FAQs

What is Scientific Learning Corporation?

Scientific Learning is an Oakland, California based company that applies advances in neuroscience and cognitive research to accelerate learning. We produce unique, patented products, technology and implementation strategies that build the enduring brain fitness and processing efficiency required for learning, academic, and lifelong success. You might have heard of our Fast ForWord® family of products used widely in schools throughout the US and Canada, and in dozens of other countries around the world. (See "What is the Fast ForWord family of products?" below.)
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Information Collection and Use

Information you voluntarily provide us

  • Personal Information such as your name, your child’s name, mailing address, your e-mail address, phone number, credit card information (including billing information), or other information that allows us to personally identify or contact you online or off-line. Please note with respect to your credit card number: if you use the Firefox web browser, the Autocomplete feature on Firefox may store your credit card number for the duration of your internet session.  To turn this feature off, in the browser go to Tools>Options>Privacy and uncheck box labeled "Remember what I enter in forms and the search bar."
  • Demographic Information, which may include the following types of information about you and/or your children: age or date of birth, grade level, highest level of education or graduation date, gender, products owned or of interest, and other non-personal or survey-type information including attitudes, interests, and skills. In some instances, demographic information may be combined and stored together with your personal information.
  • Login Information such as username and password or other similar information that allows us to uniquely identify your account or authenticate you prior to giving you access to your account information. When you register your child, you will need to create a user name for your child; you should choose a user name for you child that is not personally identifiable.

Information passively or automatically collected

  • Technical Information, which may include certain information or characteristics about your computer, such as the type of browser and operating system you use, your computer’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, and product license information (i.e., information about the person or system licensed/authorized to use the product and/or its supporting software applications, also known as Digital Rights Management information). For the most part, technical information remains anonymous (that is, it does not identify you personally), but in some cases it can be traced back to personal information such as an e-mail address.
  • Usage Information, which may include non-personal information about how you use or browse BrainSpark or related websites (“Website usage” data), what products you buy (“order history”), how you or your children use and interact with the basic functionalities of the product, and how your children perform and progress on certain tasks or activities when using our web-delivered products (“play data”). Certain usage information may be linked or tied to other information in your and your child’s account, including personal information.

Special note about community features

From time to time, we may provide on our websites social or community-type features for parents that may allow parents to publicly post, or share with other users, messages, stories, pictures, artwork, videos, testimonials, lesson plans, or other content. Along with such content, such permitted users may also be given the opportunity to post certain personal information about themselves or others to whom the content relates (for example, name or part of a name, city and state of residence). Although we may take certain precautions to protect those who use and participate in these activities, we cannot guarantee the privacy of these areas and are not responsible for any information you post or share. We encourage you to use common sense when using these services and never to reveal personal information about you or your children that you do not want others to see. Any information you post or share in these areas is done so at your own risk. If we choose to make any community features available to children, we will be abide by all laws in doing so.

Cookies and other web technologies

Like many other websites, we may use a variety of standard technologies to: (i) enhance and personalize your experience on BrainSpark (including saving you the time of having to repeatedly re-enter information); (ii) generate statistics and information about traffic to and on BrainSpark and related websites; and, (iii) run and measure the effectiveness of certain advertising or promotional campaigns, including those run by network advertisers on our behalf. These tools may include the following:

  • Cookies – these are small text files that we may store on your computer to remember certain things about your visit or use of BrainSpark. For example, cookies might be used to remember the content you previously viewed, your order history, items you placed in a wish list or shopping cart, or the nickname or device profile name you created when registering on BrainSpark or a related website. We may use cookies to keep track of your children’s points or rewards they generate when playing the product. We may also use cookies for security purposes, such as to lock out underage users from certain activities or services. We do not use cookies to collect personal information. However, we may use cookies to remember or store certain personal information so we can save you the time of having to re-enter this information, or, together with using other cookie information, re-market to you products in which you have previously showed interest. We may also link information contained in a cookie to personal information collected from you by other means (such as through account registration). Most common web browsers today, such as Firefox and Internet Explorer, allow you to modify your settings to block cookies entirely, alert you every time they are being sent, or allow their use by only those websites you approve. You can also delete cookies that are currently stored on your computer’s hard drive. To do this within Internet Explorer, go to Tools, then Options or Internet Options, and then choose the Privacy tab to make your selections. If you choose to disable cookies, certain features on BrainSpark may not be available or work properly.
  • Log Files – these are files that record website activity and gather non-identifiable statistics about your visit to or use of BrainSpark. Log files may help us capture, among other things: (i) your IP Address, which is a unique set of numbers assigned to your computer by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) (note that, depending on your ISP, the number assigned to your computer can be different every time you connect to the Internet); (ii) the type of browser and operating system you use; and, (iii) other information about your online session, such as the URL you came from to get to BrainSpark and the date and time you visited. In addition to using this information to better understand how BrainSpark is used, we may use information captured through log files such as an IP address (together with your personal information) to troubleshoot technical problems, maintain website safety and security, and if necessary, prohibit or restrict access to BrainSpark by certain users.
  • Web Beacons – often used to help deliver cookies or produce log files, these are small electronic images that can be embedded within a web page or included in an e-mail message and are usually invisible to the human eye. When used, web beacons (also known as “web bugs” or “clear GIFs”) may tell us such things as: how many people are coming to BrainSpark; whether they are one-time or repeat visitors; which pages they’ve viewed and for how long; how well certain online advertising campaigns are converting; and other similar website usage data. When used in an e-mail, web beacons can tell us the time the e-mail was opened, if and how many times it was forwarded, and what links users click on from within the e-mail message. Based on this information, we can adjust the content, products, services, and promotions we provide you to better meet your interests.

Information Use

We use the information collected in various ways:

  • When users visit BrainSpark and provide their user name and password, we may call up your information from our database to allow us to customize your interaction with the website and our service. For example, when your child comes back to BrainSpark to use the exercises after the first use, we will use your child’s play data to determine which exercises to present and at what point in the exercise the child should start use again. In addition, we may use information from your child’s use of our product to identify other products that may be appropriate and to communicate to you with that information.
  • If you have purchased access to the BrainPro services, information will be provided to the BrainPro tutor who will be working with you as part of the BrainPro services.
  • We may email to you special advertisements, offers, and notices. You may choose to opt-out of receiving these special advertisements, offers, and notices.
  • We may use your information to provide technical or customer support to you.
  • We use the information you provide and aggregated information to facilitate product and content development, improve our services, conduct research, and provide anonymous reporting for our business purposes.

INFORMATION SHARING AND DISCLOSURE

We may share your information, including personal information about you or your child within your account, in the following situations:

  • When we hire vendors to perform services on our behalf, such as helping us run BrainSpark, provide BrainPro services, provide rewards or prizes, fulfill a contest or sweepstakes, administer surveys, process online transactions, execute and optimize marketing/advertising campaigns, and manage and enhance consumer data. These service providers are only allowed to obtain the personal information they need to perform the specific task they have been hired to do and are prohibited from using the information for any other purpose. They have also agreed to keep your information confidential and secure. For example, UBoost is the vendor that provides our rewards program. If your child selects a prize that must be physically delivered (rather than sent through email or provided on the UBoost website), UBoost will need the address to which the prize is to be sent. If your child is under 13, UBoost has agreed to either obtain consent from you before getting the address from the child or to obtain the address from you and in any event is only permitted to use this information to fulfill a reward request.
  • If we are working with a third party that also provides services that relate to the Fast ForWord product. In this case, we may provide to that third party the contact information that you have provided to us, so that they can send you information about their services. Any emails such a third party sends to you will include a way to opt-out of receiving further emails from them.
  • If we are bought or acquired by another company (either fully or partially), merged with another company, or experience a reorganization, bankruptcy, or other similar event. If any of these events occur, your information may be shared with our successor or assign (i.e., the new company or the company that takes over), subject to the notification procedures set forth under “Changes to this Policy”.
  • If we are required to share your information because such action is reasonably necessary to comply with legal-related processes, enforce contract terms, respond to or resolve any claims (including valid consumer complaints), or otherwise protect the safety or rights (including intellectual property rights) of SLC, our customers, consumers, or the general public.
  • If we wish to generally assess (with the help of a third party company) how BrainSpark is doing in the Internet marketplace, its popularity or use amongst certain consumer demographics or profiles, and other similar performance metrics. The information disclosed for these purposes will be in aggregate form and limited to demographic or other anonymous data; no personal information will be shared.

Other Information Sharing Except as noted above, we do not share personal information about site users with third parties unless doing so is appropriate to carry out a user’s request or we reasonably believe that doing so is legally required or is in our interest to protect our property or other legal rights or the rights or property of others.

Information Practices and Sharing for Children Under 13

We recognize the importance of protecting children’s information and we strongly encourage parents to be actively involved in their children’s online activities. For this reason, we have adopted a special set of practices relating to personal information collected relating to children under the age of 13. Before reading these policies, however, please make sure to also review the sections above, which describe our privacy practices for our typical online consumers (i.e., parents).

  • We generally collect children’s personal information from adults. Access to BrainSpark is intended to be acquired by parents for their children, not to be acquired by children directly. When a child is enrolled, we will collect the name of the child and the child’s birth date from the adult who is enrolling the student. We do not knowingly collect any personal information directly from children.
  • Children’s activities are accessible with little or no personal information required. The BrainSpark and BrainPro exercises and the related third-party reward site are generally accessible without the need for the child to provide personal information. When children use BrainSpark, we may automatically collect and upload certain technical and usage information. This type of information by itself is not personally identifiable, but it may be associated with the child’s account (which includes personal information) for the purpose of producing progress reporting for a parent. If your child wishes to obtain certain kinds of rewards or prizes, you will be contacted at the email address you have provided us so that you can provide, or authorize your child to provide, additional information to the third party vendor to enable them to provide the reward or prize.
  • Parents can access and control children’s information. Parents always have the ability to review the personal information we’ve stored about their child, request that we delete their child’s personal information, or stop the further use or online collection of their child’s personal information. Please note that if you request that your child’s information be deleted or no longer collected, this may make it impossible for your child to continue to use the services you have purchased.

While BrainSpark doesn’t knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13, we recognize that children’s personal information can be sensitive and take certain steps to protect this information and help parents make informed choices about whether to permit their children to use BrainSpark.

Some of the steps we take to respect the privacy of children include:

  • Not disclosing the personal information we obtain related to children except as permitted by this policy.
  • Attempting to limit our collection of information from children only to information that is necessary for children to participate in the particular activity where such information is requested.
  • Providing parents the ability to review their child’s personal information in our possession, to ask to have it deleted, and enabling parents to refuse to allow any further collection or use of the child’s information through the website and service.

Opt-In/Opt-Out of E-Mail Communications

Upon registration or from time-to-time, you may be asked to indicate whether you are interested in receiving information from us about special offers or news about our products and services. You may also be provided with the opportunity to receive offers directly from select companies other than us. If you do not opt out of receiving these types of messages, we will occasionally send you an e-mail message that matches your request(s). You may, of course, always choose not to receive any of this information from us. At any time, you can follow a link provided in every e-mail message to unsubscribe from that mailing list or e-mail service.

Please note than any opt-out or request not to receive future email will not apply to communications that relate to services that you have already purchased (for example, progress reports or responses to support inquiries), renewal or payment confirmations or reminders, communications in the event of a change in our Terms of Service or this privacy policy and for other administrative purposes relating to your access to BrainSpark.

We do not and will not knowingly market directly to your children.

International Visitors and Customers

This website is hosted in the United States. If you are visiting from the European Union or other regions with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from U.S. law please note that you are transferring your personal data to the United States which does not have the same data protection laws as the EU and by providing your personal data you consent to: the use of your personal data for the uses identified above in accordance with this privacy policy; and the transfer of your personal data to the United States as indicated above.

Security

We use secure socket layer (SSL) to encrypt your data during transmission to us, but no data transmissions over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Consequently, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission, we make reasonable efforts to ensure security on our end to protect your information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. However, please note that this is not a guarantee that such information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered or destroyed by breach of such firewalls and other server security measures.

If we learn of a security systems breach we may attempt to notify you electronically so that you can take appropriate protective steps. By using BrainSpark or providing personal information to us you agree that we can communicate with you electronically regarding security, privacy and administrative issues relating to your use of BrainSpark. We may post a notice on BrainSpark if a security breach occurs. If this happens, you will need a web browser enabling you to view the BrainSparkLearning.com web site. We may also send an email to you at the email address you have provided to us in these circumstances. Depending on where you live, you may have a legal right to receive notice of a security breach in writing. To receive free written notice of a security breach (or to withdraw your consent from receiving electronic notice) you should notify us at privacy@brainsparklearning.com.

Linking and Third Party Sites

Please note that we are not responsible for the content or the privacy policies of websites to which our website may link. Our privacy policy does not apply to the policies and practices of companies that we do not own or control, or to people that we do not employ or manage.

Changes and Updates

We may occasionally update this policy. When we do, we will also revise the “last updated” date. For changes to this privacy policy that may be materially less restrictive on our use or disclosure of personal information you have provided to us, we will attempt to obtain your consent before implementing the change. We encourage you to periodically review this policy to stay informed about how we are protecting the personal information we collect. Your continued use of this website constitutes your agreement to this privacy policy and any updates.

Contacting BrainSpark

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about this privacy policy, please email us at privacy@brainsparklearning.com

Postal Mail Address:

Scientific Learning Corporation
300 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza,Suite 600
Oakland, CA 94612
Attention: Privacy Officer

If you have a privacy concern regarding BrainSpark or this policy and if you cannot satisfactorily resolve it through the use of this site you should then write to: privacy@brainsparklearning.com. We are committed to cooperating with you to achieve a proper resolution of your privacy concerns.

Effective Date: March 15, 2009

 
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