Privacy Policy

This website is owned by the Michigan Colleges Alliance (“MCA”, “we”, or “us”), and this Privacy Policy

is to inform you of our collection, use and disclosure practices regarding information that we collect

through www.wearetheindependents.com and www.michigancolleges.org (together the “Sites”). This

Privacy Policy applies only to information gathered on and through the Site, and does not apply to any

other information or website not owned by MCA. By visiting the Sites, or providing us with

information, you are accepting the policies described in this Privacy Policy at that time. If you do not

agree with the Privacy Policy, you are not permitted to use the Sites. MCA may revise this policy from

time to time and will post any changes here. Therefore, please review this Privacy Policy periodically.

Your continued use of the Sites after changes have been posted will constitute your acceptance of

such changes.

The Michigan Colleges Alliance takes your privacy very seriously and is committed to protecting it.

Therefore, except as otherwise explained in this Privacy Policy, we will not sell your personal

information or intentionally share it with other organizations without your consent.

Summary of our practices: This section gives a brief overview of our data collection and use

practices. Please see below for a more detailed discussion of each topic.

We collect the following information through the Sites:

– Information that your browser routinely shares with websites.

– Personal information that you choose to provide us on a voluntary basis.

We use and disclose the information we collect for the following purposes:

– To process and respond to your inquiries for information about our member colleges and

universities and to provide you with additional information about programs, site features, or

special events that you may be interested in.

– Subject to your right to opt-out with our member colleges and universities in order to allow

our member colleges and universities to contact you with information about their programs

and services.

– To help us improve our website, understand the Sites’ users and their preferences.

– To enforce our Sites’ Terms of Use and as otherwise required by law.

How and why we use cookies:

– We may use cookies to keep track of our Sites’ users and their preferences and settings.

Other details about our practices:

– Although our Sites contain links to other websites, this Privacy Policy only applies to

www.wearetheindependents.com and www.michigancollege.org.

– We use your personal information only for the purposes for which it is collected and consistent

with this Policy, and we retain your information as permitted by law.

– We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time, but we will allow you to opt in to any

material changes in how we use personal information we’ve previously collected from you.

What information we collect: You may visit and browse our Sites without providing any personal

information. However, to receive information and/or services from us, MCA may ask for and collect

from you personally identifiable information at various points throughout the Sites. Depending on

the information and/or services you request, you may be asked to provide your name, email address,

twitter handle, anticipated or actual high school graduation date, anticipated or actual college start

year, what you are interested in studying in college, how you heard about us, and similar information.

Similar to other websites, and in addition to the information you knowingly provide, when you visit

our Sites’ MCA also collects information that your browser routinely shares with websites such as the

IP addresses used by people that visit us, as well as site usage statistics such as web browser types and

page requests. This data is not usually personally identifiable, and is used to more efficiently operate

MCA’s programs, prepare for network load demands, promote our organization and administer the

Website. We will not attempt to associate this data with any personal information we collect from the

site.

How MCA uses and shares your information: MCA may use your personal information:

• To process and respond to inquiries and for the purposes for which you provided the

information, such as to register e-mail, enter contests, or receive information about a program.

• To alert you to new programs, site features, special events and services.

• To enforce our Terms of Use.

• Comply with legal requirements.

Subject to your right to opt-out (discussed later in this policy), we may share your name and email

address with our member colleges and universities. We may also share your personal information

with third parties when necessary in the following situations (i) to complete your request, such as

when it is necessary for the third party to provide information about a project, product, or service; (ii)

to outsource one or more of the functions described above; or (iii) to share your information with the

authorities in response to a legal order or official request, or when we believe you have acted in

violation of our Terms of Use.

Choice: MCA may share your name, e-mail address, anticipated or actual high school graduation date,

anticipated or actual college start year, and area of college study with MCA member colleges and

universities. You have the right to opt-out of such information sharing. MCA may also use your

personal information to send you surveys or email messages about MCA programs, events, and

services. You may also choose to opt-out of receiving email and information from MCA. You may

opt-out by calling MCA at (248) 356-3114 Monday through Friday between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm

Eastern Time or by e-mail to info@michigancolleges.org.

We may use non-personal information we collect from the Sites’ to personalize the content and

improve the navigability of the Site.

Our use of cookies: The Sites use Google Analytics to help analyze how visitors use the Sites. The tool

uses “cookies” which are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log

information and visitor behavior information in an anonymous form. The information generated by

the cookie about your use of the website (including IP address) is transmitted to Google. This

information is then used to evaluate visitors’ use of the Sites and to compile statistical reports on Site

activity for Michigan Colleges Alliance.

More information on how Google Analytics collects and processes data may be found at

www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.

How we protect information: MCA has taken certain physical, administrative and technical steps to

safeguard customer information which may include but are not limited to password restricted access

to personal information and encrypting data where applicable. We take efforts to help ensure the

security, integrity and confidentiality of customer information; however, no transmission or electronic

storage of information can be guaranteed to be 100% secure and we will not be liable for breaches of

data security or confidentiality due to system failures or unauthorized access by third parties, or other

causes beyond our reasonable control.

Children: Our Sites are not directed toward children under 13 years of age nor does MCA knowingly

collect personal information from children under 13. If you are under 13, please do not submit any

personally identifiable information to MCA. If despite these efforts, a child has provided us with

personal information, a parent or guardian of that child may contact us if they want the information

deleted from our records.

Links: The Site contains links to third-party websites. We encourage you to review the privacy policy

of a site to which you are linked so you may understand how those sites collect, use, and share your

information. MCA is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites.

Emails: This privacy policy applies to the MCA Sites and is inapplicable to information that you may

send to MCA by email or other means of communication. We may retain your emails or other

communications in order to process your inquiries, respond to your requests and improve our

services.

Contacts: If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions regarding this Privacy Policy, please

send us an email at info@michigancolleges.org or call us at (248) 356-3114 Monday through Friday

between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm Eastern Time.