Privacy Policy

Your Information, and how Rate My College uses it

Rate My College collects and retains data as users interact with and navigate our website.

This data includes non-personally identifying information, such as site usage patterns, clicks, page views, reviews of universities and other subjects. Our purpose in collecting this data is to enhance the services we provide, both to free website users and to our commercial customers and partners. We utilize various third-party tools for data storage and processing.

Rate My College is committed to transparency, and the following details outline the types of data we store, the reasons for doing so, and information about third-party services that may access this data.

Technical Information

We track and store detailed information about the way our website is used. This enables us to measure the service that we are providing to commercial partners, measure the positive and negative impacts of changes that we make to the website and improve our website over time, as well as report on its overall performance on different types of browsers, from different locations, and at different times of the day. For the most part this is facilitated by the websites use of cookies, and data is stored both on our own secure internal systems, and also in the systems of third party tools that we make use of. See Cookies, below, and Third Party Services, below, for more information.

Records

Website records and logs are generated periodically for the Rate My College Website. These records may include personal information such as contact details where applicable, IP addresses, website activity, and emails sent by our systems. We store this information securely within our infrastructure or the infrastructure of third-party services (as described below). Over time, these logs and backups are systematically deleted when they are no longer relevant or useful.

Third Party Services

To deliver both our complimentary and paid services, we utilize a diverse array of third-party tools. This involves the transmission of data, including personally identifiable information, to these services. We leverage their capabilities for storing, processing, and analyzing the data in alignment with the policies specified elsewhere in this document.

These external partners encompass:

Cloud-based hosting and technical infrastructure providers, used for the collection, storage, processing, and serving of the data in our possession.
Providers of cloud-based CRM and marketing software, whose services we employ to gather, retain, process, and act upon information legitimately held about our users and customers, both free and paid.
Providers engaged in collecting information on our behalf, essential for operating features of the website. This includes cloud-based log aggregators, customer satisfaction surveys, as well as analytics, performance, tracking, and advertising partners. This is conducted in accordance with the guidelines outlined in the "Your Information, and how we use it" section of this document.

Security of your data

We prioritize your privacy and adhere strictly to the guidelines outlined in this policy document (refer to "Your Information, and how we use it"). We employ both procedural and technical measures to safeguard your data and ensure its security. Despite our diligent efforts, it's important to acknowledge that the internet's inherent nature poses certain risks, and no security system can guarantee absolute protection. As a result, we cannot ensure that your data is completely immune to potential breaches, whether during transmission, storage on our systems, third-party service providers' systems, or while under our supervision.