This Privacy Policy outlines how College Confidential, including The College Fair (hereinafter collectively referred to as “College Confidential,” “we,” “us,” “our’), collects, uses, and shares personal information when you use our websites at www.collegeconfidential.com and www.thecollegefair.com (the “Sites”), including all content, information, and functionality available through the Sites, and any other College Confidential products and services, including the College Fair App (collectively referred to as the “Services”). At College Confidential, we recognize that privacy is important, and we hope this Privacy Policy will help you make informed decisions about sharing personal information with us. College Confidential is an unincorporated entity owned by Strada Education Network, Inc., a nonprofit corporation.
Your Consent to this Privacy Policy
By using our Services, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy as they may be amended from time to time. This Privacy Policy applies to all users of the Services. By providing information to College Confidential, you understand and consent to the collection, maintenance, processing, and transfer of such information in and to the United States and other countries and territories, in accordance with United States law. We reserve the right to modify or revise this Privacy Policy. We will notify users if we make material modifications to the policy; however, we reserve the right to make other modifications or revisions without prior notice to you. We recommend that users review the most up-to-date version of the Privacy Policy periodically at the Sites. Your continued use of the Sites and Services indicates your agreement to be bound by subsequent modifications or revisions to the policy.
Collection, Use & Sharing of Information
In order for us to provide you with our Services, we need to collect and utilize some personal information. “Personal Information” is information that is reasonably capable of being used to identify you, and we have provided specific examples of the Personal Information we may have collected about you below. Personal Information does not include de-identified or aggregated information, which is information in which identifiable information is removed and that cannot reasonably be used to identify an individual. We may use and share de-identified or aggregated information for any purpose.
Categories of Personal Information We Collect:
Categories of Sources for Personal Information We Have Collected:
Our Business or Commercial Purposes for Collecting Personal Information and Categories of Third Parties to Whom the Information was Disclosed:
In addition, where consistent with applicable laws and regulations, we may disclose Personal Information in all categories above:
Choices and Access Concerning Personal Information
Your choices regarding our use and disclosure of Personal Information
We give you certain choices regarding our use and disclosure of your Personal Information for promotional purposes. If you no longer want to receive promotional-related emails or texts from us, you may opt out according to instructions in such communications. Please note that if you opt out of receiving marketing-related messages, we may still send you important administrative messages. Please be aware that your carrier may charge you for receiving these text messages depending on your phone plan.
California residents additionally have the right to request in writing: (a) a list of the categories of personally identifiable information, such as name, email address, mailing address, and the type of services provided to the customer that a business has disclosed to third parties (including affiliates that are separate legal entities) during the immediately preceding calendar year for the third-parties’ direct marketing purposes; and (b) the names and addresses of all such third parties. To request the above information, please contact us at: admin@collegeconfidential.com.
Access, change, or deletion of Personal Information
To the extent applicable law provides you with the right to review, correct, update, or delete Personal Information that you previously have provided to us, please contact us at admin@collegeconfidential.com. We will respond to your request consistent with applicable law.
Individuals in the European Economic Area (“EEA”)
Our role as data controller and data processor.
College Confidential generally acts as the data controller of your Personal Information submitted through the Services, including our forum; however, under certain circumstances, the schools and institutions we are contracted with may engage us to provide them with certain processing services related to Personal Information owned or controlled by the school and institution. We are not responsible for any school’s or institution’s use of Personal Information for which it is an owner or controller. As processor for a school or institution, we only act under their instruction with respect to the processing of your Personal Information. To learn more about how a specific school or institution may use Personal Information, you should review its respective privacy policy.
Legal basis for our processing of your Personal Information.
As further outlined in this Privacy Policy, we rely on your Personal Information for the legitimate commercial purposes of providing our Services to you or to perform our responsibilities under a contract with you. We also may rely on your consent to collect, use, or disclose your Personal Information. We will only use your Personal Information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably believe that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your Personal Information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and explain the legal basis that allows us to do so. Please note that we may process your Personal Information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law. If we are relying on your consent to process your Personal Information, you have the right to withdraw your consent by contacting us at admin@collegeconfidential.com.
Data Subject Requests.
Individuals located in the EEA have the right to access Personal Information we hold about you and to ask that your Personal Information be corrected, erased, or transferred. You may also have the right to object to, or request that we restrict, certain processing. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please send an email to admin@collegeconfidential.com. We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your Personal Information, or to exercise any of your other rights. This is a security measure to ensure that Personal Information is not disclosed to a person who has no right to receive it.
Questions or Complaints.
If you are situated in the EEA and have any complaints regarding our privacy practices as a data controller, you have the right to make a complaint at any time to your local Supervisory Authority. However, we would appreciate the chance to address your concerns before you approach your Supervisory Authority so please contact us in the first instance. If you are located in the EEA and have a complaint, please contact us at admin@collegeconfidential.com.
Third-Party Sites and Services
Our Services may contain links to other websites and services operated by colleges, universities, and other educational services providers, social networks, and other third parties. In addition, our features, widgets, or portions of the Services may be integrated on other sites and applications. These links and integrations are not an endorsement of, or representation that we are affiliated with, any third party. We do not control third-party websites, applications, or services, and are not responsible for their actions. Other websites and services follow different rules regarding their collection, use, and sharing of your personal information. We encourage you to read their privacy policies to learn more.
Data Integrity and Retention
We take reasonable steps to ensure that the Personal Information we process is accurate, complete, and current, but we depend on our users to update or correct their Personal Information whenever necessary. We also take reasonable security measures to protect against unauthorized access to, or unauthorized alteration, disclosure, or destruction of, data.
We will only retain your information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for your information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your information, the purposes for which we process your information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements, including taking into account the freedoms of speech and expression.
A user’s email address can be updated at any time by emailing admin@collegeconfidential.com with your user name, email address on file, and new email address. We ask individual users to identify themselves and the information requested to be corrected or removed before processing such requests, and we may decline to process requests that require extraordinary technical effort, jeopardize the privacy of others, or would be extremely impractical.
User accounts are personal to the registered user. In the event of the death of a user, the user’s account will be deactivated; however, existing content will not be removed from the forums unless required by law. College Confidential cannot provide any Personal Information regarding the user or the account (including user name and password) to any family member, next of kin, or legal representative without an order from a court of competent jurisdiction compelling College Confidential to do so.
Data Relating to Children Under 13
Our Services are not directed at, and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from, anyone under the age of 13 (or such other age as may be restricted under local law). If we are made aware that we have received such information, or any information in violation of our policy, we will use reasonable efforts to locate and remove that information from our records.
If you wish to have your child’s information removed, please contact College Confidential by email at admin@collegeconfidential.com.We will need to verify the identity of anyone requesting information about a child to ensure that the person is in fact the child’s parent or legal guardian. However, please understand that, even after removal, your child's content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or by others if a user has copied or stored such content.
FOR EU USERS ONLY: When you use our site, pre-selected companies may access and use certain information on your device and about your interests to serve ads or personalized content. You may revisit or change consent-choices at any time by clicking here.
Changes to this Policy
Please note that this Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We reserve the right, at our discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions from this Privacy Policy at any time. However, if at any time in the future we plan to use your Personal Information in a way that materially differs from this Privacy Policy, we will post such changes here or email you. We recommend that users of our Services review the most up-to-date version of the Terms of Service, Forum Rules, and Privacy Policy periodically at www.collegeconfidential.com. If you have any additional questions or concerns about the Privacy Policy, please contact us at: admin@collegeconfidential.com.
Updated: 2/18/21