German With Laura’s Privacy Policy

Last Modified: May 1, 2023

Introduction

German with Laura LLC (“Company” or “We” or “Us” or “German with Laura”) respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this policy. German with Laura provides an online platform to learn about German and connect with other students studying the German language through the website germanwithlaura.com (our “Website“) (collectively, the “Services”).

This policy describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you visit the Website and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.

This policy applies to the information we collect:

• On this Website.
• In email, text, and other electronic messages between you and German with Laura.

It does not apply to information collected by:

• Us offline or through any other means, including on any other website operated by Company or any third party; or 
• Any third party, including through any application or content (including advertising) that may link to or be accessible from the website

Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our website. By accessing or using this website, you agree to this privacy policy. This policy may change from time to time (see Changes to Our Privacy Policy Section below). Your continued use of this website after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates. 

Children Under the Age of 16

The Short: If you’re under 16, you cannot use our Website.

Our website is not intended for children under the age of majority in their state. No one under the age of majority may provide any information to or on the website. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you are under 16, do not use or provide any information on this website, make any purchases through the website, or provide any information about yourself to us. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 16 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 16, please contact us at [email protected].

Information We Collect About You and How We Collect It

In Short: Some information – such as IP address and/or browser and device characteristics – is collected automatically when you visit our Services. Other information – like name and address- is collected upon you providing the information. 

We collect several types of information from and about users of our website, including information:

• By which you may be personally identified, such as name, postal address, email address, telephone number, and location (“personal information“); 
• That is about you but individually does not identify you, such as your search or browsing history and your credit card numbers; and/or
• About your internet connection, the equipment you use to access our website, and usage details.

We collect this information:

• Directly from you when you provide it to us.
• Automatically as you navigate through the site. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies. 
• From third parties, for example, Google analytics.

Information You Provide to Us

The information we collect on or through our website may include:

• Information that you provide by filling in forms on our website. This includes information provided to order products, create an account, or to access free content. 
• Records and copies of your correspondence (including email addresses), if you contact us.
• Details of transactions you carry out through our website and of the fulfillment of your orders. You may be required to provide financial information before placing an order through our website.
• Your search queries on the website.

You also may provide information, such as reviews, to be published or displayed (hereinafter, “posted“) on public areas of the website or transmitted to other users of the Website or third parties (collectively, “User Contributions“). Your User Contributions are posted on and transmitted to others at your own risk. We cannot control the actions of other users of the website with whom you may choose to share your User Contributions. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that your User Contributions will not be viewed by unauthorized persons.

Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies

We may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including:

•  Details of your visits to our website, including browsing data, location, other communication data, and the resources you access and use on the website.
• Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type.

We also may use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or other online services (behavioral tracking). 

The information we collect automatically may include personal information, or we may maintain it or associate it with personal information we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. It helps us to improve our website and to deliver a better and more personalized service, including by enabling us to:

• Estimate our audience size and usage patterns.
• Store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize our website according to your individual interests.
• Speed up your searches.
• Recognize you when you return to our website.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:

• Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting, you may be unable to access certain parts of our website. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our website. 
• Flash Cookies. Certain features of our website may use local stored objects (or Flash cookies) to collect and store information about your preferences and navigation to, from, and on our website. Flash cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as are used for browser cookies. For information about managing your privacy and security settings for Flash cookies, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.
• Web Beacons. Pages of our Website and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit the Company, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity). For example, these can collect IP addresses. 

Third-Parties

The Short: We use third parties to help us do things we cannot, like processing credit card payments, shipping your products, or learning about our Website traffic. 

We use a variety of third parties to process your payments, ship your orders, provide reminders about courses, and other services. We also use third-party advertisers who may collect information about you and provide that information to us. These third parties may use automatic tracking tools, like cookies, to collect information about you when you use our website, or they may receive your information through your consent. We do not control how these third parties collect, transfer, or use your information. If you are interested in these third-parties privacy methods, the following are some of the third parties we use, why we use them and links to their privacy information: 

• Thinkific, creation, and selling of online educational courses. https://www.thinkific.com/privacy-policy/
• Stripe, online ordering, and payment processing. https://stripe.com/privacy 
• PayPal, online ordering, and payment processing. https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/privacy-full
• Convertkit, course subscription and data maintenance, email marketing. https://convertkit.com/privacy
• Book Printing UK, book publishing. https://www.bookprintinguk.com/about/privacy-policy
• Google Analytics, website traffic and SEO data collection, https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites
• Shopify, ecommerce business, online store, and website hosting. https://www.shopify.com/legal/privacy

For information about how you can opt-out of receiving targeted advertising from many providers, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.

How We Use Your Information

The Short: We use your information for the purposes you gave it to us (ex fulfilling your orders), and we use website statistics to learn how to increase customer satisfaction. 

We do not sell personal information. We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information:

• To facilitate account creation and logon process. If you choose to link your account with us to a third party account (such as your Google or Facebook account), we use the information you allowed us to collect from those third parties to facilitate account creation and logon process for the performance of the contract.
• To provide you access to the online courses and features. We use your account and other information to provide you with access to the courses on the Website. This access includes the ability to ask questions and talk with other users, which sometimes requires you to provide a username or other information. 
• To send you marketing and promotional communications. We and/or our third party marketing partners may use the personal information you send to us for our marketing purposes, if this is in accordance with your marketing preferences. You can opt-out of our marketing emails at any time (see the “WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS” below).
• Fulfill and manage your orders. We may use your information to fulfill and manage your orders, payments, returns, and exchanges made through the Services.
• Deliver targeted advertising to you. We may use your information to develop and display content and advertising (and work with third parties who do so) tailored to your interests and/or location and to measure its effectiveness.
• To respond to user inquiries/offer support to users. We may use your information to respond to your inquiries and solve any potential issues you might have with the use of our Services.
• For other Business Purposes. We may use your information for other Business Purposes, such as data analysis, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and to evaluate and improve our Services, products, marketing and your experience. We may use and store this information in aggregated and anonymized form so that it is not associated with individual end users and does not include personal information. We will not use identifiable personal information without your consent.
• For any other purpose with your consent.

Disclosure of Your Information

The Short: We work with service providers who may receive your information (ex our shippers need your address). For more info on who receives your data, check out the chart at the bottom of this policy. 

We may process or share data based on the following legal basis:

• Consent: We may process your data if you have given us specific consent to use your personal information in a specific purpose.
• Legitimate Interests: We may process your data when it is reasonably necessary to achieve our legitimate business interests.
• Performance of a Contract: Where we have entered into a contract with you, we may process your personal information to fulfill the terms of our contract.
• Legal Obligations: We may disclose your information where we are legally required to do so in order to comply with applicable law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process, such as in response to a court order or a subpoena (including in response to public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements).
• Vital Interests: We may disclose your information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violations of our policies, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person and illegal activities, or as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.

We may disclose personal information that we collect, or you provide as described in this privacy policy:

• To our subsidiaries and affiliates.
• To contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business, such as Book Printing UK, Thinkific, Shopify, and Converkit, advertisers, and others to provide access to our services and process payments. 
• To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it. For example, if you give us an email address to subscribe to our mailing list.
• For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.
• With your consent.

We may also disclose your personal information:

• To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request.
• To enforce or apply our terms of usage and other agreements, including billing and collection purposes.
• If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of German with Laura, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

We may disclose aggregated information about our users without restriction.

Your Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information

The Short: Check out these resources to learn more on how to control your data. 

We strive to inform you of your choices regarding your personal information. The following may provide you control over your information or more information on how your information is used: 

• Tracking Technologies and Advertising. You can opt out of receiving targeted ads from members of the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) on the NAI’s website. You can also view, delete, or add interest categories associated with your browser by visiting:https://adssettings.google.com.You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies or to alert you when cookies are being sent. At this moment, our website is unable to receive or honor web browser Do Not Track signals. 
• Third-Party Privacy Policies. As discussed in the Third Parties Section, we use third-parties to process orders, ship orders, and provide other services through our Website. Please look at the Third Parties Section of this Policy for links to their privacy policies.
• Targeted Advertising. We work with Google, Facebook, and other companies to advertise our products. You can visit their websites to learn more about their own privacy policies. 

We do not control third parties’ collection or use of your information to serve interest-based advertising. However, these third parties may provide you with ways to choose not to have your information collected or used in this way. Please use the links above to learn more about your options.

California residents may have additional personal information rights and choices. Please see Your Local State Privacy Rights below for more information.

Accessing and Correcting Your Information

The Short: If you have a question or issue, let us know. 

If you would like to view your user account or terminate your account, you can log into account settings to update your account. 

You may also send us an email at [email protected] request access to, correct or delete any personal information you have provided to us. We cannot delete your personal information except by also deleting your user account. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect, or prevent us from fulfilling any purchase orders or return or refund requests. 

California residents may have additional personal information rights and choices. Please see Your Local State Privacy Rights for more information.

Your Local State Privacy Rights

The Short: You might have additional rights to protect your data and if you’re curious if you can assert these rights, reach out, and we’ll help you learn more about your data.

In the US, many states have passed privacy laws to protect their local residents, for example, California, Colorado, and Virginia. 

In general, if businesses meet the requirements set by the laws, these laws provide residents with the right: 

• To opt-out of the sale of their data
• Know what’s happening with their data
• Access their data 
• Delete their data

To request to exercise these rights, please submit a request by emailing us at [email protected]. Only you, or someone legally authorized to act on your behalf, may make a request to know or delete related to your personal information. 

Please note we may deny a deletion request if keeping your information is necessary to complete a transaction with you for our goods or services, to allow you to access the Services (if you still desire to), and other reasons allowed under the laws, such as detecting security incidents or complying with a legal obligation. 

If you’re a Virginia resident, you can learn more about the Virginia privacy law at https://www.oag.state.va.us/consumer-protection/files/tips-and-info/Virginia-Consumer-Data-Protection-Act-Summary-2-2-23.pdf. 

If you’re a Colorado resident, you can learn more about the Colorado privacy protection at https://coag.gov/resources/data-protection-laws/. 

If you are a California resident, California law may provide you with additional rights regarding our use of your personal information. To learn more about your California privacy rights, visit the California CCPA website. 

This resource, https://www.bytebacklaw.com/state-privacy-law-database/, provides information on all state privacy laws, including pending legislation. 

Please note we do not sell your personal information. 

International Users

The Short: If you’re an international user, you might have additional rights to protect your data and if you’re curious if you can assert these rights, reach out, and we’ll help you learn more about your data.

If you are resident in the European Economic Area. you may have certain rights. EU residents have the right to: 

• Access. You can request a copy of the information collected, and the copy provided will be in a commonly readable format.
• Correction. If inaccurate or incomplete, you can correct or update your personal data on file. This can be done for most information on your Account settings.
• Deletion. You can request we delete your personal data. 
• Stop Processing. You can request us to stop processing your data. Please note there are some situations where we may have to continue to process your data, such as to continue to provide you access to the console or to finish a transaction. 
• Object. You have the right to object if we are using your data for a public interest task or for legitimate interest. Please note we try to only process your data when you have given consent to perform contracts with you and only have a legitimate interest in collecting your IP address to gauge website interest and responding to emails. All other process of your data occurs via contractual obligations, such as ordering sensors, or your consent, such as when you register an account for the console. 
• Withdraw Consent. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time and can do this by following the instructions on your ability to delete information. Please note there are some situations where we require processing your data, such as to continue to provide you access to the console or to finish a transaction, and withdrawing your consent may prevent you from accessing services.

If you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal information, you also have the right to complain to your local data protection supervisory authority. You can find their contact details here: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/bodies/authorities/index_en.htm. 

You may also send us an email at [email protected] to request access to, correct or delete any personal information that you have provided to us in addition to using any other rights you may have. 

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

You are responsible for checking this policy from time to time to check for any changes. The date the privacy policy was last revised is identified at the top of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date active and deliverable email address for you as we may attempt to notify you via email of changes.

Contact Information

To ask questions or comment about this privacy policy and our privacy practices, contact us at: 

[email protected]

German with Laura LLC
301 N Duluth Ave
Sioux Falls, SD 57104

The following is a chart to further assist you in understanding how your data is collected, why, and who receives the data. We may collect the personal information categories listed below, and types of data give examples of the specific data we may collect in each category. We do not sell information. This chart may be updated from time to time without notice.