Privacy Policy

Privacy Notice

Effective: 9/23/2024

This Homeschool.com Privacy Notice (“Notice”) is provided by VKidz Holdings, Inc. (“we,” “us” or “our”) and applies to the personal information collected, used, and disclosed through use of the Homeschool.com website and our services related to that site (“Site”).  Homeschool.com is operated by VKidz Holdings, Inc., a subsidiary of Cambium Intermediate Holdings LLC.    

Your continued use of the Site indicates your consent to our privacy practices as described in this Notice.   

We categorize personal information as any data elements we process which either alone, or combined, identifies, or reasonably could be used to identify any natural person; or, which directly identifies a user’s electronic processing device or specific location.

The Site is designed for use by adult users over the age of eighteen (18) years old.  People under the age of eighteen (18) may not establish accounts with, or use services provided through, the Site.

What We Mean by “Process” Personal Information

When we use the term “process” or “processing” we mean collection, use, storage, disclosure, transmission, or any activity related to, or which uses, that data. 

Personal Information We Collect

We strive to only collect and process data elements which are reasonably necessary, proportionate, and not excessive for the uses for which we need to process that data. 

The type of personal information we process about you depends upon how you interact with the Site.  If you establish an account with us, the categories of personal information we may collect about you include:

• Identifiers such as your first and last name, postal mailing address, phone number, email; 
• Commercial information (such as transaction data, purchase history, or delivery information); 
• Usage data (digital data elements and statistics relating to your use of the Site, and inferences regarding your interests); 
• Geo-location information (such as city, state and zip code associated with your IP address or derived through Wi-Fi triangulation; and with your permission in accordance with your mobile device settings, precise geolocation information from GPS-based functionality on your mobile devices); 
• Browser agent information and other network and device identifiers; 
• Professional or employment information; 
• Information about personal preferences and interests (for example, your interest in specific topics or types of learning applications); 
• Financial account details (such as credit or debit card information if you make a purchase); 
• Inference information about you (such as preferences, characteristics, and behaviors); 
• Legally protected classifications (such as race, gender and ethnicity); 
• Profile data about you and any inferences drawn from the profile data (such as characteristics, behaviors, attitudes); and 
• Sensitive personal information (such as account log-in; religious or philosophical beliefs; gender identification; or information relating to learning differences or disabilities related to interest in specific learning applications).

How We Use Personal Information We Collect

In general, we use personal information we collect for the following purposes:

• to provide the functionality of the Site and related services you may request via the Site including maintaining or servicing accounts, providing customer service, processing or fulfilling orders and transactions, verifying customer information, processing payments, or providing similar services;
• auditing related to a current interaction with you and concurrent transactions, including, but not limited to, counting ad impressions to unique visitors, verifying positioning and quality of ad impressions, tracking purchases you may make from one of our business partners such as from a referral link on the Site or your use of a discount or referral code obtained from our newsletter or through the Site so we may collect referral fees from the entity to which you were referred by us;      
• short-term, transient use, including, but not limited to, the contextual customization of ads or Site content shown as part of the same interaction;
• for analytics purposes (such as determining how many users use the Site, when, what portions of the Site and contents are used, user demographic information, the sites referring to the Site and sites to which users may navigate);
• to market and/or advertise our goods and services, or the goods and services of others, to you;
• detecting security incidents, protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, and prosecuting those responsible for that activity;
• debugging to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality;
• conducting internal research and development for new Site related services and features;
• undertaking activities to verify or maintain the quality or safety of a service or device that is owned, manufactured, manufactured for, or controlled by, us and to improve, upgrade, or enhance the Site; and
• to advance our commercial or economic interests, such as by referring you to other sites and services by us, our affiliated entities, or other third parties for which we may receive payment.

You may opt out of marketing messages and advertising as indicated in the portion of this Notice entitled How You May Contact Us and How to Exercise Privacy Rights, as otherwise described in this Notice, or as provided directly in the communication method you have received (such as an unsubscribe method in a text or email).

Personal Information We Share with Others

We may disclose your personal information to our business divisions as needed for them to help support the Site and related services. VKidz Holdings, the operator of the Site, also operates Time4Learning, Time4MathFacts, CourseBridge, and Brightspire Virtual School (“Business Units”).  Some personnel of VKidz Holdings and Cambium Intermediate Holdings also work to support these other Business Units.  However, all personal information processed from the Site is only shared as needed for the shared support services those personnel provide to both Homeschool.com and other VKidz Holdings business activities.

We may disclose your personal information to our service providers who help us support the Site and provide related services, such as delivering products, protecting the security and integrity of the Site and our systems, correcting technical problems and malfunctions of the Site and otherwise providing information technology support services, carrying-out support functions such as financial accounting and services, legal advice and services, and taking precautions to protect health and safety and preventing crimes or fraud.  When we share your information with service providers, we enter into agreements with them designed to ensure that they will manage your personal information in accordance with our instructions and the statements in this Notice. 

We do not sell your personal information as that term is traditionally understood. However, some of our disclosures of personal information may be considered a “sale” or “share” as those terms are defined under applicable privacy laws. If you engage with an advertisement from an advertiser on our Site, we may share your personal information with that advertiser and if you are referred to that advertiser’s site, you may provide other personal information directly to them.  We do not control the processing of your personal information that you may submit to those advertisers on other sites which we do not operate and control and the personal information you submit to those other businesses will be processed in accordance with the privacy practices of those other businesses.   

We may disclose and/or transfer your personal information in connection with a sale, merger, consolidation, change in control, transfer of assets, reorganization or liquidation of our business.  In such circumstances we will take reasonable steps designed to ensure that the entities to whom we disclose your personal information and/or any successor entity will treat your personal information in accordance with the statement in this Notice. 

We may disclose your personal information to law enforcement and related governmental agencies if we are required to do so by law, and to private parties if we are compelled to do so in accordance with applicable legal requirements such as if we receive an enforceable subpoena from a court of competent jurisdiction.  We also may disclose your personal information to third parties if we have reason to believe that disclosing such information is necessary to conduct investigations of possible breaches of law, to cooperate in any legal investigation, or to identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who may be violating any agreement or policy with us. 

How We Collect Personal Information

We generally collect personal information directly from you through your use of the Site and the related services you request.  This information may be directly sent to us by you, or we may passively collect it through technologies used on the Site. We may also collect information about you from third parties such advertising providers; analytics providers and advertisers and marketers.

When you interact with the Site, we, and other parties, use technologies through the Site, to automatically and passively collect data about how the Site is being accessed and used, which can include information about your devices and/or your browser. 

We (and the parties acting on our behalf) may collect information directly from your browser interacting with our Site and through emails we send to you. We may also collect it through cookies, scripts, pixels and similar technologies, which typically work by placing a small file (like a text file or graphic) on your browser or reading unique identifiers from your device. 

Cookies and Tags.

Cookies are small pieces of data saved to your browser or device that allow us to identify your device as you use the Site or access your account.  We categorize cookies as strictly necessary or essential (such as those need to allow you to use your account), functional such as those that may help you use of navigate the Site during a session, and tracking or advertising, such as those that allow us to understand your use of the Site, infer your interests, advertise to you, or track and measure purchases you may make from our Site, or other websites.   We use both session and persistent cookies.  Session cookies are cookies that disappear from your computer or browser when you turn off your computer or leave the Site. Persistent cookies stay on your computer even after you log off, navigate to another site, or turn off your computer. 

We also use pixels and beacons to read information from your device. We call these technologies “tags.”  The information collected by the tags will be disclosed to or collected directly by the other parties we authorize through the Site.  We use the information from those tags to evaluate your use of the Site, personalize content on the Site and through other services such as sending you emails and measuring if, when, and how often you open the emails from us, for example.  We also use the information for advertising purposes to serve you interest-based advertisements, on the Site or other web sites you visit.  We also use tags to track your purchases from other web sites or services to which we may refer you, such as if you decide to purchase from a curriculum provider to which we have referred you. 

Cookies and tags are used to identify your device and to collect and share information and may be used to create profiles about your perceived interests to personalize your experience on our Site and advertise to you through emails, texts, and on other web sites you may visit.  

We do not control the use of your information when it is collected and used by these other companies we allow to operate on the Site. 

We allow companies, including the below, to load cookies and/or operate tags on the Site or in emails we send to you:

Google Analytics – We use Google Analytics to obtain information about your use of the Site and for targeted advertising.  To find out more information about how Google uses your information collected through Google Analytics, please visit www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.    One method you may use to opt-out of processing personal information through Google Analytics is to load the Google Analytics browser opt-out plug-in which you can find here.  You may also refer to the section of this privacy notice entitled How to Opt-Out of Tracking for more information on other methods of how to opt-out from passive technology collection and tracking.  

Social Media Links

The Site includes social media features, such as the Facebook, Pinterest, X, YouTube, and Instagram links.  If you use those links you may share personal information with those services.  We are not responsible for how those services use your personal information if you navigate to those sites.

How to Opt-Out of Tracking          

Cookie Consent Tool:  We use an online tool that will allow you to make choices about whether to allow tracking technologies on our website.  When you visit the Site, a cookie consent banner will appear that will allow you choices.  We categorize cookies as three types:  strictly necessary, functional or performance, and tracking or advertising.  You cannot disable strictly necessary cookies as they are required for the Site to work with your browser and for us to deliver the Site to you.   We do not share or use data related to strictly necessary cookies for tracking, advertising, or any other purposes except to safely enable you to use the Site.  Functional or performance cookies are used to enhance features of the Site and personalize it to you.  We do not use or share data from functional cookies for advertising or to track you across sites or over time, but we do use them to track your use of the Site and preferences.  Tracking or advertising cookies are shared with other third parties and used to track you across sites and over time for advertising purposes such as to display online ads to you.  The third parties with which we share the data from the Site might also use the data to infer characteristics about your interests for their own business purposes.  For more information about what cookies are running on the Site and their uses, you can click on the “Preferences” button on our cookie banner.  You may accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or select which types of cookies you wish to allow. 

Browser Controls:  In addition to our cookie consent tool, you may also disable cookies through your browser.  You can find further Information about how to disable cookies in your browser here.  

Global Privacy Control:  Global Privacy Control (GPC) is a technology standard that allows you to send a signal to our Site.  To find out more about GPC and how to enable it, you can refer to this site.   If you send a GPC signal indicating an intention to opt-out from tracking, we will automatically turn off all non-essential cookies on our Site.  That may affect your ability to use certain functions of the Site. 

Do Not Track:  Some browsers allow you to enable sending a do not track (DNT) signal to our Site.  If you enable DNT, we will automatically turn off all non-essential cookies on the Site.

Opting Out from Advertising Network Providers:   We use tools and companies that help us track your use of the Site and other sites to send you interest based advertising online.  Some of these providers may participate in one of the following self-regulatory programs for online behavioral advertising, which provide other methods to allow you to opt-out from interest-based advertising that they may send you on our behalf or their other clients.  You may exercise your choices by taking appropriate steps as outlined at the following links:

• Networking Advertising Initiative (http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/)
• Digital Advertising Alliance (http://www.aboutads.info/choices/)
• DAA App Choices Mobile App (Mobile Devices Only) – For mobile devices (e.g., smartphone, tablets), you may consider downloading the DAA AppChoices Mobile App to manage such technology.

Some of these methods may be based upon loading opt-out cookies into your browser.  If you clear your cookies from your browser, you may have to re-visit these sites to make your selection.

Please note that even if you reject such technology, you may continue to receive advertisements, but the advertisements will not be tailored to your browsing activities and interests.

Disabling Tracking Pixels:

If you want to opt out from any tracking pixels in emails we send to you, you can adjust your email program setting to prevent automatic downloading of images.

Third-Party Links      

The Site may contain links to third-party websites that are not controlled by us. Any such links are made available to you as a convenience, and you agree to use these links at your own risk.  Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of such third-party services. Consult their separate privacy policy in regard to their privacy practices.  When you make a purchase from one of our business partners from a link or using a discount or referral code obtained from our newsletter or through the Site, that purchase occurs on a third-party website, and you should review the applicable terms and conditions for use of, or purchase on, that other website; we do not control third-party terms. If you interact with one of our Sites on a third-party social sharing website (for example, the Homeschool.com account on Facebook®), your use of the      third-party platform is subject to its separate privacy and usage terms.  

Retention of Personal Information

Personal information is retained for so long as necessary and required to support the Site and our related services and for a reasonable period of time after that as necessary for our legal compliance obligations.

If you set up an account with us, and your account is inactive for a period of one year, we may delete your information and close your account.  We may contact you to provide notice that we intend to close your account and delete your personal information.  Those later notices may advise you of further actions to take if you choose not to keep your account active. 

How You May Contact Us and How to Exercise Privacy Rights

Applicable laws may give you certain rights with respect to your personal information that we process.

Some of these those rights under applicable laws may include:

               A. The right to know what personal information we process about you, including categories of data, sources of it, the business purposes for collecting, selling, or sharing it, and the categories of third-party service providers to which it may be disclosed.

               B. The right to request that we delete personal information we have collected about you, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable request, we will delete (and direct our Service Providers to delete) your personal information, unless an exception applies.   Examples when we may deny your request to delete include:

1. when we must retain your information to complete a transaction request or provide the services to you;
2. take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you;
3. detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities;
4. debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality;
5. exercise free speech, ensure the right of another person to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law;
6. comply with other applicable laws;
7. Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information’s deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research’s achievement, if you previously provided informed consent;
8. Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us; and/or,
9. otherwise comply with a legal obligation.

               C. The right to correct inaccurate personal information we maintain about you.

               D. The right to opt-out of the processing of personal information for purposes of (i) targeted advertising, (ii) the sale of personal information, or (iii) profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects concerning the consumer.   

               E. The right not to receive discriminatory treatment for exercising your privacy rights.

               F. In some states, if we refuse to take action on a request, you may appeal our decision within a reasonable period of time by contacting us as outlined below and specifying you wish to appeal. We will inform you in writing of any action taken or not taken in response to the appeal, including a written explanation of the reasons for the decisions. If the appeal is denied, you may submit a complaint to the appropriate regulatory authority for your state.

If you wish to exercise any privacy rights that may apply under applicable laws, you may contact us you may contact as follows:

You may also contact us by email here: [email protected]

You may also contact us by phone at 888-771-0914.

You may fill out an online form here. 

To consider your request, we may have to authenticate you, or your representative’s authority to make the request.  Depending upon the type of request, we may ask you and any individual you appoint to act on your behalf to authenticate your account with information we have on record, which may include questions about information likely known only through your account (if you have an account), or other information about use of the Site.  We will never ask you for passwords to authenticate a rights request.

Notice to Residents of Countries Outside the United States. We are headquartered in the United States and currently our Site is designed for individuals located in the United States. The United States may have privacy and security laws that differ from those in your country.  If you are located outside of the United States, be advised that any information you provide to us will be transferred to, stored in, and accessed by people in, the United States.  By submitting information to us, you authorize its transfer, storage, and access within the United States. 

Supplemental Information for California Residents

If you reside in California, we are required by the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”) (collectively, “California Privacy Law”) to provide you with information about how we used and disclosed your personal information in the preceding 12 months. You may also have certain rights with regard to your personal information. We have included this California-specific information below.

CA Personal Information. We may collect certain categories and specific pieces of information about individuals that are considered “personal information” in California (“CA Personal Information”). Specifically, we may collect the following categories of CA Personal Information: identifiers, characteristics of protected classifications under California or federal law, commercial information, internet or other electronic network activity information, geolocation data, professional or employment-related information, and inferences.

Sources of CA Personal Information. We may collect this CA Personal Information from you and other third parties such as service providers, business partners, or other third party vendors.

Purposes of Collection. We collect and use CA Personal Information for the following business purposes:

• to provide the functionality of the Site and related services you may request via the Site including maintaining or servicing accounts, providing customer service, processing or fulfilling orders and transactions, verifying customer information, processing payments, or providing similar services;
• auditing related to a current interaction with you and concurrent transactions, including, but not limited to, counting ad impressions to unique visitors, verifying positioning and quality of ad impressions, tracking purchases you may make from one of our business partners such as from a referral link on the Site or your use of a discount or referral code obtained from our newsletter or through the Site so we may collect referral fees from the entity to which you were referred by us;
• short-term, transient use, including, but not limited to, the contextual customization of ads or Site content shown as part of the same interaction;
• for analytics purposes (such as determining how many users use the Site, when, what portions of the Site and contents are used, user demographic information, the sites referring to the Site and sites to which users may navigate);
• to market and/or advertise our goods and services, or the goods and services of others, to you;
• detecting security incidents, protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, and prosecuting those responsible for that activity;
• debugging to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality;
• conducting internal research and development for new Site related services and features;
• undertaking activities to verify or maintain the quality or safety of a service or device that is owned, manufactured, manufactured for, or controlled by, us and to improve, upgrade, or enhance the Site; and
• to advance our commercial or economic interests, such as by referring you to other sites and services by us, our affiliated entities, or other third parties for which we may receive payment.

Selling, Sharing and Disclosing CA Personal Information.

We do not sell your CA Personal Information as that term is traditionally understood. However, some of our disclosures of CA Personal Information may be considered a “sale” or “share” as those terms are defined under California Privacy Law. Under California Privacy Law, a “sale” is broadly defined to include a disclosure for something of value, and a “share” is broadly defined to include a disclosure for cross-context behavioural advertising. We disclose your CA Personal Information as follows:

• We shared the above categories of CA Personal Information with third-party vendors and business partners to provide you with cross-context behavioral advertising.
• Apart from the above, we disclosed the above categories of CA Personal Information to service providers, third-party vendors, business partners and other third parties to receive services from them.

We do not knowingly disclose the CA Personal Information of individuals under 16 years of age, in a manner that constitutes a “sale” or “sharing” under California Privacy Law.

CA Sensitive Personal Information

Certain CA Personal Information that we collect about you may be considered sensitive personal information within the meaning of California Privacy Law, including: your Homeschool.com account log-in and password, precise geolocation (if you have this enabled), racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, and personal information collected and analyzed concerning a consumer’s health. We only use and disclose sensitive personal information as necessary in connection with the performance of services and the provision of goods, compliance with federal, state, or local laws, and as otherwise permitted by California Privacy Law.

Retention of CA Personal Information

We retain your CA Personal Information as described in the “Retention of Personal Information” section above, for so long as necessary and required to support our services to you and for a reasonable period of time after that as necessary for our legal compliance obligations. The criteria used to determine our retention periods include (i) for as long as we have an ongoing relationship with you; (ii) as required by a legal obligation to which we are subject to; or (iii) as advisable in light of our legal position (such as in regard of applicable statutes of limitations, litigation, or regulatory investigations).

Your Rights under California Privacy Law

Subject to certain exceptions detailed in California Privacy Law and other applicable laws and regulations, as a California resident, you have the right to: (i) request to know/access your CA Personal Information, including the specific pieces and the categories of CA Personal Information we have collected or shared about you and the categories of sources from which we have collected the CA Personal Information; (ii) request deletion of your CA Personal Information; (iii) receive information about the CA Personal Information about you that we have “sold” or “shared” (as such terms are defined under California Privacy Law) with third parties within the past 12 months, including the categories of third parties; and (iv) request correction of your CA Personal Information; (iv) opt-out of the “sale” or “sharing” of your CA Personal Information, as such terms are defined under California Privacy Law; and (v) limit the use and disclosure of sensitive personal information to purposes specified in Cal. Civil Code 1798.121(a). We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for purposes other than those specified in Cal. Civil Code 1798.121(a).

Exercising California Consumer Rights.

If you are a California resident and wish to exercise your rights to know, delete or correct, please call 888-771-0914 (toll free) or populate our web form:  https://www.homeschool.com/contact-us.

• You may be asked to provide additional proof of identification so that we can verify your identity and validate the request.
• Please note that you are limited by law in the number of requests you may submit per year. In some instances, we may decline to honor your request. For example, we may decline to honor your request if we cannot verify your identity or confirm that the CA Personal Information that we maintain relates to you. In other instances, we may decline to honor your request where an exception under California Privacy Laws applies, such as where the disclosure of CA Personal Information would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of another consumer.
• In any case, we will not discriminate against you by offering you different pricing or products, or by providing you with a different level or quality of products, based solely upon this request.

Authorized Agents

To the extent that you elect to designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf, they must provide appropriate documentation including written signed permission from you, proof of your identity, and verification of their identity; or a valid, designated power of attorney as defined under the California Probate Code.

Notice of Financial Incentive

We provide price discounts, coupons, and other perks for consumers who have opted in to signing up for a membership account with Homeschool.com. Through these offerings, consumers may provide us with any or all of the categories of CA Personal Information set out above depending on how they choose to interact with us when and after they opt-in to our membership. There is no obligation to opt-in and consumers may opt-out at any time. The details of each program are contained in the membership offering.  Because these membership offerings involve the collection of CA Personal Information and offering of certain benefits, they may be interpreted as a “financial incentive” program under California Privacy Law. 

The value of any financial incentive we offer is reasonably related to the value of any CA Personal Information you provide to us. The precise value of the CA Personal Information collected will vary and is dependent on a number of factors, including, for example, whether and to what extent you take advantage of any offerings, whether and to what extent you opt out of any offerings, and whether we are able to enhance the data through our efforts described in this Notice.

California Shine the Light

For purposes of Section 1798.83 of the California Civil Code (known as the “Shine the Light” law), we inform residents of California that we do not disclose personal information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes. 

Changes to this Notice

If we make material changes to this Notice, we will post the updated Notice on this page and take reasonable steps designed to alert you to the material changes.  Your continued use of the Site following the posting of changes constitutes your agreement to such changes. 

Advertising

This Site is affiliated with CMI Marketing, Inc., d/b/a Raptive (“Raptive”) for the purposes of placing advertising on the Site, and Raptive will collect and use certain data for advertising purposes. To learn more about Raptive’s data usage, click here: https://raptive.com/creator-advertising-privacy-statement