ConsumeU Privacy Policy

This policy is effective as of February 1, 2010.

ConsumeU Operating Principles

ConsumeU was built to provide uses with an entertaining website that provides recommendations on an array of consumption categories. In order to make the experience richer we also provide the opportunity to connect with friends, family and coworkers (“Classmates”) to share in the experience. Due to the gathering and sharing of all of this wonderful information, we want to make sure you understand what exactly we are collecting and what we are doing with this information so you can make an informed decision on your participation in our services.

The Information We Collect

When you visit ConsumeU and participate in the services provided, you provide us with two types of information explained below:

1) Personal Information – This is information you knowingly choose to provide that is collected by us. Some examples of this included:

a. Name
b. E-mail address
c. Gender
d. Address
e. Schools attended
f. Employer
g. Responses/Votes to items

2) Web Gathered Information – This is information that is gathered automatically when a user creates an account at ConsumeU. Below are examples of data that is obtained via this method:

a. IP address – This is only collected once for users when they create a new account
b. Cookies – we use session ID cookies to confirm that users are logged in.

Please know that the information that you share regarding Personal Information defined above, you do so at your own risk. ConsumeU does allow you to set privacy options via the Settings/Notifications page, but please be aware that no security measures are perfect. ConsumeU has no control over the actions of other website Users with whom you may choose to share your information. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that User Content you post on the Site will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Site. You acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and/or archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored your User Content.

Any improper collection or misuse of information provided on ConsumeU is a violation of the ConsumeU Terms of Service and should be reported.
If you choose to use ConsumeU’s invitation service to tell a friend about our website, we will ask you for information needed to send the invitation, such as your friend's email address. We will send your email in your name inviting him or her to visit the site. ConsumeU doesn’t store this information after you message has been sent.

Children Under Age 14

ConsumeU does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 14 or knowingly allow such persons to register. If you are under 14, please do not attempt to register for ConsumeU or send any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, or email address. No one under age 14 may provide any personal information to or on ConsumeU. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 14 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under 14, please use the Contact Us form accessible from the bottom of every page throughout our website.

Children Between the Ages of 14 and 18

We recommend that minors 14 years of age or older ask their parents for permission before sending any information about themselves to anyone over the Internet.

ConsumeU Information Usage

When you register with ConsumeU, you create your own student profile and select your account privacy settings. Your student profile information, as well as your name, birthday and photo, are displayed to people in the networks specified in your privacy settings to enable you to connect with other ConsumeU users. We may occasionally use your name and email address to send you notifications regarding new services offered by ConsumeU that we think you may find valuable.

Profile information is used by ConsumeU primarily to be presented back to and edited by you when you access the service and to be presented to others permitted to view that information by your privacy settings.

Profile information you submit to ConsumeU will be available to users of ConsumeU who are part of your Classmate network who you allow to access the information through your privacy settings. Your name, birthdate, employer, and profile picture thumbnail will be available in search results across the ConsumeU network. This is primarily so potential classmates can find you and send a classmate request. People who see your name in searches, however, will not be able to access your item responses unless they are connected with you as a classmate and allowed such access based on your privacy settings.

ConsumeU may send you service-related announcements from`time`to`time`through the general operation of the service. For instance, if a friend passes you a not, or someone requests you as a classmate, you may receive an email alerting you of these actions.

Generally, you may opt out of such emails from the Settings/Notifications page, though ConsumeU reserves the right to send you notices about your account even if you opt out of all voluntary email notifications.

ConsumeU may use information in your profile without identifying you as an individual to third parties. We do this for purposes such as aggregating how many people like or dislike a movie, TV show, book and so on throughout the ConsumeU community. We believe this not only benefits you but also the data consumer as well. We may use this information down the road to present you will relevant advertisements and offers based on your item responses. As stated above, we will not present your personal identify in any of the information that we supply to third parties.
Links

ConsumeU contains links to other websites. We are of course not responsible for the privacy practices of other web sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by ConsumeU.

Third Party Advertising

Advertisements that appear on ConsumeU are sometimes delivered (or "served") directly to users by third party advertisers. They automatically receive your IP address when this happens. These third party advertisers may also download cookies to your computer, or use other technologies such as JavaScript and "web beacons" (also known as "1x1 gifs") to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content. Doing this allows the advertising network to recognize your computer each`time`they send you an advertisement in order to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content. In this way, they may compile information about where individuals using your computer or browser saw their advertisements and determine which advertisements are clicked. ConsumeU does not have access to or control of the cookies that may be placed by the third party advertisers. Third party advertisers have no access to your contact information stored on ConsumeU unless you choose to share it with them.
This privacy policy covers the use of cookies by ConsumeU and does not cover the use of cookies or other tracking technologies by any of its advertisers.

Changing or Removing Information

Access and control over most personal information on ConsumeU is readily available through the profile editing tools. ConsumeU users may modify or delete any of their profile information at any`time`by logging into their account. Information will be updated immediately. Individuals who wish to deactivate their ConsumeU account may do so via the Contact Us form. Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of`time`but will not be generally available to members of ConsumeU.

Where you make use of the communication features of the service to share information with other individuals on ConsumeU, however, (e.g., passing a note to another ConsumeU user) you generally cannot remove such communications.

Terms of Use, Notices and Revisions

Your use of ConsumeU, and any disputes arising from it, is subject to this Privacy Policy as well as our Terms of Use and all of its dispute resolution provisions including arbitration, limitation on damages and choice of law. We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use at any time. Non-material changes and clarifications will take effect immediately, and material changes will take effect within 30 days of their posting on this site. If we make changes, we will post them and will indicate at the top of this page the policy's new effective date. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or through notice on our home page. We encourage you to refer to this policy on an ongoing basis so that you understand our current privacy policy. Unless stated otherwise, our current privacy policy applies to all information that we have about you and your account.

Contacting ConsumeU

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, please visit our Contact Us page.