Privacy Policy

Who we are

CollegeCompass360 is a free, independent service that helps adults going back to school explore programs and ways to pay for them. We are not a school, and we are not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Education or any government agency. CollegeCompass360, 3379 Peachtree Rd NE, STE 700, Atlanta, GA 30326, is responsible for the information collected on this site (“we”). CollegeCompass360 and NoGigiddy.com are under common ownership, and the two brands share a contact database and email platform. If NoGigiddy.com already holds a record for your email address, your request or sign-up here is combined with it, and some of the emails you get after signing up here are sent by NoGigiddy.com from a nogigiddy.com address.

The form asks for your email address early, at the second question, and we keep it from that moment. So if you stop answering partway through, we still have your email address and the answers you gave, and we still email you your next step and our newsletter. The unsubscribe link in any email stops it, and you can ask us to delete the record at any time.

Free study tools and bonus emails

Our free study tools (practice quizzes, calculators and study sheets, each on its own page) work without an email address, and your result is always free. Some tools offer a bonus, such as more practice sets or a printable sheet, that you can unlock by entering your email address and clicking “Unlock the bonus”. When you do:

• What we keep. Your email address, which tool you used, a short note from the tool such as your score, the exact wording you agreed to and its version, the time, your IP address and browser, how you arrived (the page address, the referring page, campaign tags and ad click IDs) and whether your browser sent a Global Privacy Control signal.
• Emails. We add your address to our email list. You get emails from CollegeCompass360 and from NoGigiddy.com about school, training and funding options, including offers from education partners that may pay us. Every email has an unsubscribe link.
• What we don’t do. Unlocking a bonus is not a request for school information, and we don’t pass your email address to schools.
• Coming back. A cookie, cc360_unlocked, keeps the bonus open on that browser (see “Cookies and similar technology”).

What we collect

We do not ask for a Social Security number, a date of birth, financial account details, or any health information, and you should never send them to us.

Why we collect it

• To email you your next step, which may include links to education sites you can choose to visit.
• To unlock the study-tool bonus you asked for, and keep it unlocked when you come back.
• To send you email about school, training and funding options. Every message has an unsubscribe link.
• To prove, if anyone asks, that you gave consent and what that consent said.
• To measure which advertising brings people here, including telling Microsoft Advertising which of our ads led to later results (see “Microsoft Advertising”), to detect fraudulent or automated submissions, and to comply with the law.

We do not use your information to make decisions about you that produce legal effects, and we do not profile you for that purpose.

How we share

• Schools and education providers. None today. We do not pass your request to schools. If that changes, we will name each business on our partners page first, and the consent on the form will change with it.
• Our affiliate. Your request or sign-up is stored and emailed using systems shared with NoGigiddy.com, which is under common ownership with CollegeCompass360. Some of our emails are sent by NoGigiddy.com.
• Service providers. Website hosting and database, email delivery, analytics and advertising measurement (Google, Microsoft, Meta, where enabled), and consent certification. They act on our instructions, except that advertising platforms may also use what their pixels collect under their own terms (see “Sale and sharing”).
• Microsoft Advertising. When you arrive from one of our Microsoft ads, we send Microsoft that ad’s click ID with the time and dollar value of later results we credit to the ad. Never your name or email address. See “Microsoft Advertising” below.
• Links you click. Emails we send you may include a link to a third-party education-matching site. It goes through a tracking link operated by NoGigiddy.com that can carry identifiers letting the partner and us attribute your visit, and the site will ask for your details again. We may be paid if you submit them.
• Law and safety. Where required by law, or to protect our rights.

Microsoft Advertising

We advertise through Microsoft Advertising (for example on Bing search). Microsoft collects or receives personal data from you and from us to provide its advertising:

• On our pages. Where configured, Microsoft’s Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag sets and reads cookies such as _uetsid, _uetvid and _uetmsclkid, and tells Microsoft which pages you view, including the address you arrived on, and when you sign up or send a request. Microsoft also receives your IP address and browser and device details.
• The ad click ID. When you arrive by clicking one of our Microsoft ads, Microsoft adds a click ID (“msclkid”) to the link. We keep it, with the time you arrived, in our own cookie cc360_msclkid for up to 90 days, and store it with your sign-up or request.
• Later results. From our server, we send Microsoft that click ID with the time and dollar value of later results we credit to the ad: for example, a payment we receive from an education partner after you submit your details on its site through a link in one of our emails. We do this for up to 90 days after the ad click (when the only copy of the click ID we have is the one your browser kept for the visit, or Microsoft’s own cookie, we count the 90 days from your sign-up or request instead). We send only the click ID, the time and the value, never your name or email address, and we use it to measure and improve our ads.

Microsoft uses the data it collects or receives as described in the Microsoft Privacy Statement. You can opt out of personalized ads from Microsoft at account.microsoft.com/privacy/ad-settings, and Global Privacy Control (below) stops all of the above for your browser.

Sale and sharing

We do not sell your request to schools. We may be paid by an education partner when you visit its site through a link in our emails and submit your details there yourself. Passing campaign identifiers to advertising platforms through their pixels, and sending Microsoft the ad click ID with the value of later results (see “Microsoft Advertising”), may be “sharing” for cross-context behavioural advertising under California, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, Virginia and similar laws. You can opt out on our Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information page, or with GPC. In the past twelve months we have shared the internet and device activity category above with advertising platforms in this way. We do not sell or share the personal information of anyone we know to be under 18.

Global Privacy Control

We honour the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal. When your browser sends one:

• this site loads no analytics or advertising pixels at all (when the signal arrives only with your browser’s page requests, we remember it in a cookie, cc360_gpc, so the pages can see it too);
• we don’t save the Microsoft ad click ID from your visit, in its own field or inside the page address we record, and we delete our click-ID cookie (and Microsoft’s, _uetmsclkid, on our domain);
• we record the signal with your request or sign-up, so the opt-out travels with it. From then on we send Microsoft no later result for you, including for ad click IDs we saved for you before. Results we sent before your signal stay with Microsoft.

GPC applies to the browser and device you send it from.

Your rights

Depending on where you live you may have the right to know what we have collected, to get a copy, to correct it, to delete it, to opt out of its sale or sharing and of targeted advertising, and to limit our use of sensitive personal information. We will not treat you differently for exercising any of them.

• How to ask. Email privacy@collegecompass360.com from the address you gave us, saying what you want. For an opt-out of sale or sharing you can also simply turn on GPC.
• How we verify you. We match the email address on the request. If we cannot match it we may ask for one more detail from your submission, such as your ZIP code. We never ask for sensitive documents.
• How long we take. We confirm within 10 business days and respond within 45 days, extendable once by a further 45 days if we tell you why.
• Authorised agents. An agent may submit on your behalf with written permission signed by you; we may contact you to confirm.
• If we say no. You may appeal by replying to our decision with the word “appeal”. We will answer within 45 days and, if we still decline, tell you how to complain to your state attorney general.

How long we keep it

We keep lead and sign-up records for 36 months from the date you send a request or sign up, then anonymise or delete them. Consent records are kept for the same period, because they are the evidence that contact was authorised. Email subscription records are kept until you unsubscribe, plus a suppression record afterwards so we do not email you again. If you ask us to delete your information sooner we do so, keeping only what the law requires.

Cookies and similar technology

This site stores your answers in your browser’s session storage so a refresh does not lose them, and records the campaign you arrived from. It sets three cookies of its own: cc360_msclkid, which holds the Microsoft ad click ID and the time you arrived from one of our Microsoft ads, for up to 90 days, so we can credit that ad later (only our server can read it, and it is never set, and is deleted, when your browser sends GPC); cc360_unlocked, which remembers for up to a year that you unlocked a study tool’s bonus, so it stays open when you come back (it holds only the number 1); and cc360_gpc, which remembers for up to a year that your browser sent a Global Privacy Control signal, so the pixels stay off on every page (it holds only the number 1). Where their identifiers are configured, Google Analytics, Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising and Meta set cookies to measure advertising, and Vercel Web Analytics counts visits without cookies. Where it is enabled, Microsoft Clarity records how pages are used — clicks, scrolls, mouse movement and a replay of the session — so we can see where people get stuck. Clarity masks what you type, so your name, email and answers are not captured in those recordings. Our emails use open and click tracking so we can tell whether they arrive and are useful. You can control cookies in your browser settings; blocking them does not stop you from using the form. With GPC on, none of the advertising pixels are loaded.

Security

Your request travels over an encrypted connection and is stored in a database that only our server can write to and read. We use reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot control what a third-party site does with information you choose to give it.

Children

This site is for adults 18 and over, and signing up for a study tool’s bonus asks you to confirm you are 18 or older. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has sent us information, email privacy@collegecompass360.com and we will delete it.

Changes

We may update this policy. The date at the top shows when it last changed, and a change to who we share with also changes the consent wording on the form.

Contact

CollegeCompass360 · 3379 Peachtree Rd NE, STE 700, Atlanta, GA 30326 · privacy@collegecompass360.com