TERMS OF USE

Welcome to the Mars Hill University web site located at “www.mhu.edu” (this “Site”), which is owned by Mars Hill University (“MHU”). Please read this page carefully before using this Site. By accessing or using this Site in any way, you agree to and are bound by the terms, conditions, policies and notices contained on this page (these “Terms”), including but not limited to conducting this transaction electronically, disclaimers and a choice of North Carolina law.

CONTENT MANAGEMENT

All contents of this Site are: ©2024 Mars Hill University. All rights reserved. This Site contains copyrighted material, trademarks, service marks, logos, trade dress and other proprietary content, including but not limited to text, excepts from a book, photographs, buttons, images, video and graphics, and the entire selection, coordination, arrangement and “look and feel” of this Site and the content are copyrighted as a collective work under United States copyright laws (collectively, the “Content”).

Except as provided in these Terms, you may not use, modify, republish, frame, license, transfer, post, transmit, create derivative works from, or otherwise exploit any Content from this Site, in whole or in part, without the express permission of Mars Hill University.

Reproduction, distribution, republication, and/or retransmission of material contained within this website is prohibited without prior written consent of Mars Hill University. Any other use, including the reproduction, modification, distribution, transmission, republication, display or performance, of the content on this site is strictly prohibited. Nothing contained in these Terms shall be construed as conferring any other license or right, express or implied, under any of Mars Hill University‘s intellectual property rights.

EXTERNAL LINKS

As a convenience to you, Mars Hill University may provide links to web sites and access to content, products and services of third parties, including without limitation, Mars Hill University affiliates and strategic partners and other entities (“Linked Sites”). You should refer to the separate terms of use, privacy policies, and other notices posted on Linked Sites before you use them. Some of those links contain trackable cookies, which means that website owner will know that their website has shown up in your website browser more than once. And they may know that you visited this website before you visited their website.

Mars Hill University does not author, edit or monitor these Linked Sites, and is not responsible or liable for (a) the availability of or content provided on such Linked Sites, nor does inclusion of any link imply endorsement of the Linked Sites by Mars Hill University or vice versa; (b) third party content accessible through such Linked Sites; (c) any loss or damage whatsoever you may incur from dealing with any Linked Site; or (d) your dealings with any third parties found on or through this Site, the payment for and delivery of goods if any, or any terms, conditions, warranties, or representations associated with such dealings. You bear all risk associated with the use of such Linked Sites, third party services, and your correspondence or business dealings with third parties found on or through this Site.

DMCA PROVISIONS

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, found at 17 U.S.C. § 512 (“DMCA”), provides recourse for owners of copyrighted materials who believe that their rights under United States copyright law have been infringed upon on the Internet.

Under the DMCA, the bona fide owner of copyrighted materials who has a good faith belief that their copyright has been infringed may contact not only the person or entity infringing on their copyright, but may also contact the designated agent of an Internet service provider to report alleged infringements of their protected works, when such alleged infringements appear on pages contained within the system of the Internet service provider (“ISP”).

The owner of this website and the ISP are committed to complying with international trade law, international trade practices, all United States laws, including United States copyright law. Upon receipt of a properly filed complaint under the DMCA, the owner and/or the ISP of this website will block access to the allegedly infringing material. The website owner and/or the ISP will forward a copy of the notification of claimed copyright infringement to the alleged infringer. Anyone who believes in good faith that a notice of copyright infringement has wrongfully been filed against them, may submit a Counter notice to the website owner and/or the ISP.

NOTIFICATION OF CLAIMED COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

Please send DMCA notifications of claimed copyright infringement to:

Mars Hill University – webmaster@mhu.edu

DATA PROTECTION

WHAT DO WE DO WITH YOUR PERSONAL DATA?

MAIN USES OF YOUR DATA

This section of the Policy describes the things that we do with your data which relate directly to your use of the Site and our services. They are the things that we hope you would expect us to do with your information. We will use your information:

• to provide the products available on our Site to you;
• to contact you for your views on our services and to notify you occasionally about important changes to our Terms of Use or this Policy or developments to this Site or our services; and

TECHNICAL USES

This section of the Policy describes the things that we do with your data that arise from our monitoring of the Site and the collection of your information whilst using the Site. We may use this information:

• to identify patterns that we can use in our marketing strategy and to help us develop, administer, support and improve our services and features and adverts;
• to conduct reviews that assist us in the improvement and optimization of our Site;
• to ensure that content from our Site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;
• to administer our Site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes; and
• as part of our efforts to keep our Site safe and secure.

We may combine technical information with other information that we have about you to help us with our processing of your information as described in this Policy.

USE OF YOUR DATA FOR MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS

When you join a mailing list, or request more information, which is not required to use the Site, we may use personal information, like your email address or mobile phone number, to provide marketing messages to you or allow us or third parties to communicate with you on third party services. We will always seek your consent before doing so and you can opt out of marketing and other communications at any time by contacting us at webmaster@mhu.edu. You can always make use of the Site without having to agree to marketing. The types of things that we may do include:

• providing direct marketing advertisements and communications to you via email, text, post, social media or telephone or via our selected third parties;
• Sending enrollment information about our university;
• Fundraising information about our university;
• communicating with you on third party social media platforms and sharing your information with those social media platforms;
• monitoring the effectiveness of our direct marketing communications and your responses to it;
• utilizing your provided mobile phone number for texting information from our university.

TEXT MESSAGING AND ALERTS – OPTING IN AND OUT

Mars Hill University uses text messaging and mobile alerts. Our mobile platforms and forms give you the choice to opt-in to receiving text messages on the mobile phone number(s) you have shared with us as further described below. Once you have opted-in, depending on the choices you made, we or our service providers may send you text messages:

• regarding University events;
• to alert you in the event of an emergency;
• for transactional and promotional purposes.
• to alert you of admissions events and information
• for fundraising

We may send you text messages and alerts using autodialed technology. You do not have to opt-in to text messages and alerts to use and enjoy our Site. If you opt-in, standard messaging and data rates may apply. You can always opt-out of text messages by replying STOP to any university text message.

WHO HAS ACCESS TO YOUR PERSONAL DATA?

We retain access to all personal information that we have collected from you or about you. Our product fulfillment company and email marketing companies also retain some of the data (for example your name and email are passed to our email marketing partner MailChimp so we may send product confirmation and marketing emails).

When our service is available via the websites of our partners, those partners may have access to your information. We may also have links to other websites from our Site. We are not responsible for the content, security, privacy policies and practices of any other websites, even if you access them using links from this Site or if you can access this Site or use our services from them. We recommend that you check the policy of each website that you visit and make sure that you are comfortable with the terms of such policies before providing any personal information.

We will retain your information for as long as is reasonable and necessary and no longer than permitted by law.

WHERE DO WE STORE YOUR PERSONAL DATA?

We maintain your data at the server of our internet service provider, our email marketing company, or a third party social media platform or other vendor for the purpose of enhancing the accuracy of our digital marketing campaigns.

If you leave a comment on this website that information is stored at our hosting company Media Temple. That information includes your name, your avatar, your comment, the time you left the comment and your ISP address.

For any Europeans using the site, the data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (“EEA“). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers or contractors. Territories outside of the EEA may not have equivalent legal protections to those that apply within the EEA but we are under a duty to make sure that our suppliers and contractors located outside of the EEA continue to take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Policy. By submitting your personal data to us, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our Site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorized access.

We follow strict security procedures to ensure that your personal information is not damaged, destroyed or disclosed to a third party without your permission and to prevent unauthorized access to it. The computers that store the information are kept in a secure facility with restricted physical access and we use secure firewalls and other measures to restrict electronic access. If we are working with third parties, we will require them to have in place similar measures to protect your information.

YOUR RIGHTS

You have the right to use our Site without consenting to marketing and communication services that we provide. We will inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your data for such purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes. We always use the most recently submitted form to be your current consent status. If you are a registered user, but not signed in when you submit a form, we will not be able to use your saved settings so will deem your consent choice to be as per the form you submit at the time. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by ticking certain boxes or omitting certain data on the forms we use to collect your data. You can also exercise the right at any time by contacting us at webmaster@mhu.edu.

COOKIES AND TRACKING

Like many websites, we use “cookies” to enable us to personalize your visits to our Site, simplify the signing-in procedure, keep track of your preferences, for marketing purposes and to track the usage of our Site.

Like any business we like to see if our visitors come from Google, Facebook, or another site in order to better manage the business. We use Google Analytics as our analytics package. When we login we can see which pages on this website visitors visited, the paths visitors took, where they came from and how they left.

LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY

Mars Hill University will not be liable to you (whether under the law of contract, the law of torts or otherwise) in relation to the contents of, or use of, or otherwise in connection with, this website:

• for any indirect, special or consequential loss; or
• for any business losses, loss of revenue, income, profits or anticipated savings, loss of contracts or business relationships, loss of reputation or goodwill, or loss or corruption of information or data.

IN NO EVENT SHALL Mars Hill University BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE, exemplary, INCREASED OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL OR USE, INCURRED BY YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION IN CONTRACT OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE AND STRICT LIABILITY), ARISING FROM YOUR ACCESS TO OR INABILITY TO ACCESS, OR USE OF, THIS SITE, EVEN IF Mars Hill University HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, under no circumstances shall Mars Hill University or any other party involved in creating, producing, or distributing this Site be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages or loss of profits, good will, use, data or other intangible losses (even if advised of the possibility of such damages) that result from (a) any delay, failure, interruption or corruption of this Site or any data or information transmitted in connection with the use of this Site; (b) personal injury or death caused by your use or misuse of this Site; (c) the cost of procurement of substitute goods and services resulting from your use of any goods, data, information or services purchased or obtained or messages received or transactions entered into, through or from this Site; (d) unauthorized access to or alteration of your transmissions or data; and (e) any other matter relating to our Site. You hereby acknowledge that this paragraph shall apply to all products and services available through this Site. Because some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages, in such states, liability is limited to the fullest extent permitted by law.

In accordance with the 1996 Communications and Decency Act, Section 230, we are also not liable for comments users of this website leave as comments. Mars Hill University does reserve the right to delete comments that do not adhere to the University’s standards.

REASONABLENESS

By using this website, you agree that the exclusions and limitations of liability set out in this website disclaimer are reasonable. If you do not think they are reasonable, you must not use this website.

UNENFORCEABLE PROVISIONS

If any provision of this website disclaimer is, or is found to be, unenforceable under applicable law, that will not affect the enforceability of the other provisions of this website disclaimer.

GOVERNING LAW

Use of this Site is governed by North Carolina/US law. Any claim related to the Site and any product purchased through this Site shall be brought in a federal or state court within one (1) year after the claim arises in state court in Madison County, North Carolina or in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. Users of this Site consent to the foregoing and waive any objections regarding jurisdiction or venue.

CHILDREN ONLINE PRIVACY PROTECTION ACT

Our Website is not intended for children under 13 years of age. No one under age 13 may provide any information to or on the Website. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are under 13, do not use or provide any information on this Website or on or through any of its features/register on the Website, make any payments through the Website, use any of the interactive or public comment features of this Website or provide any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, email address, or any screen name or user name you may use.

If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at webmaster@mhu.edu.

We are committed to complying with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Schools and parents should supervise their children’s online activities and consider the use of other means to provide a child-friendly, online environment. If you would like to learn more about COPPA, visit the Federal Trade Commission home page at http://www.ftc.gov.

If you are living in the EU and are under the age of 16, it is required by law that you obtain consent from your parents before subscribing to any email list.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

You acknowledge (a) that you have read and understood these Terms; and (b) that these Terms have the same force and effect as a signed agreement.

INFORMATION FOR CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS ONLY

This section supplements the information contained in this Website Privacy Notice and applies solely to visitors, users, and others who are residents of the State of California, as defined in Section 17014 of Title 18 of the California Code of Regulations. This section is effective as of January 1, 2020, to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”).

Any terms defined in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this section.

For the purposes of this section “Services” shall mean performing advertising and marketing services for Mars Hill University’s purposes as well as maintaining or servicing Mars Hill University Customer accounts, providing Customer service, processing or fulfilling orders and transactions, verifying customer information and processing payments.

Information We Collect and the Purposes for Which this Information is Used

We collect information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or device (“personal information”). This collection of information is listed in What Data We Collect.

We set out below the CCPA categories of personal information we have collected from consumers within the last twelve (12) months who are Mars Hill University Customers and/or visitors of the Mars Hill University’s Digital Properties. Personal information in certain categories may overlap with other categories.

	Category	Collected	Details	Source
A.	Identifiers	Yes	Device IP address, email address, cookie string data, pseudonymous data (e.g. hashed emails), operating system, and (in the case of mobile devices) your device type, and mobile device’s identifier (such as the Apple IDFA or Android Advertising ID) and any other unique identifier that may be assigned to any device by third parties and cross-referenced to recognize a device.	Directly and indirectly from consumers, third party data providers and Advertising Partners. In the case of business email addresses, RollWorks B2B Services may infer a business email address.
B.	Personal information listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e))	Yes	Name, business address, business telephone number, education, employment, employment history, credit card number or other payment account information.	Directly from consumers and third party data providers.
C.	Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law	No	–	–
D.	Commercial information	Yes	Records of products or services purchased, obtained or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.	Directly from consumers.
E.	Biometric information	No	–	–
F.	Internet or other similar network activity	Yes	Browsing history, search history, information on a consumer’s interaction with a website, application, or advertisement. For example, which pages you visited and when, what items were clicked on a page, how much time was spent on a page, whether you downloaded a white paper on our own website, what products were purchased and the price of the products purchased. Directly from cookie browsing history on our Digital Properties.	Non-personal information about one of our ads e.g. the third party who served the ad, and the name of the ad) may be connected with browsing history or activity on our websites for the purposes of determining attribution information (e.g. whether particular ad led to a consumer visiting our website, and, if so, which particular ad campaign).
G.	Geolocation data	Yes	Non-precise geolocation derived from IP address.	Directly from consumers and Advertising Partners.
H.	Sensory data	No	–	–
I.	Professional or employment-related information	Yes	Current or past job history, including details about the employer (industry, name, company location, company domain or URL), and employee (positions held, duration of employment, and office location of the company where the employee worked).	Third party data providers.
J.	Non-public education information (per the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. Section 1232g, 34 C.F.R Part 99))	No	–	–
K.	Inferences drawn from other personal information	Yes	Creating profiles that reflect consumer preferences and interests.	Third party data providers.

 

For clarity, under CCPA personal information does not include:

• Publicly available information from government records;
• De-identified or aggregated consumer information; and
• Information excluded from the CCPA’s scope such as:
  • health or medical information covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) or clinical trial data; and
  • personal information covered by certain sector-specific privacy laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FRCA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) or California Financial Information Privacy Act (FIPA), and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994.

 

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY AND TERMS OF USE

Mars Hill University may change these Terms from time to time. Please review these Terms periodically for any updates or changes. Your continued use of this Site following the posting of any updates or changes to these Terms constitutes your acceptance of such changes. If you object to any provision of these Terms or any subsequent modifications to these Terms, your exclusive recourse is to immediately terminate use of this Site.

Mars Hill University also reserves the right to modify or terminate your access to the Site (or portions of this Site) at any time, temporarily or permanently, with or without notice to you. Mars Hill University may also impose limits on certain features, services or all of this Site without notice or liability. You acknowledge and agree that Mars Hill University will not be liable to you or any third party in the event that Mars Hill University exercises its right to modify or terminate access to this Site or portions of this Site.

It is our policy to post any changes we make to our privacy policy on this page. If we make material changes to how we treat our users’ personal information, we will notify you through a notice on the Website home page. The date the privacy policy was last revised is identified at the top of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date active and deliverable email address for you, and for periodically visiting our Website and this privacy policy to check for any changes.

Price and availability information on this Site are subject to change without notice.