Privacy Statement:

Family Education Network is committed to protecting the privacy and security of its online visitors. We are also extremely sensitive to families' concerns about their children's personal information and safety. We want you to know about and understand the measures we have taken to keep Family Education Network a safe and secure environment for everyone. This privacy statement tells you how and why we collect information from you, and how we use that information.

We encourage our visitors to read through and understand our privacy statement. We may update it from time to time to address new issues or reflect changes on our site. Please refer to this privacy statement regularly. Family Education Network reserves the right to make nonsubstantive changes to this Policy.

If you have any questions or concerns about the statement, please contact us at CustomerCare@ fen.com . To quickly access a particular section of this policy, you can click directly on the links below:

Information You Provide to Us
How We Use the Information You Provide
Choice/Opt-out
We Protect Kids' Privacy
Notification and Verifiable Parental Consent
What Are Cookies?
What Are IP Addresses?
A Notice About Our Advertisers
A Notice About External Links
Public Forums
Security
Contacting Family Education Network

Information You Provide to Us:

Providing personal information and becoming a Family Education Network member is both voluntary and free. Nonmembers can still use the majority of our site. However, nonmembers will not have the opportunity to access certain enhanced content and application areas, win our seasonal promotions, experience future personalization, and voice their questions and concerns as quickly. When you register with Family Education Network , you provide personal information. Family Education Network uses this information to better create and organize our content programming to meet your needs.

The personally identifiable information we request from you, and with which we identify you as a member, includes the following: first name, last name, email address, gender, date of birth, ZIP code, username, and password. When you wish to purchase something, we will also ask you for the following: street address, city, state, phone number (for special promotions), and credit card number. When you wish to register for our SchoolCash program, you will be asked to identify the name and address of the school or group you wish to benefit.

Please note: Children under the age of 13 cannot become Family Education Network members, and therefore we do not collect their personal information. Non-US residents currently cannot become members.

How We Use the Information You Provide:

Family Education Network uses your personal information to tailor the content programming, information services, and software applications that we provide to meet your needs and interests. We do not share any personal information you provide to us with any partner, sponsor, affiliate, agent, or third party, unless you have given us express consent to do so. Family Education Network may occasionally involve a paying or nonpaying partner in our registration areas because they share our educational mission and they provide a highly valued service to our members.

Family Education Network also collects information on our audience as a whole. Here, no audience members are identified by their personal information -- we are only interested in how Family Education Network looks demographically and statistically. This basic market research allows us to identify the trends, developments, and needs of our audience. The information is organized into reports that are used internally and only shared with partners and sponsors to make sure that their product or services are appropriately suited to our audience. Every audience member remains completely anonymous.

Family Education Network uses WebTrends Live, a third party service, to collect anonymous visitor data on our network of sites. The WebTrends Live service does not collect any personal information such as names, ages, phone numbers, addresses or e-mail addresses from visitors to any Family Education Network site. Family Education Network uses the WebTrends Live service to collect anonymous visitor information like IP addresses, browser types (such as Internet Explorer or Netscape), referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. Family Education Network uses the WebTrends Live service to collect this non-personally identifiable information for the following purposes:

(1) to provide anonymous statistical analysis of web page traffic patterns;
(2) to administer our site and servers;
(3) to allow for auditing of our services by third parties; and
(4) to improve our services.

If you would like to learn more about the WebTrends Live service and to view the complete WebTrends Live privacy statement, please click here:
http://www.webtrendslive.com/privacy_policy.htm


Choice/Opt-out:

When you register, you are given the option to receive important Family Education Network news, events, products, and special offers. If you wish not to be contacted, you must simply "opt-out" by unchecking the demarcated box (you will find the box already checked). At any time, you may change this decision and either opt-in or opt-out of this service by sending an email to: CustomerCare@ fen.com . When emailing, please provide your first name and last name, and also tell us if you are opting out of an email or postal mail communication. If you would like to be contacted by one of our partners or sponsors, you must actively opt-in to this service by checking the demarcated box (you will find the box unchecked).

We Protect Kids' Privacy:

Family Education Network encourages parents and guardians to spend time online with their children. We urge parents to instruct their children to never give out their real names, addresses, or phone numbers without permission when using the Internet. We recognize a special obligation to protect personal information obtained from children.

As a parent, you've probably done a lot of thinking about protecting your family's privacy on the Internet. We have been thinking and working hard to provide you with the best information and the highest quality interaction on the Internet in an environment that is safe. In compliance with COPPA (the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act), we have adopted the following policies to keep kids safe:

1. We will NOT knowingly collect, use, or distribute personally identifiable information from children under the age of 13 without prior verifiable consent from a parent or guardian.
2. Personally identifiable information we collect from children under the age of 13 will be used solely by Family Education Network or its agents for internal purposes only and will NOT be sold or otherwise distributed to third parties.
3. We will NOT knowingly allow children under the age of 13 access to chat rooms, message boards, email accounts, or other services within Family Education Network that would allow them to publicly post or otherwise distribute personally identifiable information without prior verifiable consent from a parent or guardian.
4. We will NOT knowingly ask a child to divulge more information than is needed to participate in any activity, game, or service.
5. We will NOT knowingly keep any personally identifiable information that is inadvertently included in a child's email submission, help inquiry, or other one-time request. Information will be automatically purged or purged immediately after the issue has been resolved.
6. We will NOT knowingly post any personally identifiable information that is inadvertently included in a child's submission to a general audience contribution area. These submissions will be deleted and handled anonymously thereafter.
7. We will NOT knowingly provide any direct link to websites that are unsuitable for children or teens.
8. Family Education Network will not advertise on any site that does not comply with the regulations set forth under COPPA.
9. We will advise children under the age of 13 that they MUST obtain permission from their parent or guardian before sharing ANY personal information.
10. Upon request, Family Education Network will provide a parent or guardian with a description of the information that may have been provided about their child during a registration process for a program or service of this site. Family Education Network only asks for a child's or teen's personal information if it is necessary to participate in the program or service. For example, use of the Learning Pod requires a parent or teacher to set up an account for their child or student by providing the child's first name, last initial, grade level, and school zip code. This information is used to track the child's progress through the activities and exercises in Learning Pod and is only accessible to the person who set up the account via a secure password. The site administrator also has access to the registration data, which is only used for site maintenance. Registration data that is provided about children is not used for marketing purposes and is never shared with any other party. If you would like to view your child's registration data, request a change, or request that we delete any of your child's personal information, please send an email to CustomerCare@fen.com that includes your child's first and last name, school zip code, and your first and last name.

If you have any questions about our Kids' Privacy Policy, please call Family Education Network at: 1-800-927-6006.

Notification and Verifiable Parental Consent:

Before any personally identifiable information is collected, we will do our best to notify the parent or guardian that their child is participating. Notification will include the exact nature and intended use of the information we are collecting, as well as the opportunity for the parent or guardian to prevent the use of the information and the child's participation in the activity. For every child (anyone under 13 years of age) we require the parent or guardian to provide verifiable parental consent such as an email, mail-in letter, fax, or toll-free phone call to Family Education Network. When verifiable parental consent has not yet been obtained, we will use online contact information (such as an email address) only as is appropriate to:

• Request the name or online contact information of a parent or guardian for the purpose of obtaining verifiable parental consent or providing notification to the parent or guardian;
• Respond directly to the child's request on a one-time basis (for example, to provide assistance with a particular study question), not using that information to re-contact the child for any other purpose;
• Respond more than once directly to a specific request from the child (for example, to satisfy the request for a newsletter subscription), not using that information to re-contact the child for any other purpose.

What Are Cookies?

The use of "cookies" is common in the Internet industry; you'll find them used on Family Education Network, as you will at other major websites. "Cookies" are small text files written to your computer. They make our website easier for you to use because they save your preferences while you are visiting our sites (although we do not save passwords in cookies). Cookies also help us know which areas are your favorites, which areas need improvement, and what technologies and Internet services our visitors are using. Knowing this information helps us continually improve the online experience for our visitors and members.

The non-personally identifiable information we track with cookies is anonymous and is not used to identify, or lead us back to, any particular visitor. Visitors to Family Education Network may have the option of disabling cookies via their browser preferences (most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies). While browsing through Family Education Network, you may get cookies from our advertisers or sponsors. Family Education Network and its affiliated sites do not control these cookies.

What Are IP Addresses?

An IP address is a number that is assigned automatically to your computer whenever you use the World Wide Web. Web servers -- the big computers that "serve up" Web pages -- automatically identify your computer by its IP address.

Family Education Network collects IP addresses for system administration; to report aggregate information to our advertisers, sponsors, and partners; and to audit the use of our site. When visitors request pages from Family Education Network sites, our servers log the guests' IP addresses. We typically do not link IP addresses to anything personally identifiable. This means that a visitor's session will be logged, but the visitor remains anonymous to us. We can and will use IP addresses to identify a visitor when we feel it is necessary to enforce compliance with our rules or terms of service, or to protect our service, site, customers, or other individuals.

Some features within Family Education Network, such as certain message boards, may display IP addresses along with the message-poster's visitor name and message. You should review each feature prior to use and only use those features that disclose information you are comfortable sharing.

A Notice About Our Advertisers:

Family Education Network does not control linking practices of advertisers or sponsors and does not monitor or claim responsibility for any content or privacy practices of such websites. Once you have clicked on an advertisement and have left the Family Education Network site, you must read the privacy policy of the advertiser or sponsor to see how your personal information will be handled.

Family Education Network may offer contests, sweepstakes, and promotions that are sponsored by third-party advertisers or sponsors. These third parties may obtain personally identifiable information that visitors voluntarily submit to participate in the activity. Family Education Network does not control the third parties' use of information.

Family Education Network may use an advertising server developed by a third party to display ads on our site. Some of these ads may contain cookies that are set by third parties (advertisers, sponsors). We do not have access to these cookies or any information that they contain. The Family Education Network privacy policy does not cover any use of information that a third-party ad server may have collected from you. For more information on ad serving, please click here.

A Notice About External Links:

Occasionally, you will find links from Family Education Network to independently owned, controlled, and/or managed Websites whose content we believe will be of possible interest and value to our visitors. Additionally, you'll see links from advertisers, sponsors, and other partners who may use Family Education Network's logo as part of a co-branding agreement.

In many cases, these links represent cooperative projects or mutual links established with the organizations connected with these sites. We don't control the content of these links. These other sites may send you their own cookies, collect data, or solicit personal information. While we identify sponsor and advertiser areas of our Websites, we do not control these cookies or the content of these third parties.

Family Education Network has partnered with other companies to provide certain services. In some cases, you may see Family Education Network's logo on another company's site. Family Education Network does not share any of your personally identifiable information with these partners and they do not share any information with us. Once you leave our servers (you can generally tell where you are by checking the URL in the location bar on your browser), the use of any information you provide is governed by the privacy policy of the operator of the site you are visiting. That policy may differ from ours. If you can't find the privacy policy of any of these sites via a link from that site's Home page, you should contact the site directly for more information.

We specifically recommend that children check with their parents or teachers before connecting to any new sites.

Public Forums:

Family Education Network makes chat rooms, forums, message boards, and/or news groups available to its users. Please remember that any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information. Consequently, you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information.

To the extent that portions of Family Education Network, such as chat rooms or bulletin boards, provide users an opportunity to post and exchange information, ideas, and opinions ("Postings"), BE ADVISED THAT FAMILY EDUCATION NETWORK MAY NOT SCREEN, EDIT, OR REVIEW POSTINGS PRIOR TO THEIR APPEARANCE ON FAMILY EDUCATION NETWORK, and Postings do not necessarily reflect the views of Family Education Network. Family Education Network reserves the right to monitor all Postings and to remove any which it considers offensive or otherwise in violation of our legal Terms and Conditions. Please read these Terms of Use according to which Family Education Network will in no way be responsible or liable for the Postings.

Here's more legal notices regarding Postings: You must have all necessary rights in and to all Postings you provide and all material they contain; your Postings must not infringe any proprietary or other rights of third parties; your Postings must not contain any viruses or other contaminating or destructive devices or features; your Postings must not contain any defamatory, indecent, offensive, tortuous, or otherwise unlawful material or content; and your Postings must not be used to carry out or solicit any unlawful activity and/or be used to make commercial solicitations. Also, you authorize Family Education Network to use and/or authorize others to use all or part of your Postings in any manner, format, or medium that Family Education Network or such other parties see fit; and you shall have no claim or other recourse against Family Education Network for infringement of any proprietary right in Postings.

Security and Credit Card Use:

Family Education Network has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under our control. Essentially, we encrypt all transmission of sensitive data and secure all of our repositories of data. When you use your credit card to shop at PearsonAtSchool, your transaction is secure. Our servers use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), an advanced encryption technology that works with Netscape Navigator (versions 2.0 and above), Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 3.0 and above), and AOL (AOL 3.0 and above). This technology safeguards your personal information and privacy. However, you should understand that "perfect security" is never guaranteed.

Contacting Family Education Network:

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of Family Education Network, or your dealings with Family Education Network, please:

• E-mail us at CustomerCare@fen.com,
• Write to us at: Family Education Network, 20 Park Plaza, Suite 1215, Boston, MA 02116
• Call us at: : 1-800-927-6006