values your privacy, we have created this Privacy Policy to explain how we collect information from and about you when you use the Noodle Services (as defined in our Terms of Service) and how we may disclose and use that information.
This Privacy Policy applies to all users of the Noodle Services, including, without limitation, all users designated as Experts (as defined in our Terms of Service) by Noodle, and whether a user has registered for an account with the Noodle Services or not. This Privacy Policy applies to Noodle’s collection and use of personally identifiable information, which is information that can be used to identify or contact a specific person, such as a full name or email address, as well as our practices for handling non-personally identifiable information, such as user preferences and services usage information.
By visiting the Noodle Services, you agree to the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, please leave this site immediately and do not use or access the Noodle Services.
COLLECTION OF INFORMATION
Noodle and our service providers may collect the following information from and about you:
Registration Information
Registering for a free account on the Noodle Services is the best way to engage with the features that we offer. When you register for an account or when you sign up for other features that we may offer on the Noodle Services (such as a newsletter or a contest or sweepstakes), we may ask you to provide certain information., You do not have to give us any personal information in order to browse our websites. However, if you wish to register on our website, use the Noodle Service, request further information, contact us, complete any surveys, or provide content for inclusion on our website, we will collect certain data, including personal data.
The data we collect may include:
Name (first and last);
Location (including ZIP code and/or city and/or state);
Email address;
Phone number;
Gender;
Picture;
Education history;
Areas of interest which you have explicitly declared, as well as what we can infer from your engagement with our products and services;
Your marketing and newsletter preference;
Any data recoverable from social networking sites, where permission from you has been obtained;
such as your name, picture, email address, gender, zip code and birthday, and whether you are a student, parent, or educator;.
and any other information that you submit to us.
Information from Social Media and Other Sites
You may have the option to sign up for the Noodle Services through a social media service (e.g., Facebook) or another third-party site. If you sign up for a Noodle account in this way, we may collect information about you from that service or site, which may include the username associated with that service or site, your name, profile picture, email address, gender, birthday or friends lists, your likes, preferences, searches, comments and posts, and any other information or content of yours collected by that service or site. All information from and about you that is collected from social media services and third-party sites in this manner may be used and disclosed by Noodle in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Public Information and Posts
Noodle helps make the educational experience social by permitting users to post content and comments on, and otherwise contribute materials and information to, the Noodle Services. Please keep in mind that such posts and contributions are always public, which means they are available to everyone and may be displayed in search results on external websites and search engines. In addition to the content, comments and other materials and information that you post and contribute, we may collect the information about you that accompanies those comments, content and other materials and information, such as your name, user name, comments, email address, profile information and picture.
Activity Information
When you access and interact with the Noodle Services, we may collect certain information about those visits, such as your searches and preferences as well as technical information about your computer and its operating system, your internet browser, your internet protocol address, your navigation path (including your navigation on the Noodle Services and the domain names of the sites from and to which you link), and other information about your software and hardware. If you access the Noodle Services from a mobile or other device, we may collect certain information including the unique device identifier assigned to that device, geolocation data, your wireless service provider, operating system, browser type and other transactional information for that device.
Cookie Policy
Use of Cookies on our website
We use cookies to collect information about store your online preference. Cookies are small pieces of information sent by a web server to a web browser which allows the server to uniquely identify the browser on each page. You can learn more about cookies and how to disable/enable them here.
We use the following categories of cookies on our website:
Strictly Necessary Cookies
These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features. Without these cookies, services you have asked for such as remembering your login details cannot be provided.
Performance Cookies
These cookies collect anonymous information on how people use our website. For example, we use Google Analytics cookies to help us understand how customers arrive at our site, browse or use our site and highlight areas where we can improve areas such as navigation, shopping experience and marketing campaigns. The data stored by these cookies never shows personal details from which your individual identity can be established.
Functionality Cookies
These cookies remember choices you make such as the country you visit our website from, language and search parameters such as size, color or product line. These can then be used to provide you with an experience more appropriate to your selections and to make the visits more tailored and pleasant. The information these cookies collect may be anonymized and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.
Targeting Cookies or Advertising Cookies
These cookies collect information about your browsing habits in order to make advertising more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advert as well as help measure the effectiveness of an advertising campaign. The cookies are usually placed by third party advertising networks. They remember the websites you visit and that information is shared with other parties such as advertisers.
Social Media Cookies
These cookies allow you to share what you’ve been doing on the website on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. These cookies are not within our control. Please refer to the respective privacy policies for how their cookies work.
If you want to delete any cookies that are already on your computer, please refer to the help and support area on your internet browser for instructions on how to locate the file or directory that stores cookies. More information about how to do this is given in the link above.
If you want to learn more about what targeting and advertising cookies are on your device (whether or not related to us) and how to disable them you can do so here.
Use of Web Beacons
Some of our web pages may contain electronic images known as Web beacons (sometimes known as clear gifs) that allow us to count users who have visited these pages. Web beacons collect only limited information which including a cookie number, time and date of a page view, and a description of the page on which the web beacon resides. We may also carry web beacons placed by third party advertisers. These beacons do not carry any personally identifiable information and are only used to track the effectiveness of a particular campaign.
We may also use web beacons or similar technology to learn whether or not emails sent to you have been opened.
Cookies
Cookies are small bits of data that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer through your browser that enables the site or service provider to recognize your browser and remember certain information about you. We may use cookies and other tracking technologies (such as pixel tags, ad tags and web beacons) to collect information to help us understand your interactions with the Noodle Services, such as pages you have visited, content you have viewed, search queries you have run and advertisements you have seen. Third parties that support the Noodle Services by serving advertisements or providing services, such as allowing you to share content or tracking aggregate usage statistics, (e.g., Google Analytics tracking and Google AdWords) may also use these technologies to collect similar information. Noodle does not control these third-party technologies and their use is governed by the privacy policies of the third parties using such technologies. Your browser may permit you to disable these technologies. However, doing so may prevent you from using certain parts of the Noodle Services.
Information from Other Sources
We may supplement the information we collect through the Noodle Services with information from other sources, such as information that you submit to Noodle directly by email, telephone or other means (e.g., information you provide to Noodle’s customer service team) and publicly available information from social media services, commercially available sources and information from our affiliates or business partners.
USE AND DISCLOSURE
When information collected from or about you does not identify you as a specific person, Noodle may use that information for any purpose or share it with third parties who may use it for any purpose. When information collected from or about you is personally identifiable (your “Personal Information”), Noodle and our service providers may use and disclose that information in the following ways:
To provide and personalize the Noodle Services
We use your Personal Information to provide the Noodle Services and its features to you, including: to improve the Noodle Services and its features; to personalize the Noodle Services and to improve your experience with the Noodle Services by delivering content and advertising you will find relevant and interesting, by customizing search results generated by your queries, and by making recommendations based on your preferences; to allow you to post, share and comment on content; and to provide you with customer support and to respond to inquiries.
To allow service providers to assist us in providing and managing the Noodle Services
Noodle may make your Personal Information available to certain third party service providers solely for the purpose of helping us with our business operations, such as data processing and marketing and technology service providers.
To allow social sharing functionality
By logging in with or connecting your Noodle Services account with a social media service or third-party site, you are authorizing us to share your Personal Information with the social media service or third-party site provider and other users and your friends on that service or site and you understand that use of such shared information by the social media service or third-party site provider will be governed by its privacy policy. If you do not want your Personal Information shared in this way, please do not connect your social media service or other third-party account with your Noodle Services account and do not participate in social sharing on the Noodle Services.
To deliver relevant advertisements
Noodle and our service providers may use your Personal Information to deliver relevant ads to you when you use the Noodle Services or another service. As noted above, third-party advertising networks and advertisers may use cookies and similar technologies to collect and track information such as demographic information, inferred interests, aggregated information, and activity, including but not limited to information about your visits to websites to display advertisements more tailored to your interests and to provide you the most relevant advertising. If you wish to know more about this practice or would like to know more about your options, you can visit the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) web-site. The NAI is a cooperative of online advertising companies who are committed to responsible practices and consumer protection.
To contact you
Noodle may periodically send you promotional materials or notifications related to Noodle and the Noodle Services and related products or services. These emails are meant to be useful to you while helping us improve our user experience. However, if you want to stop receiving promotional materials, you can follow the unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of each email. If you want updates but prefer to keep your email inbox uncluttered, you should check out our Twitter feed and Facebook page. There are certain service notification emails that you may not opt-out of, such as notifications of changes to the Noodle Services or policies.
To share with our Noodle Affiliates
Noodle may share your Personal Information with our affiliates for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.
To protect the rights of Noodle and others
There may be instances when Noodle may disclose your information, including situations where Noodle has a good faith belief that such disclosure is necessary in order to: (i) protect, enforce, or defend the legal rights, privacy, safety, or property of Noodle; (ii) protect the safety, privacy, and security of users of the Noodle Services or members of the public; (iii) protect against fraud or for risk management purposes; (iv) comply with the law or legal process; or (v) respond to requests from public and government authorities.
To complete a merger or sale of assets
If Noodle sells all or part of its business or makes a sale or transfer of its assets or is otherwise involved in a merger or transfer of all or a material part of its business, Noodle may transfer your Personal Information to the party or parties involved in the transaction as part of that transaction.
USER CONTROL OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
Personally identifiable Information
Please do not submit to us or post on the Noodle Services any personally identifiable information that you do not want us to collect. In particular, we ask that you not send us, and you not share, any sensitive information, such as social security numbers, on or through the Noodle Services. Please keep in mind that, although you are not required to provide any personally identifiable information that we request, in many cases, if you do not provide us with the requested information, we may not be able to provide you with certain services or respond to any questions you may have.
Receiving electronic communications from us
If you no longer want to receive emails from us on a going-forward basis, you may opt-out of receiving these emails by following the unsubscribe instructions in the email. We will process your request within a reasonable time after receipt. However, we are not responsible for removing your personally identifiable information from the lists of any third party who has previously been provided your information in accordance with this Privacy Policy or your consent.
Canceling your account
While your account is active, we retain your Personal Information. If you cancel your account by following the instructions set forth in the Terms of Service or if we terminate your account for any other reason, we may continue to retain your Personal Information for reasons including, but not limited to, complying with our legal obligations or our internal security policies, meeting regulatory requirements, for fraud detection, improving our site and services, or enforcing this Privacy Policy. Remember that even after your account is cancelled, copies of some information from your account may remain viewable in some circumstances, for example, where you have shared information with a third-party application or web site or where you have posted your Personal Information publicly on the Noodle Services. In addition, because of the nature of caching technology, your account may not be instantly inaccessible to others, and there may be a delay in the removal of the content from elsewhere on the Internet and from search engines.
SECURITY
The security of your information is very important to us. Noodle implements a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your Personal Information. However, due to the inherent open nature of the Internet, no data transmission over the Internet or any wireless network can be guaranteed to be secure. As a result, while we take measures to protect your Personal Information, we cannot ensure or guarantee the security of any information you send to us or that we store on our servers. Your use of the Noodle Services demonstrates your assumption of this risk.
LINKED SERVICES
The Noodle Services may contain links to third-party services and sites, and may carry advertisements or offer content, functionality, games, newsletters, contests or sweepstakes, or applications developed and maintained by unaffiliated companies. Noodle is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of such third-party services and sites and unaffiliated companies. Once you leave the Noodle Services or click an advertisement you will be bound by, and should review the applicable privacy policy of, the other site or service.
SOCIAL MEDIA
The Noodle Services may contain links to our presence on various social media platforms. We do not operate or control these platforms. You should be aware that personally identifiable information which you voluntarily include and transmit online in a publicly accessible blog, social network or otherwise online may be viewed and used by others. We are unable to control these uses of your personally identifiable information, and by using such services you assume the risk that the personally identifiable information provided by you may be viewed and used by third parties.
OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Protection for Children
The Noodle Services are not targeted to children, and we do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children younger than 13 years of age. If we become aware that personally identifiable information from a child younger than 13 years of age has been collected without the consent of such child’s parent or guardian, we will delete such information from our database without requesting permission to do so.
Updates to Privacy Policy
We may modify this Privacy Policy. Please look at the date below to see when this Privacy Policy was last revised. Any changes to this Privacy Policy will become effective when we post the revised Privacy Policy on the Noodle Services. Policy changes will apply only to information collected on and after the date of the change.
UPDATING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
You may review, correct, update or change your personal information at any time by contacting us at customerdata@noodle.com. Often, where you have signed up for an online account on one of our websites you can also amend you details via that online account.
RETENTION
We will retain your personal data for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law. Accordingly, your personal data shall be maintained for up to seven years following the end of the services we provide to you / your last contact with us. This retention period may be extended if any applicable statutory or regulatory obligation requires us to hold information for a longer period.
CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY
If our Privacy Policy changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this page and we will take reasonable steps to make you aware of material changes to it. Regularly reviewing this page ensures that you are always aware of what personal information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we will share it with other parties.
HOW TO CONTACT US
As a reminder, if you have any questions about this statement or your personal information, please contact us at customerdata@noodle.com.
QUESTIONS