Terms and Conditions

Effective Date: March 1, 2024

Synergy Direct Media and its related properties (“we”, “us”, “our”) are committed to protecting the privacy of our site visitors and the users whose personal information we may be exposed to in performing our services. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect information about you, how we use it, and how you can request that this information be updated, corrected, or removed or its use modified. We reserve the right to amend or otherwise modify this Privacy Policy at any time, so please revisit this page periodically to check for updates. Revisions to this Privacy Policy will be effective when posted on this site. The date of the last revision is shown at the top of the front page of this document. In addition, we may supplement our current Privacy Policy with additional notices of our information practices specific to certain programs or activities.

Collection of Information

We collect information when, for example, you use our website or mobile features, submit requests for information through us, or register for applications we support or promotions, events, and newsletters we sponsor (together, “Services”) or otherwise provide us information about yourself. The type of information we collect may include:

Information we may collect includes your name, postal and e-mail address, phone number, social media username(s), and any information you may share about your background, interests, and preferences. Examples of the information you may share with us include your age, gender, occupation, and education level.
Transaction information we may collect includes, as applicable, the information you include on the lead forms you submit, the schools or programs you request information about, and your lead submission or application use history, if any.
Login credentials, if any, we may collect include your user name, password, and other authentication data elements..

We may also automatically collect information about you when you access or use our Services. Automatically collected data may include, if and as applicable, log-in information (browser type, access date & time, publisher IP address, etc.), device information (hardware type/model, operating system, and Synergy Direct Media-site browsing history). In addition, we may use cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies to collect information about you and your interaction with our Services, including information about your behavior on our website(s) and other interactions with our Services. We use this information in one or more of the ways described in the “Use of Information” section below. Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default, but typically you can change your browser settings to remove or reject cookies.

Use of Information

The information we collect is generally used to provide you with the Services, personalize them to you and maintain and improve their quality, monitor and analyze your use, and understand your needs so that we can serve you better. From users who are required to log in to gain access to particular features or Services, if any, we may collect and use usernames, passwords, and other login credentials to verify user authorization. We may also use your information to contact you about changes, additions, and updates to Service features and opportunities, as well as to provide any notices required by applicable law. If you prefer not to receive communications from us, we make it easy for you to let us know. You can contact us at any time via the process noted in Contact Us below to request an update to or removal of your personal information on file or modification of our use of your information (see Your Choices and, for California residents, Your California Privacy Rights, below).

Our advertisers, media partners, and other third-party technology partners also may use third-party cookies and other tracking technologies like clear pixel GIFs (i.e., web beacons) to identify you. We and our third-party partners may use these technologies to measure responses to ad units and pageviews on this Site and our third-party media partners’ websites. These technologies are used to enhance our site performance, to measure the effectiveness of our media campaigns and those of our third-party partners, and to assure applicable compliance requirements. You can opt out of some of our third-party partners’ use of cookies and other technologies at: https://www.google.com/settings/ads (Google) and NAI Consumer Opt Out (various third parties via the Network Advertising Initiative).

Tracking Options and California Do Not Track Disclosures: Certain parts of our sites require cookies, and we may use them to deliver more relevant advertising and to link data collected across other devices you may use. You can adjust your settings to limit tracking or decline cookies, but as a result, you may not be able to use certain features of our sites or take full advantage of all of our offerings. Please refer to your device or browser settings for more information on how to delete or decline cookies and control your tracking preferences. Our sites do not respond to and do not track signals from most browsers.

Sharing of Information

We may share certain personal information you provide us outside of Synergy Direct Media. For example:

We may permit certain trusted third parties to track usage and analyze data such as the source address of a page request, the related IP address or domain name, the date and time of the page request, the referring website (if any), and other parameters in the URL. This is collected to better understand our Service usage and enhance the performance of our Services. We may also use third parties to host or operate various Service features, deploy emails, analyze data, provide search results, and enable links among other things.
We may also provide access to data that include your personal information in connection with contemplated or actual banking, capitalization, insuring, sale, or other strategic initiative or transaction affecting title in or ownership of all or part of our business or assets, including to determine whether to proceed with the transaction or fulfil any records or other reporting requirements to relevant third parties. In the event of any such transaction, our title in and/or possession of your personal information, among other things, may be transferred or assigned.
We also may share your information when you specifically ask or authorize us to do so, for example, when you submit a request for more information about a particular school or program, or when we conclude disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, to enforce our agreements and policies, and where circumstances otherwise warrant doing so.

Social Sharing Features

The Services may offer social sharing features or other integrated tools, which let you share actions you take on the Services with other media, and vice versa. The use of such features enables the sharing of information with your friends, with representatives of educational institutions in which you are interested or matriculated, or with the public, depending on the settings you establish with the third-party providers of the social sharing features you select. Your use of social sharing features offered by the Services, if any, is governed by our Terms of Use and this Privacy Policy. For more information about the purpose and scope of data collection and processing in connection with third-party social sharing platforms, please visit the third-party providers’ privacy policies.

Security

We take robust technical and organizational measures to secure, administer, and store your personal information to protect against its loss, misuse, or alteration while under our control to reduce the risks of loss, unauthorized access, disclosure, and alteration. Some of the safeguards we use are firewalls and data encryption, physical access controls, and information access authorization controls. That said, data transmission over the Internet is not 100% secure. Although we use robust measures, which in no event are less than industry-standard security measures, we do not guarantee against the loss, misuse, or alteration of any information during its delivery or under our control. We thus urge you to always take care of how you handle and disclose your personal information over the Internet. If you suspect that the security of your wdata has been compromised, please report your concerns to us via the process noted in the Contact Us section below. And of course, we will also notify the affected users and authorities as required by applicable law of a security incident without undue delay after becoming aware of the security incident.

Data Privacy Officer

We collect, process, and store the personal information you provide us on servers located in the United States of America. In all cases, you are engaging with Synergy Direct Media. We have appointed a data privacy officer who may be contacted via the contact information noted in the Contact Us section below to address your data privacy needs and answer related questions.

Internet Technologies Used

Cookies, web beacons, and other relevant Internet technologies are used on our Services to allow us to accomplish the uses set out in this Privacy Policy as well as to deliver Service elements and to keep track of your information. These small pieces of program code or “files” reside on your computer's hard drive and browser and can be removed. If you desire to remove the technologies you may do so, but this may compromise your use of our Services. You can opt out of cookies or other Internet technologies used by disabling these features in your browser program or device settings. Consult your browser’s “Help” menu, or your device’s settings menu, for assistance in changing cookie settings or removing cookie files.

Children’s Privacy

We are very sensitive to the issue of children’s privacy. Our Services are neither developed for nor directed at, children under the age of consent according to applicable federal and state laws. If you believe your child has provided us with personal information, or otherwise registered with one of our Services and would like to have this information removed, please contact our data privacy officer via the process noted in the Contact Us section below for assistance.

Links from Our Services to Other Websites

Our Services may contain links to third-party owned or operated websites. When you access these external websites, the providers of the websites may have access to certain information about you. Please be aware that once you have left our Services, we are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of any websites we do not control directly, and the collection, use, and disclosure of information about you by these entities will be subject to the privacy policies of those other websites.

Your Choices

Your Information. You have certain choices about how we use your personal information to communicate with you, to send you relevant information, how we provide you with Services, and whether you want to continue as a user of our Services.

You are responsible for providing truthful and accurate personal information when requesting a particular Service offering, if any, that requires such information. Please keep in mind that once you submit a Service request, you may not be able to change or remove the information once it has been processed and delivered to an intended destination that is beyond our control.

We will honor any regulatory right you might have to access, modify, or delete your personal information. To request access, please contact us following the instructions in the Contact Us section below. Where you have a regulatory right to request access or request the modification or deletion of your personal information, we can still withhold that access or decline to modify or erase your personal information by applicable law.

If you request that we stop processing some or all of your personal information or you withdraw (where applicable) your consent for our use or disclosure of your personal information for purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, we might not be able to provide you some or all of the Services and customer support that we offer our users and are authorized under this Privacy Policy.

Service Communications. You may opt out of receiving commercial communications from Synergy Direct Media by following the instructions in those communications or by contacting Synergy Direct Media at info@synergydirectmedia.com. If you opt out of receiving commercial communications, we may still send you non-promotional emails that, for example, relate to your account or Service alerts.

Location Information. You also can turn location-based services, if any, on and off by adjusting the settings of your Internet browser or mobile device, or by following the standard uninstall process and removing all Synergy Direct Media applications, if any, from your mobile device. Please note that should you elect to modify a location-based Service or remove a Synergy Direct Media application, we will not be able to provide you with the applicable Service.

Notwithstanding the foregoing or any other provision in this Privacy Policy, you may not be permitted by applicable law to withdraw your permission or consent to certain necessary uses and disclosures of your personal information, which may include without limitation, providing Services and/or product safety and recall announcements and services, maintaining reasonable business and transaction records and features, and disclosures required by applicable law. In addition, we may be required or permitted under various laws to collect, use, or disclose your information without your consent, for example, to comply with a valid subpoena, court order, or governmental inquiry, or to collect a debt owed to us. We expressly reserve all rights under applicable federal, state, local, and international laws described in this paragraph.

Third-Party Analytics

We allow third parties to provide analytics services. These third parties may use the same or similar technologies as us to collect the same or similar information that we collect to analyze and track data, determine the popularity of certain content, align content with your interests, and better understand, generally, your online activity. In certain instances, third-party session replay technologies are used to confirm regulatory compliance. This Privacy Policy does not apply to, and we are not responsible for, third-party technologies and we encourage you to check the privacy policies of these third parties to learn more about their privacy practices. Notwithstanding the foregoing, as more fully described in the Your California Privacy Rights section below, California residents have certain rights concerning our third-party service providers’ use and retention of their personal information that may vary from those users who are not residents of the State of California.

Your California Privacy Rights

This Privacy Notice for California Residents only supplements the information contained in our privacy policy above and applies solely to all visitors, users, and others who reside in the State of California (only in this section, “consumers” or “you”). We adopt this notice to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, as amended, (“CCPA”) and any terms defined in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this notice.

Information We Collect

Our sites collect information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or device, all of which the CCPA defines as “personal information.” In particular, we collected the categories of personal information specified in the Collection of Information above from consumers within the last twelve (12) months. We collect this personal information from you when you complete and submit a request for information form to us as well as automatically when you use and interact with our Services, all as described in the Collection of Information and Internet Technologies Used sections above.

Use and Sharing of Personal Information

We may use, disclose, or sell the personal information we collect for one or more of the business purposes outlined in the Use of Information, Sharing of Information, and Social Sharing Features sections above. You may opt out from our further use or sale of your personal information (subject to certain exceptions) as described in the Opt-Out section below.

Your Rights and Choices

The CCPA provides California consumers with specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes your CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.

Access to Specific Information and Data Portability Rights. You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will disclose to you the following information if and to the extent it is available:

The categories of personal information we have collected about you.
The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal information.
The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information.
The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (also called a data portability request).
If we sold or disclosed your personal information for a business purpose, two separate lists disclosing:

Sales disclosures, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient purchased; and
Business purpose disclosures, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient obtained.

Deletion Request Rights. You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we have in the immediately preceding 12-month period collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.

We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service providers to:

Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
Debug Service features to identify and repair errors that impair existing functionality.
Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise his or her free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et. seq.).
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.
Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
Comply with any applicable legal obligation.
Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

Exercising Access, Data Portability, and Deletion Rights. To exercise the access, data portability, and deletion rights described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us by submitting your request to info@synergydirectmedia.com or by calling our phone number included in the Contact Us section of this privacy policy. Only you, or a person registered with the California Secretary of State that you authorize to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child.

You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within any 12 consecutive-month period. The verifiable consumer request must:

Provide sufficient information to allow us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative of that person.
Describe your request with sufficient detail to allow us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you. We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.

Response Timing and Format. We endeavor to respond to a verifiable consumer request within forty-five (45) days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you in writing of the reason we need more time and the applicable extension period. We will deliver our written response by mail or electronically, at your option. Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12 months preceding the verifiable consumer request’s receipt. If applicable, our response will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer requests unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that a request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

Personal Information Sales Opt-Out and Opt-In Rights. We do not knowingly collect information from minors. However, if you are 16 years of age or older, you have the right (the “right to opt-out”) under the CCPA to direct us to not sell your personal information at any time. We do not sell the personal information of consumers we know are minors unless we receive affirmative authorization from either the consumer who is between 13 and 16 years of age or the parent or guardian of a consumer less than 13 years of age. This affirmative authorization is termed “the right to opt in” under the CCPA. For consumers that are 16 years of age or older, his or her opt-in authorization is the consumer’s use of our Services, submission of a request for information form, or other interactive steps with our Services taken by the consumer. Consumers who opt into personal information sales may opt out of future sales at any time. To exercise the right to opt out, you (or your authorized representative may submit your request on our CCPA contact form or call our toll-free number included in the Contact Us section of this privacy policy.

Once you make an opt-out request, we will wait at least twelve (12) months before asking you to reauthorize personal information sales. However, you may change your mind and opt back into personal information sales at any time by visiting our sites and interacting with our Services. We will only use personal information provided in an opt-out request to review, verify, and comply with the request.

Non-Discrimination. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:

Deny you goods or services.
Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
Provide you with a different level or quality of goods or services.
Suggests that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.

However, we may offer you certain financial incentives permitted by the CCPA that can result in different prices, rates, or quality levels. Any CCPA-permitted financial incentive we offer will reasonably relate to your personal information’s value and contain written terms that describe the program’s material aspects. Participation in a financial incentive program requires your prior opt-in consent, which you may revoke at any time.

California’s “Shine the Light” law (Civil Code Section § 1798.83) permits users of our Website who are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please contact us as provided in the Contact Us section below.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Synergy Direct Media may change this Privacy Policy from time to time in its sole discretion. Each time changes are made, we revise the Effective Date above. We encourage you to periodically review the Privacy Policy to ensure you have the most current version and to stay informed about our information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy.

Contact Us

If you want to update or access your personal information, if you have a question or complaint about this Privacy Policy, our privacy standards, or our information handling practices, or if you are a California resident with applicable requests or inquiries, or if you have any questions, comments or concerns about any other data- or privacy-related matter, please contact our data privacy officer at info@synergydirectmedia.com. You may also direct your data- or privacy-related requests, comments, or questions to our phone number 650-209-0638, or write us at the following address:

Synergy Direct Media
650 Castro St Suite 120
Mountain View, CA 94041