Privacy Policy

Last modified: May 1, 2020

1. Introduction

Proko LLC (“Proko” or“we” or “us”) respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this policy.

This Privacy Policy (our “Privacy Policy”) describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you visit the website www.proko.com (the “Website”) and our mobile applications that you download from an official mobile application store, such as the Apple App Store® or the Google Play Store® (each, an “Application”) and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.

This policy applies to information we collect:

on our Website and Applications; and
in email, text, and other electronic messages between you and our Website and/or Applications.

It does not apply to information collected by:

us offline or through any other means, including on any other website operated by Proko or any third-party (including our affiliates);
us or any of our affiliates related to your or any other individual’s employment or potential employment with us; or
any third party (including our affiliates), including through any application or content (including advertising) that may link to or be accessible from the Website and Applications.

Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Website and Applications. By accessing or using our Website and Applications, you agree to this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy may change from time to time (see Changes to Our Privacy Policy). Your continued use of these Website and Applications after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check this Privacy Policy periodically for updates.

2. Data Controller, Data Protection Officer, and Representative

Proko is the data controller of your Personal Data collected on the Website and in the Applications. At this time, Proko is not required to appoint a Data Protection Officer or a representative in the EU, and has elected not to do so.

3. Children Under the Age of 13

Our Website and Applications are not intended for children under 13 years of age. No one under age 13 may provide any information to or on the Website or Applications. We do not knowingly collect Personal Data from children under 13. If you are under 13, do not use or provide any information on our Website or Applications or on or through any of their features/register on the Website or Applications, make any purchases through the Website or Applications, use any of the interactive or public comment features of our Website or Applications 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 Data from a child under 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from a child under 13, please contact us at support@proko.com.

4. Information We Collect About You and How We Collect It

Generally

We collect several types of information from and about users of our Website and Applications (“Personal Data”):

by which you may be personally identified, such as name, address, e-mail address, telephone number, credit card number, date of birth, social media account information, user name, profile picture, website biography, or any other identifier by which you may be contacted online or offline;
that is about you but individually does not identify you, such as traffic data, location data, logs, referring/exit pages, date and time of your visit to our Website and Applications, error information, clickstream data, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Website and Applications; and/or
about your internet connection, the equipment you use to access our Website and Applications and usage details.

We collect this information:

directly from you when you provide it to us;
automatically as you navigate through the Website and Applications; and
From third parties.

Information You Provide to Us

The information we collect on or through our Website and Applications are:

information that you provide by filling in forms on our Website and Applications. This includes information provided at the time of registering to use our Website and Applications, subscribing to any of our services, subscribing to any services provided by an instructor, or posting User Contributions (see below). We may also ask you for information when you enter a contest or promotion sponsored by us and when you report a problem with our Website and Applications;
records and copies of your correspondence (including email addresses), if you contact us;
details of transactions you carry out through our Website and Applications and of the fulfillment of your orders, including orders for lessons or learning materials. You may be required to provide financial information before placing an order through our Website and Applications;
information you provide while using our interactive services such as our message boards, chat rooms, direct messaging, personal web pages or profiles, forums, bulletin boards, our rating or review system, one-on-one video training, and challenges or competitions between users; and
your responses to surveys that we might ask you to complete for research purposes.

You also may provide information to be published or displayed (hereinafter, “posted”) on public areas of the Website and Applications or transmitted to other users of the Website and Applications or third parties such as your artwork; albums or portfolios that include your artwork; ratings, critiques, or reviews; blog posts; comments on the message boards, chat rooms, bulletin boards, instant messages, or forums; upvotes or downvotes on posted artwork or comments; instruction videos uploaded by instructors; or any other information that you provide to be published or displayed (collectively, “User Contributions”). Your User Contributions are posted on and transmitted to others at your own risk. Although we limit access to certain Website and Applications pages that may contain User Contributions and you may set certain privacy settings for certain information possibly including your User Contributions by logging into your account profile, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. Additionally, we cannot control the actions of other users of the Website and Applications with whom you may choose to share your User Contributions. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that your User Contributions will not be viewed by unauthorized persons.

Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies

As you navigate through and interact with our Website and Applications, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, such as:

details of your visits to our Website and Applications as described above, including usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies;
details of your activities when you use the Website and Applications, such as how much of each video you watch, your progress through lessons, your upvoting and downvoting history, each time you request critiques of your artwork or provide critiques to others, your starting of new topics to forums, the popularity of your comments, etc. We collect this information so we can provide you points and calculate your User Level when that feature becomes available.
meta-data contained in images, audio clips, and video clips that you upload and which are processed through our Website and Applications; and
information about your computer and internet connection, i.e. your IP address, operating system, and browser type.

The information we collect automatically may include Personal Data or we may maintain it or associate it with Personal Data we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. It helps us to improve our Website and Applications and to deliver a better and more personalized service by enabling us to:

estimate our audience size and usage patterns;
store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize our Website and Applications according to your individual interests;
speed up your searches;
recognize you when you return to our Website and Applications and maintain your login state;
when available, provide you with “points” for your activity on the Website and Applications.

The automatic data collection technologies that we use include:

Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. We only place cookies on your hard drive with your consent. You may withdraw or change your consent at any time by clicking on the “cookies” link at the bottom of our home page. You may refuse to accept browser cookies or alert you when cookies are being sent by activating the appropriate setting or settings on your browser. However, if you refuse to accept cookies by selecting such a setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website and Applications. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Website and Applications.
Session Cookies. We use session cookies containing encrypted information to allow us to uniquely identify you. Each time you log in to use our services, a session cookie containing an encrypted, unique identifier that is tied to your account is placed on your browser. These session cookies allow us to uniquely identify you when you are logged in to use our services and to process online data transactions and requests. Session cookies are required to use our services.
Web Beacons. Pages of our Website and Applications may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit Proko, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity).

Third-Party Use of Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

Some content or applications, including advertisements, on the Website and Applications are served by third-parties, including advertisers, ad networks and servers, content providers, and application providers. These third parties may use cookies alone or in conjunction with web beacons or other tracking technologies to collect information about you when you use our Website and Applications. The information they collect may be associated with your personal information or they may collect information, including personal information, about your online activities over time and across different websites and other online services. They may use this information to provide you with interest-based (behavioral) advertising or other targeted content. We do not control these third parties’ tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly. Some of these third party content providers are listed below along with a link to their privacy policy:

YouTube: We may use YouTube to host certain videos. You can find out more about how YouTube, and its parent Google, uses information that they collect when you watch a video hosted on YouTube by visiting https://policies.google.com/privacy.
Vimeo: We may use Vimeo to host certain videos. You can find out more about how Vimeo uses information that they collect when you watch a video hosted on Vimeo by hosting https://vimeo.com/privacy.

We also use the following third-party services to help us provide you with our Website and Applications and help us manage, maintain, and improve our Website and Applications and understand our users:

Google Analytics and Other Analytics Providers. We may use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”) to collect certain information relating to your use of the Website and Applications. Google Analytics uses cookies as described above. You can find out more about how Google uses data when you visit our Website and Applications by visiting “How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services” (located at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners).

For information about how you can opt out of receiving targeted advertising from many providers, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.

5. Lawful Basis for Processing Your Personal Data

If you are in the European Union, the processing of your Personal Data is lawful only if it is permitted under the applicable data protection laws. We have a lawful basis for each of our processing activities (except when an exception applies as described below):

Consent. By using our Website or Applications, you consent to our collection, use, and sharing of your Personal Data as described in this Privacy Notice. If you do not consent to this Privacy Notice, please do not use the Website. Or Applications;
Legitimate Interests. We will process your Personal Data as necessary for our legitimate interests. Our legitimate interests are balanced against your interests and rights and freedoms and we do not process your Personal Data if your interests or rights and freedoms outweigh our legitimate interests. Our legitimate interests are to: facilitate communication between Proko and you; detect and correct bugs and to improve our Website and Applications; safeguard our IT infrastructure and intellectual property; detect and prevent fraud and other crime; promote and market our business; check your credit; and develop our product and services (including any new features we develop or provide now or in the future);
To Fulfill Our Obligations to You under our Contract. We process your Personal Data in order to fulfill our obligations to you pursuant to our agreement with you to deliver our goods and services to you; and
As Required by Law. We may also process your Personal Data when we are required or permitted to by law; to comply with government inspections, audits, and other valid requests from government or other public authorities; to respond to legal process such as subpoenas; or as necessary for us to protect our interests or otherwise pursue our legal rights and remedies (for instance, when necessary to prevent or detect fraud, attacks against our network, or other criminal and tortious activities), defend litigation, and manage complaints or claims.

6. Special Categories of Information

Proko does not ask you to provide, and we do not knowingly collect, any special categories of Personal Data from you.

7. Automated Decisions Making

Proko does not use your Personal Data with any automated decision making process, including profiling, which may produce a legal effect concerning you or similarly significantly affect you.

8. How We Use Your Information

We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any Personal Data:

to present our Website and Applications and its contents to you;
to provide you with information, products, or services (including any free and paid art education services available on or through our Website and Applications) that you request from us;
to fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it;
to provide you with notices about your account or any classes you register for, including expiration and renewal notices;
to carry out our obligations under any agreements we may have with you, for example, to provide you with lessons;
to enforce our rights arising from any agreements with have with you, for example, if you violate our Terms of Use, we may use your Personal Data in any dispute;
to bill you AND process your payments for the products and services that you purchase from us. If you fail to pay for the products and services you purchase from us, we may use your Personal Data to collect the overdue amounts, including sharing your Personal Data with collection agencies;
to notify you about changes to our Website and Applications or any products or services we offer or provide though them;
to allow you to participate in interactive features on our Website and Applications;
to provide you with feedback on your artwork that you submit to the Website and Applications;
to automatically give suggestions, display processed images, and provide feedback on your artwork using our artificial intelligence algorithms;
to provide you with certain rewards based on your activity on the Website and Applications;
to help train our artificial intelligence algorithms that help you to improve your artwork and your artistic capabilities; and
in any other way we may describe when you provide the information.

With your consent, we may also use your information to contact you about our own services that may be of interest to you. If we have sent you a promotional email, you may click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of that email to be omitted from future promotional email distributions or by sending us an email stating your request at support@proko.com. For more information, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.

We may use the information we have collected from you to enable us to display advertisements to our advertisers’ target audiences. Even though we do not disclose your Personal Data for these purposes without your consent, if you click on or otherwise interact with an advertisement, the advertiser may assume that you meet its target criteria.

9. Disclosure of Your Information

We do not share, sell, or otherwise disclose your Personal Data for purposes other than those outlined in this Privacy Policy. However, we may disclose aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.

We may disclose certain Personal Data that we collect or you provide as described in this Privacy Policy:

to our affiliates;
to the instructors that offer instruction on our Website and Applications and with whom you contract;
to third parties to critique your artwork, such as instructors, approved critiquers, or other students;
to other users of the Website and Applications, if you use the interactive features of the Website and Applications;
to contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business.
to a potential or actual buyer or other successor in the event of a planned or actual merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Proko’s assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which Personal Data held by Proko about our Website and Application’s users is among the assets transferred;
to third parties to market their products or services to you if you have not opted out of these disclosures. For more information, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.
to fulfill the purpose for which you provide it. For example, if you register for a class with an instructor, we may give the instructor your contact information; and
for any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.

We may also disclose your Personal Data:

to comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request;
to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes; and
if we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of Proko, our customers, or others.

In addition, Activity Points and User Levels may be publicly displayed and connected to your activity on the Website and Applications.

10. Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information

We do not control the collection and use of your information collected by third parties described above in Disclosure of Your Information. When possible, these organizations are under contractual obligations to use this data only for providing the services to us and to maintain this information strictly confidential. These third parties may, however, aggregate the information they collect with information from their other customers for their own purposes.

In addition, we strive to provide you with choices regarding the Personal Data you provide to us. We have created mechanisms to provide you with control over your Personal Data:

Tracking Technologies and Advertising. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. To learn how you can manage your Flash cookie settings, visit the Flash player settings page on Adobe's website. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of our Website and Applications may then be inaccessible or not function properly.
Promotional Offers from Proko. We will only use your contact information to promote our own or third parties’ products and services with your express consent. If you wish to consent to such use, you can check the relevant box located on the signup form or at any other time by logging into the Website or Applications and adjusting your user notification settings by checking or unchecking the relevant boxes or by sending us an email stating your request to support@proko.com. If we have sent you a promotional email, you may click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of that email to be omitted from future email distributions. Note that this opt-out does not apply to communications as a result of product purchase, warranty registration, product service experience, or other transactions.

11. Your Rights Regarding Your Information and Accessing and Correcting Your Information

Applicable data protection laws may provide you with certain rights with regards to our processing of your Personal Data.

Access and Update. You can review and change your Personal Data by logging into the Website and Applications and visiting your “Settings” page. You may also notify us through the Contact Information below of any changes or errors in any Personal Data we have about you to ensure that it is complete, accurate, and as current as possible. We may also not be able to accommodate your request if we believe it would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.
Restrictions. You have the right to restrict our processing of your Personal Data under certain circumstances. In particular, you can request we restrict our use of it if you contest its accuracy, if the processing of your Personal Data is determined to be unlawful, or if we no longer need your Personal Data for processing but we have retained it as permitted by law.
Portability. To the extent the Personal Data you provide Proko is processed based on your consent, you have the right to request that we provide you a copy of, or access to, all or part of such Personal Data in structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. You also have the right to request that we transmit this Personal Data to another controller, when technically feasible.
Withdrawal of Consent. To the extent that our processing of your Personal Data is based on your consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time by closing your account. Withdrawing your consent will not, however, affect the lawfulness of the processing based on your consent before its withdrawal, and will not affect the lawfulness of our continued processing that is based on any other lawful basis for processing your Personal Data.
Right to be Forgotten. You have the right to request that we delete all of your Personal Data. We cannot delete your Personal Data except by also deleting your user account, and we will only delete your account when we no longer have a lawful basis for processing your Personal Data or after a final determination that your Personal Data was unlawfully processed. We may not accommodate a request to erase information if we believe the deletion would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect. In all other cases, we will retain your Personal Data as set forth in this policy. In addition, we cannot completely delete your Personal Data as some data may rest in previous backups. These will be retained for the periods set forth in our disaster recovery policies. If you delete your User Contributions from the Website or Applications, copies of your User Contributions may remain viewable in cached and archived pages, or might have been copied or stored by other Website or Application users. Proper access and use of information provided on the Website and Applications, including User Contributions, is governed by our terms of use.
Complaints. You have the right to lodge a complaint with the applicable supervisory authority in the country you live in, the country you work in, or the country where you believe your rights under applicable data protection laws have been violated. However, before doing so, we request that you contact us directly in order to give us an opportunity to work directly with you to resolve any concerns about your privacy.
How You May Exercise Your Rights. You may exercise any of the above rights by contacting us through any of the methods listed under Contact Information below or by visiting the “Settings” page of our Website and Applications. If you contact us to exercise any of the foregoing rights, we may ask you for additional information to verify your identity. We reserve the right to limit or deny your request if you have failed to provide sufficient information to verify your identity or to satisfy our legal and business requirements. Please note that if you make unfounded, repetitive, or excessive requests (as determined in our reasonable discretion) to access your Personal Data, you may be charged a fee subject to a maximum set by applicable law.

12. Your California Privacy Rights

California law permits minors under the age of 18 to request the removal of your User Contributions, subject to certain exceptions. If you are under the age of 18 in California, you may contact us using the Contact Information below (if you contact us via email, please use the subject “California Eraser Law Request”). We may not remove your User Contributions that we are required to retain under any federal or state law, or that have been provided to a third party. While we will do our best to remove a minor’s information upon a valid request, we cannot ensure the complete or comprehensive removal of your User Contributions from our Website and Applications or any information that has been republished, copied, downloaded, or reposted by any third party, and we cannot guarantee that any such information may not be accessible to users of the Internet in the future. We do not advertise or market any of the products or services identified in California Business and Professionals Code Section 22580(i), such as alcohol, firearms, ammunitions, tobacco products, fireworks, dietary supplements containing ephedrine, tattoos, etc.

13. Do Not Track Signals

Our Website and Applications may use automated data collection technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across third-party Website and Applications or other online services (behavioral tracking). Some web browsers or operating systems permit you to broadcast a signal to Website and Applications and online services indicating a preference that they “do not track” your online activities. At this time, we do not honor such signals and we do not modify what information we collect or how we use that information based upon whether such a signal is broadcast or received by us.

14. Data Security

We have implemented measures designed to secure your Personal Data from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure.

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of our Website and Applications, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee the security of your Personal Data transmitted to our Website and Applications. Any transmission of Personal Data is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Website and Applications.

15. Consent to Processing of Personal Data in the United States and in Other Countries

Our Site is operated and managed on servers located and operated throughout the world, including within the United States. By using and accessing our Site, residents and citizens of countries and jurisdictions outside of the United States agree and consent to the transfer to and processing of personal information on servers located in the United States and in other countries, and that the protection of such information may be different than required under the laws of your residence or location. Your information may be processed and stored in a country outside of where you reside, including in the United States and those countries’ (including the United States’) federal, state, and local governments, courts, or law enforcement or regulatory agencies may be able to obtain disclosure of your information through the laws of that country (including the United States). By using our Website and Applications, you represent that you have read and understood the foregoing and hereby consent to the storage and processing of Personal Data that you provide to us on our Website and Applications in the United States and in other countries.

16. Data Retention Periods

Proko will retain your Personal Data for the entire time that you keep your account open. After you close your account, we may retain your Personal Data:

for as long as necessary to comply with any legal requirement;
on our backup and disaster recovery systems in accordance with our backup and disaster recovery policies and procedures;
for as long as necessary to protect our legal interests or otherwise pursue our legal rights and remedies; and
for data that has been aggregated or otherwise rendered anonymous in such a manner that you are no longer identifiable, indefinitely.

17. Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Policy at any time. 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 data, we will notify you by email to the email address specified in your account or through a notice on one of the Website and Applications’ home page. The date this 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 Applications and this Privacy Policy to check for any changes.

18. Contact Information

If you have any questions, concerns, complaints or suggestions regarding our Privacy Policy, have any requests related to your Personal Data pursuant to applicable laws, or otherwise need to contact us, you may contact us at the contact information below or through the “Help Center” page on our Website and Applications.

Proko LLC
8963 Complex Dr. Suite B
San Diego, CA 92123
United States
858-609-9453
support@proko.com