StoryCube is committed to providing a website that is educational, entertaining and safe for people of all ages, but especially for those between the ages of 7 and 12. Because many of the visitors to our website are children, we take care to provide suitable content, and we do not collect or store any personal information other than first name and last initial of the user. Our guiding principle is to create a website where children feel safe and look forward to visiting every day. We encourage parents, teachers and other guardians to join their children during the use of the StoryCube Site

As our community of children, parents and teachers grows, we may modify general practices from time to time, and this document will be updated accordingly. In the event of future updates, we will contact each users' parents or guardians individually and seek renewed parental consent as necessary. Our commitment to privacy and providing you with the best service will never change.

COPPA Compliance

StoryCube is committed to strictly following the requirements of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), which legislates what information can be collected by websites that are "directed to children" under 13, and how such information can be used. The StoryCube privacy policy meets and exceeds all of the requirements of COPPA.

COPPA defines personal information as "individually identifiable information", including a first and last name, a street address, an email address, or a telephone number. COPPA places requirements on websites that collect such information from children. At StoryCube, the only personal information we require at registration is an email address, used to activate an account and for future communications. Individuals who register at StoryCube are called "members".

COPPA requires that sites do not enable children to make their personal information public on the Internet without verified parental consent. Regarding StoryCube, only members whose parents have affirmatively consented to their participation can share information on discussion boards, group chats, and through messaging between permitted friends.

Members can also send an email to a friend through our servers with parental approval. This requires that they enter the destination email address(es) in our database. StoryCube does not send any unrequested email to these addresses, share these addresses with any third party, or otherwise use these addresses. Strictly for security reasons, we temporarily archive email messages that our users send through our servers and may disclose these messages to law enforcement or other public agencies if they are harassing, criminal, indicate criminal intentions or otherwise violate the Terms of Use for the site. We do not harvest, disclose, or otherwise use the email addresses or other content from this archive for any other purposes.

While StoryCube allows users to make public postings of stories they create within StoryCube, all such postings are reviewed before they are published on the site. Content that is submitted for sharing but that contains either inappropriate content or what appears to be personal information, will be replaced with the characters $#@! The user and/or parent will be notified. Repeat offenders will be banned from StoryCube and all stories by the offenders will be removed from the website.

COPPA requires that sites do not condition children's participation in any activity on the child's disclosing of more personal information than is necessary. StoryCube requires no disclosure of any personal information of a child for participation in any activity. The Federal Trade Commission, which enforces COPPA (http://www.coppa.org) and other government regulations, maintains a website with useful and unbiased information that we encourage you to visit, Parental information is found at http://business.ftc.gov/privacy-and-security/children%E2%80%99s-online-privacy, and information for educators is found at: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/tech/tec10.shtm

The FTC also manages another useful, government site called OnGuard Online which "provides practical tips from the federal government and the technology industry to help you be on guard against Internet fraud, secure your computer, and protect your personal information." While most of the information on that site relates to general online safety, it gives some tips for parents, in particular in regards to social networking sites. For more information, please visit http://www.onguardonline.gov

Cookies

StoryCube does not use browser "cookies" at this time. If cookies are used in the future, it will be to enhance functionality and never to enable any tracking or invasive activity.

Security

We are very serious about security and we have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security, and ensure appropriate use of the information we do collect.

Credit Card Information

We collect credit card information including the card holder's name and address for paid subscriptions. This information is only used in association with the credit card transaction. Credit card payments are processed by CheddarGetter, who complies with PCI/DSS, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. CheddarGetter has no independent rights to your information, and only processes the payments on our behalf.

Effective Date

The privacy policy set out above is effective as of April 12, 2011 and applies to all information previously obtained by StoryCube. StoryCube reserves the right to change its privacy policy as needed. StoryCube visitors will be informed of any such change by StoryCube posting a new privacy policy on its website. Should any changes to StoryCube or its privacy policy be material and thus require parental notification or consent under COPPA, such notification and/or consent will be established at that time.

Contact Us

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding our Privacy Policy and/or practices, please contact us at the following address, or by email, phone, or by using the online contact form linked located below.

If you are a parent, you have the right to review any information we have about your child or to ask us to delete any information about your child. To do so, please contact us with the StoryCube user name (screen name / nickname), password under which your child is registered as well as your own contact information. We will contact you to further verify that you are the parent of the child before providing or deleting any information.

NAME: StoryCube LLC
Attn: CEO, Melanie Kusmik
ADDRESS: 1797 267th Ct SE, Sammamish, Washington
EMAIL: info@storycube.com

Thank You and Happy Storytelling!