myUsearch Privacy Policy
Last Revised: April 11, 2008
This privacy policy applies to the myUsearch.com and myusearchblog.com web sites only and does not cover information collected on any third-party sites to which this Web site links. The myUsearch.com site is designed for the purpose of providing students with information relating to post-secondary education, matching students with colleges and universities, and matching colleges and universities with students. Information shared between users and myUsearch.com is securely managed and safeguarded in accordance with all applicable laws and the policies and guidelines set forth below.
What type of information does myUsearch gather?
The myUsearch.com site gathers information relating to your academic history, your preferred college and/or university type, and other financial and contact information. The information you disclose to us is completely at your discretion. It is not mandatory for you to answer any question; however, please understand that in order to determine the colleges and/or universities that best match for you we will need to obtain certain information.
How is my information used?
Information supplied by you may be used for the below purposes:
- Determine your college and university matches;
- Calculate a college financial assessment score;
- Enable colleges and universities to connect with potentially interested students;
- With your permission, post your comments provided in our brief survey(s);
- Improve upon the myUsearch.com services;
- Produce statistical studies and reports related to the college admission process.
How is my information NOT used?
The information you provide is restricted to only those colleges and universities that matched with you, or those affiliates assigned to represent your matching colleges and universities. Colleges, universities, and any non-related 3rd party institutions not specifically disclosed to you in your list of college and university matches will not have access to your information. Plus, you may immediately choose, or opt out of having your indicated “Good” matches from contacting you.
Your answers to specific financial related questions will not be provided to any college, university, or 3rd party institution. Rather, in order to make your college experience more cost effective for you and your college of choice, your information is used to calculate a college financial assessment rating. Only your financial assessment rating will be available to your matching colleges and universities, or their affiliates assigned to represent them. The questions asking for your financial information and the use of the information you provide is disclosed when viewing these specific questions. All of your answers to specific financial questions are held securely and private within the myUsearch.com database.
Information gathered through traffic monitoring
Like many other Web sites, myUsearch.com is equipped with a program that monitors traffic by automatically recording every visitor's host, domain name, pages visited, length of user sessions, browser type and/or IP address. This program tracks the number of website hits, number of visitors, which parts of the site visitors frequent, and the length of time of each visit. This information does not contain personally identifiable information and is used to evaluate areas of interest and to improve the myUsearch.com site and may be provided to third parties by myUsearch.com or its affiliates.
Information gathered through the myUsearch scholarship application
Information gathered in the myUsearch scholarship application is used solely for the purposes of determining whether an applicant will be awarded the scholarship. The information provided by applicants is not used for marketing or any other purposes outside of awarding the scholarship.
What are Cookies and how does myUsearch.com use them?
Cookies are small text files placed on a user's computer hard drive when a user visits a Web site. Cookies do not contain information that is, in itself, personally identifying. Rather, cookies give each user a unique, random ID, and this ID enables our site to temporarily store “session” information while you are in our site. This information enables you to go back and forth between web pages without losing the information you have already entered. This simple convenience means you only have to enter information once, and it can be used on multiple pages when applicable. This temporary information is always removed from your memory as soon as you leave our Web site. Lastly, “Cookies” also enable myUsearch.com to calculate unique site visitors and to track usage throughout the site, which allows for analyzing non-personal data for making improvements to the myUsearch.com site.
What additional choices do you have?
At any point in time after providing myUsearch.com with your information you do not wish to continue receiving information from myUsearch.com or any of our college and university members, then you may opt out by emailing us at contactus@myusearch.com. Please be sure to place the words “remove my name” in the subject line. Please understand that if you are receiving, or receive in the future, any solicitations from any college or university that was not previously provided to you as a match, that it is due to some other source besides myUsearch.com
Security
We exercise great care in providing secure transmission of your information from your computer to our servers. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Once we receive your transmission, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.
Links to Other Web Sites
This Site may contain links to other Web sites. These other sites are not governed by this Privacy Policy. Be sure to look for the privacy policies that govern your use of these other Web sites.
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act
No person under the age of 13 should provide any personal information. In general, myUsearch.com does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from persons under the age of 13. We will knowingly accept information for persons under the age of 13 only if we receive prior written parental consent. In the event that we learn that we have in fact collected information from a child under the age of 13 without prior written parental consent, we will immediately delete the information from our database. If you believe that the myUsearch.com website contains information about any person under the age of 13, please contact us immediately at contactus@myusearch.com.
