Privacy Policy
Introduction
Welcome to ChineseFor.Us! The use of our website, chinesefor.us, mobile applications, and our lessons (collectively, the "Services") is governed by our Terms of Service and this Privacy Policy. Our Services are provided by ChineseFor.Us, LLC, a Texas limited liability company ("ChineseFor.Us," "we," "us," or "our"). By using our Services, whether you are a registered user or not, you expressly agree to this Privacy Policy.
This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and protect information in relation to our Services. We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring your information is secure.
Privacy Policy Summary
This summary provides key points from our Privacy Policy, but we encourage you to read the full policy for complete details.
| Topic | Summary |
|---|---|
| Information We Collect | Personal information (name, email, country), account information, payment details, usage data, learning progress, and device information. |
| How We Use Information | To provide and improve our Services, process payments, personalize your experience, communicate with you, and comply with legal obligations. |
| Information Sharing | With service providers, for legal compliance, in business transfers, and with your consent. |
| Your Privacy Rights | Access, correction, deletion, data portability, and marketing opt-out rights that vary by jurisdiction. |
| Data Security | We implement reasonable security measures but no method is 100% secure. |
| International Transfers | Your data may be processed outside your country with appropriate safeguards. |
| Children's Privacy | Our Services are not directed to children under 18. |
Definitions
To help you understand this Privacy Policy, here are some key terms:
- Personal Information/Personal Data: Information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with you.
- Service Data: Information about your use of our Services, including learning progress, quiz results, and course completion data.
- Non-Personal Information: Information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you.
- Processing: Any operation performed on personal data, such as collection, recording, organization, structuring, storage, adaptation, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure, or erasure.
- Data Controller: The entity that determines the purposes and means of processing personal data (in most cases, ChineseFor.Us).
- Data Processor: An entity that processes personal data on behalf of the data controller (our service providers).
Information We Collect
We collect information to provide, improve, and protect our Services. The types of information we collect depend on how you interact with our Services.
1. Information You Provide to Us
- Account Information: When you register for an account, we collect your name, email address, password, and country.
- Profile Information: Information you provide in your user profile, such as profile picture, language learning goals, and preferred learning methods.
- Payment Information: When you purchase a subscription, we collect payment information, billing address, and other details necessary to process your payment.
- Communications: Information you provide when you contact us for support, respond to surveys, or communicate with us in any way.
- User Content: Content you create, upload, or submit while using our Services, such as comments, forum posts, or responses to language exercises.
2. Information We Collect Automatically
- Usage Data: Information about how you use our Services, including:
- Learning progress and course completion
- Quiz and exercise results
- Time spent on lessons
- Features and pages accessed
- Actions taken within the Services
- Device Information: Information about the devices you use to access our Services, including:
- Device type, model, and operating system
- Browser type and version
- IP address
- Internet service provider
- Unique device identifiers
- Cookies and Similar Technologies: Information collected through cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies as described in our Cookie Policy section.
- Location Information: General location information inferred from your IP address.
Legal Basis for Processing (GDPR)
For users in the European Economic Area (EEA) and UK, we rely on the following legal bases to process your personal information:
| Legal Basis | Examples |
|---|---|
| Contract Performance | Processing necessary to provide you with our Services according to our Terms of Service, including account creation, course delivery, and subscription management. |
| Legitimate Interests | Processing necessary for our legitimate interests, such as improving our Services, preventing fraud, ensuring network security, and marketing our Services to existing customers. |
| Consent | Processing based on your specific consent, such as sending marketing communications or collecting certain types of data through cookies. |
| Legal Obligation | Processing necessary to comply with our legal obligations, such as responding to legal requests or maintaining tax records. |
How We Use Your Information
We use the information we collect for the following purposes:
1. Providing and Improving Our Services
- Creating and managing your account
- Providing access to our language learning courses and content
- Processing and fulfilling subscriptions and payments
- Tracking your progress and performance
- Customizing your learning experience
- Improving our existing Services and developing new features
- Ensuring the technical functionality and security of our Services
- Analyzing usage patterns to enhance user experience
2. Communications and Support
- Responding to your inquiries and support requests
- Sending administrative notices, updates, and security alerts
- Providing information about new features, courses, and offerings
- Delivering relevant content and recommendations
3. Marketing and Advertising
- Sending newsletters, promotions, and marketing communications if you have opted in
- Measuring the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns
- Personalizing marketing communications based on your preferences and usage
4. Legal and Safety Purposes
- Protecting our rights, property, and safety, and that of our users
- Detecting and preventing fraud, abuse, and security incidents
- Enforcing our Terms of Service and other policies
- Complying with applicable laws, regulations, and legal processes
Data Retention
We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to provide our Services, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Specific retention periods depend on the type of information and applicable legal requirements:
- Account Information: Retained for the duration of your account plus up to 24 months after account deletion or termination (unless longer retention is required by law)
- Payment Information: Retained according to applicable tax and accounting requirements (typically 7 years)
- Communications: Retained for up to 24 months from the date of communication
- Usage Data: Retained in identifiable form for up to 24 months, then anonymized or aggregated
- User Content: Retained for the duration of your account and until you delete the content, unless it has been shared with others
You can request deletion of your personal information as described in the "Your Privacy Rights" section below, subject to our legal retention requirements.
Information Sharing and Disclosure
We may share your information with third parties in the following circumstances:
1. Service Providers
We share information with third-party service providers that help us operate, deliver, and improve our Services. These service providers are contractually obligated to use your information only for the purposes of providing services to us and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Categories of service providers include:
| Service Provider Category | Purpose | Data Shared |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting Services (e.g., Pressidium) | Website and application hosting | All data stored on our website |
| Payment Processors (e.g., Stripe, PayPal) | Processing subscription payments | Name, billing information, payment details |
| Learning Management System (e.g., LearnDash) | Course delivery and progress tracking | Account information, course progress, quiz results |
| Email Service Providers (e.g., MailChimp) | Sending emails and newsletters | Name, email address, subscription preferences |
| Analytics Providers (e.g., Google Analytics) | Website and application analytics | Usage data, device information (typically anonymized) |
| Video Hosting (e.g., YouTube, Vimeo) | Hosting and delivery of video content | Video viewing activity, IP address |
| Customer Support Services | Providing customer support | Account information, communication history |
2. Legal Compliance and Protection
We may disclose information if we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to:
- Comply with applicable laws, regulations, legal processes, or governmental requests
- Enforce our Terms of Service and other agreements, including investigation of potential violations
- Detect, prevent, or address fraud, security, or technical issues
- Protect against harm to the rights, property, or safety of ChineseFor.Us, our users, or the public as required or permitted by law
3. Business Transfers
If ChineseFor.Us is involved in a merger, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you via email and/or a prominent notice on our website of any change in ownership or uses of your personal information, as well as any choices you may have regarding your personal information.
4. With Your Consent
We may share your information with third parties when you have given us your consent to do so. For example, we may display personal testimonials of satisfied customers on our website with your permission.
5. Aggregated or De-identified Data
We may share aggregated or de-identified information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you with third parties for industry analysis, research, demographic profiling, and other similar purposes.
Your Privacy Rights
Depending on your location, you may have certain rights regarding your personal information. We will honor these rights regardless of your location to the extent permitted by applicable law.
1. Rights for All Users
- Access and Update: You can access and update certain personal information through your account settings or by contacting us.
- Marketing Communications: You can opt out of receiving marketing communications by using the unsubscribe link in our emails or by contacting us.
- Cookies: You can manage cookie preferences through your browser settings as described in our Cookie Policy section.
2. Additional Rights for EEA, UK, and California Residents
If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, California, or other jurisdictions with similar privacy laws, you may have the following additional rights:
- Right to Access: You have the right to request information about the personal data we have about you.
- Right to Rectification: You have the right to request the correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal data we hold about you.
- Right to Erasure: You have the right to request the deletion of your personal data in certain circumstances.
- Right to Restrict Processing: You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
- Right to Data Portability: You have the right to receive a copy of your personal data in a structured, machine-readable format and to transmit that data to another controller.
- Right to Object: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances, including processing for direct marketing.
- Right to Withdraw Consent: If we rely on your consent to process your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.
- Right to Non-Discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your privacy rights.
3. California-Specific Rights (CCPA/CPRA)
California residents have specific rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), including:
- Right to Know: You may request information about the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the categories of sources from which we collected the information, our purposes for collecting the information, and the categories of third parties with whom we have shared the information.
- Right to Delete: You may request that we delete personal information that we have collected from you, subject to certain exceptions.
- Right to Correct: You may request that we correct inaccurate personal information that we maintain about you.
- Right to Opt-Out of Sale or Sharing: You have the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising purposes.
- Right to Limit Use of Sensitive Personal Information: You may request that we limit the use and disclosure of sensitive personal information to specified purposes.
To submit a request under the CCPA/CPRA, please contact us at info@chinesefor.us or use our designated request methods on our website.
4. How to Exercise Your Rights
To exercise your privacy rights:
- Email us at info@chinesefor.us with the subject line "Privacy Rights Request"
- Use the account settings in your ChineseFor.Us account
- Submit a request through our website contact form
We will verify your identity before fulfilling your request. Verification may require you to provide additional information. We will respond to your request within the timeframe required by applicable law (typically 30 days for GDPR requests and 45 days for CCPA/CPRA requests, which may be extended when permitted by law).
Cookie Policy
1. What Are Cookies
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device when you visit a website. Cookies help provide additional functionality to the site and help us analyze site usage more accurately. We and our third-party service providers may use cookies and similar technologies (such as web beacons, pixels, and local storage) for the following purposes:
2. Types of Cookies We Use
| Category | Purpose | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Essential Cookies | These cookies are necessary for the website to function properly and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually set in response to actions you take, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in, or filling in forms. | Authentication cookies, security cookies, load balancing cookies |
| Functional Cookies | These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalization. They may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services we have added to our pages. | Language preference cookies, user interface customization cookies |
| Performance/Analytics Cookies | These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. | Google Analytics cookies, performance measurement cookies |
| Targeting/Advertising Cookies | These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant ads on other sites. | Social media cookies, advertising cookies |
3. Third-Party Cookies
Some cookies are placed by third parties on our website. These third parties may include:
- Google Analytics (analytics)
- YouTube (video content)
- Vimeo (video content)
- Stripe and PayPal (payment processing)
- MailChimp (email communications)
4. Managing Cookies
You can control and manage cookies in various ways. Please keep in mind that removing or blocking cookies may impact your user experience and some features of our Services may not function properly.
You can adjust your browser settings to block cookies, or you can configure your browser to alert you when cookies are being sent to your device. Please refer to your browser's help section for more information.
For more information about cookies and how to manage them, visit http://www.aboutcookies.org.
5. Do Not Track
We support Do Not Track ("DNT"). Do Not Track is a preference you can set in your web browser to inform websites that you do not want to be tracked. You can enable or disable Do Not Track by visiting the Preferences or Settings page of your web browser.
Educational Data and Learning Analytics
As a language learning platform, we collect and process certain educational data to provide and improve our Services:
1. Learning Progress Data
We collect data about your interactions with our courses, including:
- Lessons completed and time spent on each lesson
- Quiz and exercise scores and attempts
- Learning pace and patterns
- Pronunciation practice recordings (when applicable)
2. How We Use Educational Data
We use educational data for the following purposes:
- Tracking and displaying your progress within courses
- Providing personalized recommendations and feedback
- Adapting content difficulty based on your performance
- Identifying areas where you may need additional practice
- Improving our teaching methods and course materials
- Conducting educational research to enhance language learning (using anonymized data)
3. Sharing of Educational Data
Your educational data is primarily used by ChineseFor.Us to provide our Services. We may share anonymized, aggregated educational data with:
- Academic researchers for language acquisition studies
- Content development partners to improve educational materials
We will obtain your consent before sharing your identifiable educational data with any third parties not essential to providing our Services.
Data Security
We implement reasonable security measures to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. These measures include:
- Encryption of sensitive data in transit and at rest
- Secure user authentication processes
- Regular security assessments and testing
- Access controls and authorization procedures
- Regular security training for our staff
- Physical and environmental safeguards for our systems
However, no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. In the event of a data breach that affects your personal information, we will notify you in accordance with applicable laws.
International Data Transfers
ChineseFor.Us is based in the United States, and your information may be processed and stored in the United States or other countries where we or our service providers operate. These countries may have data protection laws that are different from those in your country of residence.
If we transfer your personal information from the EEA, UK, or other jurisdictions with data protection laws to countries that have not been found to provide adequate protection, we will implement appropriate safeguards, such as:
- Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission
- Binding Corporate Rules
- Derogations for specific situations, such as your explicit consent
By using our Services, you consent to the transfer of your information to the United States and other countries where we and our service providers operate.
Children's Privacy
Our Services are not directed to children under 18 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18. If we become aware that a child under 18 has provided us with personal information without parental consent, we will take steps to delete such information from our systems.
If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with personal information without your consent, please contact us at info@chinesefor.us, and we will take steps to remove that information from our systems.
Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the effective date at the top of this page.
For significant changes to this Privacy Policy, we will provide a more prominent notice, which may include email notification to the email address associated with your account or a banner notification on our website.
We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Your continued use of the Service after the posting of changes constitutes your acceptance of such changes.
Data Processing Addendum (DPA)
For business customers and in cases where ChineseFor.Us processes personal data on behalf of a customer (where the customer is the data controller and ChineseFor.Us is the data processor), our Data Processing Addendum applies. The DPA outlines our obligations as a data processor under the GDPR and other applicable data protection laws.
The key provisions of our DPA include:
- Scope and purpose of processing
- Duration of processing
- Nature and purpose of processing
- Types of personal data and categories of data subjects
- Rights and obligations of the controller
- Processor obligations regarding confidentiality, security, and subprocessors
- Assistance with data subject rights and data protection impact assessments
- Notification of data breaches
- Return or deletion of data
- Audit rights
- International transfers
To request a copy of our Data Processing Addendum, please contact us at info@chinesefor.us.
Contact Us
If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at:
ChineseFor.Us, LLC
PO Box 602
Prosper, Texas 75078
USA
Email: info@chinesefor.us
FOR EUROPEAN USERS:
For data protection inquiries related to the GDPR, you may also contact our Data Protection Officer at info@chinesefor.us.
BY USING OUR WEBSITE AND OUR SERVICES, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTAND THIS PRIVACY POLICY AND YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ITS TERMS.