Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy describes how your personal information is collected, used, and shared when you visit, use, or make a purchase from any Merge Labs, Inc. (or “Merge”) website (hereinafter “Sites” including mergeedu.com, miniverse.io, and any other website owned and operated by Merge), our applications (our “Apps”, including iOS application(s), available for download from Apple, Inc., Android application(s) available for download from Google LLC, Windows application(s) available for download from Microsoft Corporation, web applications, accessible via web browsers, and any other downloadable software for use on a mobile device), and other services provided by Merge (Sites, Apps, and other services collectively hereinafter referred to as “Service”). We will not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy. Each time you use our Service you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy at that time.
Our Sites are provided for marketing or corporate communication, and are intended for those 18 years or older and do not allow game play.
The Apps downloaded to your device(s), or accessed via web browsers, all allow game play (the “Merge EDU Experience”), or authorized educational/school uses and are intended for users of all ages.
Please read this policy in its entirety, including our Children’s Privacy Policy section, before using our Service. The Children’s Privacy Policy will control over any conflicting provisions in our general Privacy Policy as it concerns children’s data.
Personal Information we collect
When you visit our Sites or use our Apps, we automatically collect certain information about your device, including information about your web browser, IP address, time zone, some of the cookies that are installed on your device, or other persistent device identifiers. Additionally, as you browse our Sites, we collect information about the individual web pages or products that you view, what websites or search terms referred you to our Sites, and information about how you interact with our Sites and Apps. We refer to this automatically-collected information as “Device Information”.
We collect Device Information using the following technologies:
- “Cookies” are data files that are placed on your device or computer and often include an anonymous unique identifier. For more information about cookies, and how to disable cookies, visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org.
- “Log files” track actions occurring on our Sites, and collect data including your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, referring/exit pages, and date/time stamps.
- We also use third party analytics services such as Smartlook: See here for how Smartlook uses data when you use our Service and how you may opt out (https://help.smartlook.com/docs/privacy-policy, https://www.smartlook.com/opt-out/).
Additionally when you make a purchase or attempt to make a purchase through our Sites or Apps, we collect certain information from you, including your name, billing address, shipping address, payment information (including credit card numbers), email address, and phone number. We refer to this information as “Order Information”.
You may voluntarily provide us information about yourself, such as your name, e-mail address, birth date, and other personally identifiable information if you register for a user account on our Sites (including by “following,” or “liking,” Merge on a third party website or network). If you correspond with us by email, we may retain the content of your email messages, your email address and our responses. We may also retain any messages you send through our Sites. You may provide us information in User Content, such as your public profile and comments that you post to our Sites. We refer to this information as User-Provided Information.
When we talk about “Personal Information” in this Privacy Policy, we are talking about Device Information, Order Information, and User-Provided Information.
How do we use your Personal Information?
We use the Order Information and User-Provided Information that we collect generally to fulfill any orders placed through our Sites or Apps (including processing your payment information, arranging for shipping, and providing you with invoices and/or order confirmations). Additionally, we use this information to:
- Communicate with you; and
- Screen our orders for potential risk or fraud.
We use the Device Information that we collect:
- to authenticate users of the site or personalize content;
- to provide multi-player interactive gameplay;
- to present a localized (translated) user-interface;
- to analyze how our Sites and Apps are used;
- to diagnose service or technical problems;
- to maintain security;
- to screen for potential risk and fraud (in particular, your IP address); and
- to improve and optimize our Sites and Apps (for example, by generating analytics about how our customers browse and interact with our Sites and Apps).
Sharing your personal information
We share some Personal Information with third parties to help us use your Personal Information, as described above. This does not include any student’s or children’s Personal Information. For example, we use Shopify to power our online store--you can read more about how Shopify uses your Personal Information here: https://www.shopify.com/legal/privacy.
In the event that all or a portion of the Company or its assets are acquired by or merged with a third-party, personal information that we have collected from users would be one of the assets transferred to or acquired by that third-party. This Privacy Policy will continue to apply to your information, and any acquirer would only be able to handle your personal information as per this policy (unless you give consent to a new policy). Finally, we may also share your Personal Information to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to respond to a subpoena, search warrant or other lawful request for information we receive, or to otherwise protect our rights.
We will not sell your Personal Information under any circumstance.
Do not track (“DNT”)
Please note that we do not alter our Sites’ data collection and use practices when we see a Do Not Track signal from your browser.
Your rights
If you are a European resident, you have the right to access personal information we hold about you and to ask that your personal information be corrected, updated, or deleted. If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us through the contact information below.
Additionally, if you are a European resident we note that we are processing your information in order to fulfill contracts we might have with you (for example if you make an order through our Sites or Apps), or otherwise to pursue our legitimate business interests listed above. Additionally, please note that your information will be transferred outside of Europe, including to Canada and the United States.
Data retention
When you place an order through our Sites or Apps, we will maintain your Order Information for our records unless and until you ask us to delete this information.
We will delete personal information when it is no longer needed, upon expiration or termination of our agreement with an educational institution with any deletion to be completed according to the terms of our agreement with the educational institution, or at the direction or request of the educational institution.
Changes
We may occasionally update this Privacy Policy – you can see when the last update was by looking at the “Last Updated” date at the top of this page. We will not reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. If we make any significant changes, we will provide prominent notice by posting a notice on the Service and/or notifying you by email (using the email address you provided), so you can review and make sure you know about them prior to the change taking effect. Continuing to use the Service and/or clicking “OK” or “Accept” on a popup notice regarding any changes will constitute your consent to those changes.
Children’s Privacy Policy
Protecting the privacy of children is especially important. Our Sites are not intended for children, do not market to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. All references to “children” or “child” in this Children’s Privacy Policy shall mean children under 16 years of age, and all references to the term “parent” shall include legal guardians.
Merge makes commercially reasonable efforts to ensure its Apps and the Merge EDU Experience comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”). While using the Merge EDU Experience, all play is locally stored, and no personally identifiable information is collected or solicited from a child user. The Merge EDU Experience contains no external links to third party websites or services.
The Merge EDU Experience is available by downloading one or all of our Apps to your mobile device. The Merge EDU Experience is directed at users of all ages, including children. We encourage parents and teachers to supervise their child or student’s use of the Apps and supervise the overall Merge EDU Experience. No Personal Information is collected by Merge through the App download process or during the Merge EDU Experience. Merge does not collect information to create student profiles to be used in a way that is not for an educational purpose. We may collect analytics data (which does not contain Personal Information) from your use of the Service in order to offer and develop the Service.
Certain features within our Apps may inadvertently allow children users to input Personal Information such as saved worlds in Dig! for Merge Cube, or through the content of uploaded 3D models (“Objects”) in Object Viewer for Merge Cube. In addition, users may request that saved worlds, Objects and other user creations (together, the “User Creations”) made in our Apps be shared to the broader community of users. These features are designed so that no Personal Information is uploaded back to or stored on our web servers unless consented to by the parent or teacher account holder, or in such a manner that is otherwise exempt from or compliant with COPPA. We review all User Creation submissions to ensure no obvious Personal Information is included before any User Creations are made available publicly.
If the Service is being used by a school and/or teacher (the “Educational Institution”) with students that are under 16 years of age, such Educational Institution agrees that it has reviewed our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. Merge only requests Personal Information from parents and/or teachers and we will never knowingly solicit, nor will we accept, Personal Information from users known to be under 16 years of age. We collect only the minimum amount of information needed about students from teachers, and any such information is used only in connection with the Educational Institution’s use of the Merge EDU Experience for authorized educational/school purposes.
If we learn that personally identifiable information has been provided to us and/or collected on our Sites from persons under 16 years of age and without verifiable parental consent, such as through a support request, we take the appropriate steps to delete the information. All users are the owners of their accounts so therefore can visit their account online at any time to delete any information and/or the account.
FERPA
Merge agrees to work with educational institutions to ensure compliance with FERPA and the Parties will ensure compliance by providing parents, legal guardians or eligible students with the ability to inspect and review student records and to correct any inaccuracies therein as allowed by FERPA.
Security
The security of your personal information is important to us. We work hard to protect our community, and we maintain administrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to protect against unauthorized use, disclosure of or access to personal information, including but not limited to:
- Multifactor Authentication
- Data Breach Response Plan
- Encryption of all data in transit and at rest
- Organizational controls, such as privacy training for staff
We make every effort to maintain the security of personal information, and we work hard to ensure the integrity and security of our systems, no practices are 100% immune, and we cannot guarantee the security of information. Outages, attacks, human error, system failure, unauthorized use or other factors may compromise the security of user information at any time. If we learn of a security breach, we will attempt to notify you electronically (subject to any applicable laws) so that you can take appropriate protective steps; for example, we may post a notice on our homepage or elsewhere on the Service.
Contact us
For more information about our privacy practices, if you have questions, or if you would like to make a complaint, please contact us by e-mail at support@mergeedu.com or by mail using the details provided below:
Merge Labs, Inc.
1100 NW Loop 410, Suite 700
San Antonio, Texas, 78213
+1 (210) 504-7281
