1.  Information Collected

• It may be necessary for Learnthings Limited ("Learnthings") to collect your personal information for the purposes of registering you as a user for part or all of the website www.learnthings.co.uk (the "Site"). Your responses help us to provide as complete a service as possible for you by ensuring that the Site and any appropriate advertising space that we sell reflects your needs and requirements.
• Learnthings uses WebTrends to collect data listing which of Learnthings's pages are most frequently visited and by which type of users.

2.  Data Protection and Disclosure

• Where Learnthings maintains registrations it takes all reasonable endeavours to comply with all requirements of the UK Data Protection Act 1998 and any regulation created under it.
• Learnthings will not disclose any of your personally identifiable information except with your permission or under special circumstances such as when it believes in good faith that the law requires disclosure or when we engage third parties to process data on our behalf.

3.  Further Use of Information 

• Learnthings may occasionally send you communications about products and services that it feels may be of interest to you unless you indicate that you are not interested in receiving such offers or information from us.
• Learnthings does not sell, trade or rent user information to others unless you have given us permission. With your permission Learnthings will only share your information with carefully chosen, reputable and trustworthy third parties.
• Learnthings will not pass on your personal information unless you have given your prior consent. Otherwise, Learnthings will only share aggregate statistics about sales and traffic patterns with our advertisers, but these statistics will not include any personally identifiable information.

 4.  Cookies 

• In addition to the information which you supply when you are asked to register with us, information and data may be automatically collected through the use of cookies. 'Cookies' are small pieces of information that are stored by your browser on your computer's hard drive. When you visit a website, that website is able to generate a small text-file which your browser then stores on your computer's hard drive. The next time you visit the same site, it will look for the text file on your machine and, if it finds it, will know that you've previously visited the site. The site may then act accordingly; it might welcome you personally, for instance. You can think of cookies as providing a "memory" for the website, enabling it to recognise a user and respond appropriately.
  
  
• Learnthings generates the following types of cookie:
  
  Anonymous cookies: every time a user visits our website, we generate an "anonymous" cookie. This is just to tell us whether or not you've visited the Site before; we look to see if the cookie's on your machine, and if there isn't one we generate a new one. This allows us to track some important indicators - notably, how many individual unique users we have, and how often they visit the Site. This cookie cannot be used to identify an individual; it can only be used for these statistical purposes.

  Registration cookies: when you register with us, for instance to access Learnpremium, we generate another  cookie. Our servers use this cookie to work out if you're allowed access to a particular service. If the cookie's there, we let you in. If it's not, we don't, and ask you to sign in. If you click "Remember me" when you sign in, this cookie stays on your machine until you sign out. Otherwise, it gets deleted either when you close your browser, or when you shut down your computer.

  Third party advertising cookies: the majority of advertisements you see on Learnthings are generated by third parties. Some of these third parties generate their own "anonymous cookies" to track how many people have seen a particular ad, and to track how many people have seen it more than once. It is important to stress that this cookie cannot be used to identify an individual; it can only be used for statistical purposes. It's also worth pointing out that the companies that generate these cookies have their own, very strict, privacy policies. And finally, we should point out that Learnthings has no access to these cookies; other than allowing them to be served, we have no role to play in these cookies at all

5.  Learnthings' Security Policy 

• No data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, Learnthings cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to Learnthings and you do so at your own risk.
• Following transmission, Learnthings will make best efforts to ensure the security of the information on its systems.

At Learnthings we collect information about our users for two main reasons:
1) To help us continually improve the service we offer.
2) To use the details of our users to sell appropriate advertising space on the site, and so continue to keep the majority of the Site free for all our users.

Our principles

We are absolutely committed to protecting your privacy. Our policy can be summarised in one sentence: we will not share your information with others without your prior consent. We have also established the following three principles:

1. We will respect your email privacy, and will send you unsolicited mail from Learnthings only if you have agreed to this.
2. We will not pass on any individual user details (including your email address) unless we have your prior consent.
3. Otherwise, we will only share aggregate statistics about our users, sales and traffic patterns with our advertisers.

What information do we collect?

If we do require you to register we collect only basic information. This includes your name, email address, postal address and date of birth. We may also ask some further, voluntary questions so we can gain a clearer understanding of our users. Your responses help us to sell appropriate advertising space and so keep the majority of the site free. They also enable us to personalise services for our users where appropriate.

We collect data listing which of our pages are most frequently visited and by which types of users.

When you enter a contest or other promotional feature, we may ask for personal details and email.

6. FAQs

How does Learnthings protect customer information?

We do our utmost to protect user privacy. UK Data Protection Legislation means we follow strict security procedures in the storage and disclosure of information which you have given us, to prevent unauthorised access.

Why does Learnthings use "cookies"?

"Cookies" are small pieces of information that are stored by your browser on your computer's hard drive. They make it possible for us to track some important indicators regarding the Site – notably, how many individual unique users we have, and how often they visit the site. In the case of registration cookies also make it possible for us to identify registered users without needing to ask for registration details every time you access one of our sites. Using cookies makes accessing password-protected areas of our site more convenient as you don't need to remember your username and password each time you enter these areas.

Will Learnthings disclose the information it collects to outside parties?

Learnthings does not sell, trade or rent your personal information to others unless you have given us your permission. With your permission we will only share the information with carefully chosen, reputable and trustworthy third parties. Also, Learnthings may provide aggregate statistics about our customers, sales, traffic patterns and related site information to reputable third-party vendors, but these statistics will include no personally identifying information. Learnthings follows the relevant legal requirements and uses all reasonable precautions to ensure only responsible third parties see the information, however we are not responsible for any breach of security or any actions of any third parties who receive the information.

What if you change your policy in future?

Any changes to our policy will be posted here.

Tell us what you think.

Learnthings welcomes your questions and comments.
Please e-mail learncontact@guardian.co.uk