Effective Date: October 1, 2017 (See our previous version here)
Teacher Synergy LLC d/b/a Teachers Pay Teachers (referred to in this policy as “Teachers Pay Teachers”, “TpT”, “us”, “we”, or “our”) has adopted the following Privacy Policy to explain how we collect, use, and share information from and about you.
Your privacy and security are very important to us at Teachers Pay Teachers. We’re committed to transparency when it comes to our privacy practices and how we safeguard your information. This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) outlines what kinds of information we may ask you for and gather from you as you visit or use TpT, how that information may be used, and under what circumstances certain information might be shared with others.
This Policy applies to the data you share when you use our “Services” which includes our website at TeachersPayTeachers.com and any affiliated web pages or forms we may create or host (“Site”), our mobile applications (“Apps”), or when you communicate with us.
This Policy is part of our Terms of Service which you can find here.
A. INFORMATION YOU TELL US
Some information collected when you use our services is considered “Personal Information” (or PI). This is information that can be used to identify you personally and includes things like your full name, your street address, your phone number, and your email address. Other than as provided for in this Policy, we won’t share or disclose this kind of information unless we get your permission. Other information that we collect may not identify you personally. This kind of information may be shared or disclosed in an aggregate form, used to personalize your experience, and so on.
Visitors. When you use our Services as a Visitor, we may ask for information about your preferences and interests to personalize your experience and help you find what you need.
All Members. To use many aspects of our Services, you’re required to create a TpT account and become a Member. To become a Member, we require that you pick a unique username, and provide us with your email address so we can contact you. We may also ask you to tell us your name so we know who you are.
Finally we’ll ask you to share some information about what kind of user you are (your role), your geographic location, what and where you teach, and information about your interests to help us personalize your experience using our Services.
Sellers. Members who register for one of our Seller Memberships (“Sellers”), will be required to provide additional contact information and and payment information to receive Earnings. Sellers can choose to use a name other than their given name as a “Store Name.” A Seller’s Store Name, profile image or logo, and any additional information they choose to provide about themselves in their Store profile will be publicly viewable.
To comply with applicable laws, we may collect federal tax identification information from Sellers, including your social security number or employer identification number, to verify your identity and issue tax documents.
B. PURCHASE INFORMATION
When you make a purchase through our Services, you’ll need to provide billing and payment information to complete your order. We’ve carefully chosen Service Providers who use Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliant practices to process payments (“Payment Processors”). Whether you check out using a credit or debit card, PayPal account, or any other payment method we may support, your payment will be processed directly by our Payment Processor and we’ll never have access to or store your full payment details.
When you use a credit or debit card to pay for your purchases, you’ll be asked to enter your credit or debit card number, CVV, and billing contact information. When you submit your order, this information will be sent directly to our Payment Processor. After your payment is processed, the Payment Processor will send TpT some details about the transaction so that we can record your order in our database and provide access to the materials that you purchased.
You have the option to save a credit or debit card record with our Payment Processor to re-use those details for future purchases on TpT without having to re-enter them at checkout. You can edit or remove this information at any time by navigating to the checkout page or by contacting us for assistance.
If you choose to pay using PayPal, you’ll log in to your PayPal account to complete your order. When PayPal processes your payment, they’ll send us a confirmation with transaction details so we can record your order and provide access to the Resources or services you’ve purchased. We do not collect information about or have access to the specific payment or funding sources or any other financial account details associated with your PayPal account.
C. OTHER INFORMATION
When you use our Services as a Member or a Visitor, we receive and collect certain information from your browser and your device such as your Internet Protocol address (IP address), device information, operating system, browser type and version, and browser country location. This information helps us defend against fraudulent activity or attacks,maintain the security of our Services, and improve and personalize your experience.
We also log data related to how Members and Visitors use our Services, including cookies that may uniquely identify your visit or account. This log data includes details such as what pages of our Site or App you visit and when, how users navigate through the Site, and visit referral URLs. This information allows us to better understand how our Services are being used, helps us make improvements, and enables us to personalize your experience with our Services. (Please refer to the Cookies section below for more information about how we use cookies.)
From time to time, we may host and provide Members and Visitors the opportunity to participate in contests, sweepstakes, and surveys. If you choose to participate, you may be asked to provide Personal Information which may be used for purposes necessary to administer the contest, sweepstakes, or survey, or for other marketing purposes.
D. OUR COMMITMENT TO CHILDREN’S PRIVACY
At TpT, we take children’s privacy very seriously. TpT’s Services are directed at and intended for use by adults only. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 13. If you are under 13, you should not use or attempt to use our Services or send any information about yourself to TpT. If we discover that we have collected information from a child under the age of 13, we will take the appropriate measures to promptly remove that information from our Services.
If you are a parent or guardian and believe that TpT may have collected Personal Information about your child, please contact us at support@teacherspayteachers.com to let us know. We’ll work with you to make sure that information is removed from our Site.
A. IN GENERAL
Your privacy is very important to us. Other than as provided for in this Policy, we don’t share your Personally Identifiable Information with third parties without your consent.
We use the information we collect about you and the information that you tell us about yourself for the following general purposes:
To create your TpT account and profile
To identify you in connection with your account activity (In some cases, this information may be shared or displayed publicly or only to certain other Members in a full or modified form as described in sections B, C, and D below.)
To communicate with you about our Services and your account
To facilitate transactions between you and our Sellers
To provide customer support
To personalize your experience with our Services
To track usage of our Service and run tests to improve our Services
To identify and understand trends in user activity so that we can make improvements to our Services
To ensure the proper operation and security of our Services
Other purposes to deliver and improve our Services for you
B. WHEN YOU OPEN A TpT STORE
If you choose to become a Seller on TpT, there are some additional contact details we collect to ensure that we can reach you and deliver your earnings payments in the method you choose. You’ll also have a store page and profile, where you can choose to provide additional details about yourself to your customers. The information you add to your store profile is information that you visitors can see.
The following information is visible to others:
Your store name. This will be the first and last name you provided at registration unless you choose an alternative “Store Name.” You can enter or update your Store Name from the store profile section of your account details here.
Your location. Some location information may be optional to display and can be adjusted in your store profile.
Your Store Profile image. You have the option to upload a photograph, logo, or other image to your Store Profile.
Personal Bio/Other Information. You can choose to provide additional information about yourself, your business, and your teaching experience. Any profile information you provide is visible to those who visit your store and can be edited, updated, or removed by you at any time.
Other than as described in this Privacy Policy, we won’t publicly display or disclose Personal Information about you such as the email address associated with your account, your street address or phone number, or your earnings and payout information, without your consent.
C. INFORMATION SHARED BETWEEN BUYERS AND SELLERS
When you place an order, your full name, city, state, and zip code will be visible to the Seller whose materials you purchased. Additionally, if you purchase hard goods, the Seller will see the shipping information you entered during checkout to enable them to ship your order.
D. WHEN YOU CONNECT, SHARE, OR COMMUNICATE WITH OTHERS
There may be features of our Services which allow you to:
Post Content (Resources you upload, and Communications you post such as comments, reviews, questions, or other public messages)
Connect, communicate, and share information about yourself with other Members
Join and post messages in forums, groups, or communities
Link your account to an Organization using TpT for Schools
Submit requests for Resources or participate in a shared wish list
Display a public profile, and so on
By using any of these features, you’re choosing to share information about yourself and your TpT account activity with TpT, the public or with other Members. If you connect with another Member, for example by joining a group or Organization, or by accessing a Resource shared with you by another Member, the Members you interact with may be able to view certain information and activity associated with your account and that interaction.
E. SERVICE PROVIDERS AND PARTNERS
TpT engages the services of third party companies (“Service Providers”) to support and help provide certain features of our Services such as payment processing, customer support, data storage and analysis, visitor tracking and user testing, email messaging, advertising, surveys, Site security, and other services. TpT shares data with these Service Providers so that they can perform their services which help deliver our Services more securely, efficiently, and effectively. Service Providers may have access to certain Personal Information in the course of providing their service. Service Providers’ access to your Personal Information is limited to the purpose of providing the services contracted for. Service Providers are not permitted to disclose information to other parties or use your Personal Information for any other purpose.
From time to time, we may partner with other companies or organizations (“Partners’) to offer additional products and services (“Partner Content”). When you buy or use Partner Content, we may share information with our Partners about your order and your account for the purposes of facilitating your use of Partner Content and ensuring delivery of Partner Content to you.
TpT may from time to time share aggregate user data with business partners, Service Providers, or other third parties to identify or share trends, usage statistics, and so on. Sharing data in an aggregate form means that no Personal Information, which would allow the recipient of the data to identify you personally, will be shared.
F. MERGER OR ACQUISITION
As part of a merger or an acquisition of TpT, we may transfer the data we have collected, including Personal Information, to the purchasing company. In such an event, we’ll notify you of that change. In addition, any purchasing company would have to adhere by the terms of this Policy including notifying you before making material changes and giving you the opportunity to opt out.
G. LEGAL OBLIGATION
Finally, we respect and comply with legal obligations and may release information (including Personal Information and information about your account activities) in cooperation with a law enforcement investigation, in response to a valid legal request such as a court order or legal subpoena, as part of the process outlined by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), or to defend, protect, or exercise our legal rights.
At TpT, it’s important to us that you have the ability to make choices about your personal information, so we provide you with options for managing your account and the information you give us.
A. ACCOUNT INFORMATION
You can view, update, and correct the information you’ve provided about yourself by visiting your My Account page. You can also remove any of the optional information you’ve provided. Information that is required will be indicated as such and can be updated but cannot be removed.
If you don’t want to have an account with us anymore, you can close your account at any time. You can find instructions on how to close your account here, or you can contact us for assistance.
B. SAVED PAYMENT SOURCE
If you’ve saved your credit or debit card for future purchases, you can edit or delete your saved card information when you go to the checkout page. If you need assistance, you can contact us and we’ll be happy to remove it for you.
C. EMAIL PREFERENCES
TpT uses your contact information to communicate with you about our services and to provide notifications related to your account or activity. Certain communications related to your account or your activity are required and you can’t opt out of receiving them. These include, but aren’t limited to, purchase-related notifications, notifications related to changes that have been made to your login credentials or account details, and legal notifications. Other communications may not be required such as announcements about our Services, newsletters and messages with information you might be interested in, and other marketing and promotional messages (“Optional Communications”). You can manage your preferences related to Optional Communications in the Email Preferences section of your account, or by using the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any Optional Communication you receive.
D. OTHER
If you choose to create a public profile, or post Communications, any information you post will be visible by other Users and the public. You can edit and update Communications you’ve posted and information provided in your public profile. You can delete your public profile at any time.
E. ACCOUNT SECURITY
Access to your TpT account is secured by the password you choose. For your security, we store only a hashed version of your password. This means that we don’t know your password and your password isn’t visible to us when members of our team view your account.
To prevent unauthorized access to your account, choose a password that can’t be easily guessed and don’t share your password with anyone else. Whenever you use a shared computer or other shared device to access your TpT account (for example, a school computer), be sure to log out of your account completely before you leave your workstation, uncheck the “remember me” option at login, and select “no” if the web browser prompts you to save your login credentials. You’re responsible for keeping your password confidential, and for all activity that occurs under your account, whether or not authorized by you.
You can change or update your password anytime by visiting your My Account page. If you forget your password, you can request a reset password link.
A. COOKIES
Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored on your computer browser. When you visit websites like ours, some information about your visit is stored in cookies which are used to tailor your experience, surface relevant information, products, and advertisements, and to allow you to pick up where you left off the next time you visit.
By using our Services as a Visitor or Member, you agree to our use of cookies in the following ways, as well as other similar purposes:
Analytics
Marketing
Preserving your preferences
Personalizing your experience
Understanding where our website traffic is coming from
To ensure the security and availability of our Site and our Services
You have the right to decide whether a website can store cookies on your computer. Depending on the internet browser you use, you can view, manage, delete, and disable cookies through your browser preferences. Some features may not work properly if you choose not to allow us to use cookies. To learn more about how to do this, check out instructions from these browsers:
B. GOOGLE ANALYTICS
We use Google Analytics to understand and analyze browsing activity, and for advertising through their AdWords and Remarketing Lists features. Google Analytics may store cookies on your computer when you visit our Site and may use those cookies to display advertisements for our products or Services when you visit other websites. You can find out more about this by reading the information Google provides in this explanation: How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps. If you don’t want Google Analytics to use cookies when you browse, you can install the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-On to prevent Google Analytics from placing cookies on your browser. You can find out more about this option and how to install the Add-On here.
There are places throughout our Services, such as advertisements and other links, where you can access websites owned and operated by third parties. The terms of this Policy apply only to our Services and websites and do not apply to any third party websites that may be linked to or accessible from our Services. We can’t guarantee the privacy and security standards of other websites, so if you choose to access these third party links, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the privacy policies and other terms applicable to those sites.
The Content uploaded or posted to our Services is made available at the direction of our Members. We are not responsible for the Content, including any disclosures of Personal Information by our Members. If you believe that any Content posted on our Services violates your personal privacy rights, please notify us at support@teacherspayteachers.com or by using our Contact Us form.
TpT will use your information for the reasons detailed in this Policy in order to deliver our Services to you while your account is active. If you no longer wish to be a Member of our Services, you can close your account with us at any time. If you close your account, your account is placed in an inactive state. We retain a record of your account information and only use your account information to provide sales data to Sellers you’ve transacted with, to continue to make Resources available to Members who have purchased licenses from you, to comply with a valid legal request or resolve a dispute, or to meet any legal requirements or obligations. We may also continue to include your data as part of ongoing aggregate data and usage analysis. We’ll no longer send you marketing or other communications about your account or our Services. You can restore your account at any time by logging in with your email or username and your password.
TpT for Schools enables increased collaboration and communication between and among teachers and administrators.
If you’ve linked your TpT account to an Organization using TpT for Schools, your interactions with and activity related to TpT for Schools may be shared with and be visible to other Organization Members and Managers (Organization Users). Your personal purchases, purchase history, billing information, and personal account details such as your street address and phone number will not be shared.
Linking your Account. When you link your TpT account to an Organization, your name and role will be shared with your Organization, and you’ll be added to your Organization’s roster which is visible to other Organization Users.
Requesting Resources. When you submit a request for Resources, your request will be visible to Organization Users as part of the Organization’s list of pending requests. TpT may enable your Organization Manager to communicate directly with you about your requests, and send notifications via the email address associated with your TpT account. When you reply via your personal email account, your email address will be visible to the Organization Manager you’re communicating with.
Receiving Resources. When a Resource License is shared with you, Organization Users can see that a Resource License has been shared with you, whether you’ve claimed or downloaded that Resource License, and may be able to see other activity related to your use of that Resource.
Purchases. When your Organization makes a purchase, those Resources will be added to the Organization’s shared library which is visible to all other Organization Users.
Communicating. TpT will use the email address associated with your TpT account to send you notifications about your TpT for Schools activity, including communications from your Organization. By communicating with your Organization by email, you’re sharing your email address with your Organization.
From time to time, we’ll update this Policy in accordance with the process and rules in our Terms of Service.
How to Contact Us
For any questions you have about this policy or if you need assistance with your account, you can reach us anytime using the following methods:
Submit a question using our Contact Us form
Email us at support@teacherspayteachers.com
You may also find the answer to your question in our FAQs
