Privacy Policy
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Modern States Education Alliance, Inc. (“Modern States” or “we” or “us”). Modern States is dedicated to making college more affordable by providing access to the best, free-of-cost Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Our goal is to create a path to a tuition-free, high quality and universally accessible college education for any motivated student who seeks one.
Because Modern States values your privacy, we have created this Privacy Policy to explain how we collect information from and about you when you use the Modern States 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 Modern States Services, including, without limitation, all users designated as Providers and Experts (as defined in our Terms of Service) by Modern States, and whether a user has registered for an account with the Modern States Services or not. This Privacy Policy applies to Modern States’ collection and use of Personal Information (defined below), 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 aggregate user preferences and services usage information.
PLEASE READ THIS PRIVACY POLICY CAREFULLY TO UNDERSTAND MODERN STATES’ POLICIES AND PRACTICES REGARDING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION AND HOW WE WILL TREAT IT. BY VISITING THE MODERN STATES 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, REGISTER, OR ACCESS THE MODERN STATES SERVICES.
CONSENT TO PROCESSING OUTSIDE HOME COUNTRY
By using the Modern States Services, or providing information to Modern States you understand and unambiguously consent to the collection, use, disclosure and retention of Personal Information in the United States and other countries and territories, for the purposes set forth in this Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service. You hereby consent to the collection, use, disclosure, and retention by Modern States of your Personal Information as described under this Privacy Policy, including but not limited to the transfer of your Personal Information between Modern States and the third parties, affiliates, and subsidiaries described in this Privacy Policy. For further certainty, any consent relating to a right to transfer information referred to in this paragraph shall be deemed to include your consent to the transfer of the applicable Personal Information to a jurisdiction which may provide a different level of privacy protection than that available in your own country.
COLLECTION OF INFORMATION
Modern States and our authorized service providers may collect the following information from and about you:
Registration Information
Registering for a free account on the Modern States 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 Modern States Services (such as a newsletter, contest, or sweepstakes), we may ask you to provide certain Personal Information, such as your name, picture, email address, gender, zip code and birthday, and whether you are a student, parent, or educator. Additionally, Modern States will track course progress in the courses that you enroll in. Modern States will also track your score reports from the College Board for the CLEP exams that you take.
This information is used by Modern States for (1) account purposes; (2) providing the Modern States Services to you; (3) demographic assessments of and provision of services to the user population; (4) empirical research; (5) communication with you; and (6) internal auditing purposes. Only strictly authorized Modern States employees have access to this Personal Information. Information about individual students, including about courses selected and course progress, and other data, can be shared with teachers, mentors and others who can support them in the Modern States program. This includes mentors and teachers and others who are not employees of the high school students attend(ed). Contact information for these students can also be shared with others.
Modern States may provide links to other sites and some features of the Modern States Service may be offered in conjunction with a partner company. Modern States is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites and companies.
In order to provide partner company features, it may be necessary for either you or Modern States to share your voluntarily provided Personal Information with this company. If you do not want your data to be shared, you can choose not to allow the transfer by not using that particular service.
Information from Social Media and Other Sites
You may have the option to sign up for the Modern States Services through a social media service (e.g., Facebook) or another third-party site. If you sign up for a Modern States 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 Modern States in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you have engaged any of these social media services or third-party sites, their respective privacy policies will govern their tracking and collection of information. You should review these third party policies to understand these practices.
Public Information and Posts
Modern States helps make the educational experience social by permitting users to post content and comments on, and otherwise contribute materials and information to, the Modern States 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 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 Modern States 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 Modern States 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 Modern States 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.
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 Modern States 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 Modern States 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. Modern States does not control these third-party technologies and their use is governed by the privacy policies of the third parties using such technologies. Click here to see how Google Analytics collects and processes data. Your browser may permit you to disable these technologies. However, doing so may prevent you from using certain parts of the Modern States Services. At this time Modern States does accept or acknowledge Do Not Track requests.
Information from Other Sources
We may supplement the information we collect through the Modern States Services with information from other sources, such as information that you submit to Modern States directly by email, telephone or other means 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, Modern States 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”), Modern States and our service providers may use and disclose that information in the following ways:
To provide and personalize the Modern States Services
We use your Personal Information to provide the Modern States Services and its features to you, including: to improve the Modern States Services and its features; to personalize the Modern States Services and to improve your experience with the Modern States 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 Modern States Services
Modern States 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 Modern States 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 Modern States Services account and do not participate in social sharing on the Modern States Services.
To deliver relevant advertisements
Modern States and our service providers may use your Personal Information to deliver relevant ads to you when you use the Modern States 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
Modern States may periodically send you promotional materials or notifications related to Modern States and the Modern States 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 Modern States Services or policies.
To share with business partners
Modern States works with many business partners who offer various products and services to consumers and other businesses, such as online courses, colleges, tutoring and test preparation services. Modern States may share your Personal Information with our business partners to permit them to send you marketing communications consistent with your preferences and use of the Modern States Services and otherwise provide their services to you, and our business partners may share such information with their business partners. If you are a California resident, you have the right to request and obtain from us a list of what Personal Information of yours (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year and the names and addresses of those third parties. Requests may be made only once a year and are free of charge
To share with our Modern States Affiliates
Modern States may share your Personal Information with our affiliates for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.
To protect the rights of Modern States and others
There may be instances when Modern States may disclose your information, including situations where Modern States 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 Modern States; (ii) protect the safety, privacy, and security of users of the Modern States 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 Modern States 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, Modern States may transfer your Personal Information to the party or parties involved in the transaction as part of that transaction.
USER CONTROL OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
General
Please do not submit to us or post on the Modern States Services any Personal 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 or driver’s license numbers, on or through the Modern States Services. Please keep in mind that, although you are not required to provide any Personal 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 Personal 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 Modern States 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.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES FOR THE PROCESSING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
Personal Information will be collected, stored, processed and transmitted in accordance with Modern States’ established policies and applicable federal, state, local and foreign laws, rules and regulations.
The principles of Modern States with respect to the processing of Personal Information are as follows: (1) Personal Information will be processed fairly and lawfully, (2) Personal Information will be collected for specified, explicit, and legitimate purposes and not further processed for incompatible purposes, (3) Personal Information collected by Modern States will be adequate, relevant, and not excessive in relation to the purposes for which it is collected, (4) Personal Information collected by Modern States will be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date to the best of our ability, and (5) Personal Information collected by Modern States will be retained as identifiable data for no longer than necessary to serve the purposes for which the Personal Information was collected.
If Modern States engages in the processing of Personal Information for purposes other than those specified in this Policy, Modern States will provide notice of these changes, the purposes for which the Personal Information will be used, and the recipients of Personal Information.
SECURITY
The security of your information is very important to us. Modern States 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 Modern States Services demonstrates your assumption of this risk.
ACCURACY
It is your responsibility to provide Modern States with accurate Personal Information. Except as otherwise set forth in this Privacy Policy, Modern States shall only use Personal Information in ways that are compatible with the purposes for which it was collected or subsequently authorized by you. To the extent necessary for these purposes, Modern States shall take reasonable steps to ensure that Personal Information is accurate, complete, current and relevant to its intended use.
RETENTION PERIOD
We retain your Personal Information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy, unless a longer retention period is required or allowed by law or to otherwise fulfill a legal obligation.
LINKED SERVICES
The Modern States Services contains links to websites published by third parties, including other content providers as well as certain service providers. These other websites are not under our control, and you acknowledge and agree that we are not responsible for the collection and use of your information by such websites, unless we have otherwise indicated in this Privacy Policy. We encourage you to be aware when you are be redirected to a third party website and review the privacy policies of each website you visit and use. These websites may contain links to third-party services and sites, and may carry advertisements or offer content, functionality, courses, games, newsletters, contests or sweepstakes, or applications developed and maintained by unaffiliated companies. Modern States is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of such third-party services and sites and unaffiliated companies. Once you leave the Modern States 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 Modern States 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 Personal 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 Personal Information, and by using such services you assume the risk that the Personal Information provided by you may be viewed and used by third parties.
COMPLIANCE
Modern States will use a self-assessment approach to verify compliance with this Privacy Policy and periodically verify that the Privacy Policy is accurate, comprehensive for the information intended to be covered, prominently displayed, implemented and accessible.
If you believe that your Personal Information has been processed or disclosed in violation of this Privacy Policy, Modern States encourages you to raise any concerns using the contact information provided in this Privacy Policy. Modern States will investigate and attempt to resolve any complaints and disputes regarding use and disclosure of Personal Information.
OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Protection for Children
The Modern States Services are not targeted to children, and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children younger than 13 years of age. If we become aware that Personal 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. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13 that was collected without the consent of such child’s parent or guardian, please contact us [email protected].
In the event a student under age 13 desires to use the service, parents will be required to provide a verified means of providing their consent for the information disclosed or potentially disclosed by students.
Contacting Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us via one of these methods:
On this Site, via the CONTACT US section, if available
by e-mail at [email protected]
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 Modern States Services. Policy changes will apply only to information collected on and after the date of the change.
This Privacy Policy was last revised on October 1, 2020.