Terms of Service

These Terms of Use (“Terms”) were updated on Februrary 22, 2021.

DivergentSkills’s mission is to provide limitless learning opportunities through skill sharing on our platform. DivergentSkills.com offers a marketplace to connect users wanting to sell their skills (instructors) to users who wish to acquire skills (students) through our platform. Through our platform, users desiring to offer their skills and services (instructors) can sell either recorded courses or sessions in the form of video or text lessons including advanced quizzes or offer online one-to-one services using an booking system that is seamlessly integrated with Zoom and Google Calendar.

The platform is powered with social-learning features that allows instructors to host their own discussion forums enabling learners to collaborate with each other by sharing ideas and concepts thus driving increased user engagement and an enhanced learning experience.

We need rules to keep our platform and services safe for you, us and our student and instructor community. These Terms apply to all your activities on the DivergentSkills website and other related services (“Services”).

If you publish a course or offer one-on-one online services on the DivergentSkills platform, you must also agree to the Instructor Terms. We also provide details regarding our processing of personal data of our students and instructors in our Privacy Policy.

Accounts

You need an account for most activities on our platform. Keep your password somewhere safe, because you’re responsible for all activity associated with your account. If you suspect someone else is using your account, please contact our Support Team. You must have reached the age of consent for online services in your country to use DivergentSkills.

You need an account for most activities on our platform, including to purchase and enroll in a course or to submit a course for publication. When setting up and maintaining your account, you must provide and continue to provide accurate and complete information, including a valid email address. You have complete responsibility for your account and everything that happens on your account, including for any harm or damage (to us or anyone else) caused by someone using your account without your permission. This means you need to be careful with your password. You may not transfer your account to someone else or use someone else’s account. If you contact us to request access to an account, we will not grant you such access unless you can provide us with the information that we need to prove you are the owner of that account. In the event of the death of a user, the account of that user will be closed.

You may not share your account login credentials with anyone else. You are responsible for what happens with your account and DivergentSkills will not intervene in disputes between students or instructors who have shared account login credentials. You must notify us immediately upon learning that someone else may be using your account without your permission (or if you suspect any other breach of security) by contacting support@divergentskills.com. We may request some information from you to confirm that you are indeed the owner of your account.

Students and instructors must be at least 18 years of age to create an account on DivergentSkills and use the Services. If you are younger than 18 but above the required age for consent to use online services where you live (for example, 13 in the US or 16 in Ireland), you may not set up an account, but we encourage you to invite a parent or guardian to open an account and help you enroll in courses that are appropriate for you. If you are below this age of consent to use online services, you may not create a DivergentSkills account. If we discover that you have created an account that violates these rules, we will terminate your account. Under our Instructor Terms, you may be requested to verify your identity before you are authorized to submit a course for publication on DivergentSkills.

You can terminate your account at any time by going to the account link from the profile menu dropdown and clicking on the delete account button. Check our Privacy Policy to see what happens when you terminate your account.

Course Enrollment and Access, and use of Online Services

When you enroll in a course, you get a license from us to view it via the DivergentSkills Services and no other use. You are not authorised to transfer or resell courses in any way. We grant you six months access to the prerecorded courses.

Under our Instructor Terms, when instructors publish a course on DivergentSkills, they grant DivergentSkills a license to offer a license to the course to students. This means that we have the right to sublicense the course to the students who enroll in the course. As a student, when you enroll in a course, whether it’s a free or paid course, you are getting a license from DivergentSkills to view the course via the DivergentSkills platform and Services, and DivergentSkills is the licensor of record. Courses are licensed, and not sold, to you. This license does not give you any right to resell the course in any manner (including by sharing account information with a purchaser or illegally downloading the course and sharing it on torrent sites).

In legal, more complete terms, DivergentSkills grants you (as a student) a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to access and view the courses and associated content for which you have paid all required fees, solely for your personal, non-commercial, educational purposes through the Services, in accordance with these Terms and any conditions or restrictions associated with a particular courses or feature of our Services. All other uses are expressly prohibited. You may not reproduce, redistribute, transmit, assign, sell, broadcast, rent, share, lend, modify, adapt, edit, create derivative works of, sublicense, or otherwise transfer or use any course unless we give you explicit permission to do so in a written agreement signed by a DivergentSkills authorized representative. This also applies to content you can access via any of our APIs.

We generally give a six months access license to our students when they enroll in a course. However, we reserve the right to revoke any license to access and use courses at any point in time in the event where we decide or are obligated to disable access to a course due to legal or policy reasons, for example, if the course you enrolled in is the object of a copyright complaint, or if we determine its content violates our Trust & Safety Guidelines. The six month access is not applicable to add-on features and services associated with a course. For example, support services which are charged separately may be disabled by instructors at any time, and instructors may decide at any time to no longer provide teaching assistance or Q&A services in association with a course. To be clear, the six month access is to the course content but not to the instructor.

Instructors may not grant licenses to their courses to students directly, and any such direct license shall be null and void and a violation of these Terms.

3. Payments, Credits, and Refunds

When you make a payment, you agree to use a valid payment method. DivergentSkills doe not offer a refund or credit for our course purchases or online services. Users are required to exercise their due diligence while purchasing the courses or online services.

Pricing

The prices of courses and online services on DivergentSkills are determined based on the terms of the Instructor Terms and our Promotions Policy.

We regularly run promotions and sales for our courses and certain courses are only available at discounted prices for a set period of time. The price applicable to a course will be the price at the time you complete your purchase of the course (at checkout). Any price offered for a particular course may also be different when you are logged into your account from the price available to users who aren’t registered or logged in, because some of our promotions are available only to new users.

If you are logged into your account, the listed currency you see is based on your location when you created your account. If you are not logged into your account, the price currency is based on the country where you are located. We do not enable users to see pricing in other currencies.

If you are a student located in a country where use and sales tax, goods and services tax, or value added tax is applicable to consumer sales, we are responsible for collecting and remitting that tax to the proper tax authorities. Depending on your location, the price you see may include such taxes, or tax may be added at checkout.

Payments

You agree to pay the fees for courses and online services that you purchase, and you authorize us to charge your debit or credit card or process other means of payment for those fees. DivergentSkills works with third party payment processing partners to offer you the most convenient payment methods in your country and to keep your payment information secure. Check out our Privacy Policy for more details.

When you make a purchase, you agree not to use an invalid or unauthorized payment method. If your payment method fails and you still get access to the course you are enrolling in, you agree to pay us the corresponding fees within thirty (30) days of notification from us. We reserve the right to disable access to any course for which we have not received adequate payment.

Refunds and Refund Credits

We have a strict no-refund policy on our online courses and services.

If we decide to issue refund credits to your account, they will be automatically applied towards your next course purchase on our website. Refund credits may expire if not used within the specified period, and have no cash value, in each case unless otherwise required by applicable law.

Gift and Promotional Codes

DivergentSkills or our partners may offer promotional codes to students. Certain codes may be redeemed for promotional credits applied to your DivergentSkills account, which then may be used to purchase eligible courses on our platform, subject to the terms included with your codes. Other codes may be directly redeemable for specific courses.

These codes and credits, as well as any promotional value linked to them, may expire if not used within the period specified in your DivergentSkills account. Promotional codes offered by DivergentSkills may not be refunded for cash, unless otherwise specified in the terms included with your codes or as required by applicable law. Promotional codes offered by a partner are subject to that partner’s refund policies. If you have multiple saved credit amounts, DivergentSkills may determine which of your credits to apply to your purchase.

Content and Behavior Rules

You can only use DivergentSkills for lawful purposes. You’re responsible for all the content that you post and any online services that you offer on our platform. You should keep the reviews, questions, posts, courses and other content you upload in line with our Trust & Safety Guidelines and the law, and respect the intellectual property rights of others. We can ban your account for repeated or major offenses. If you think someone is infringing your copyright on our platform, let us know.

You may not access or use the Services or create an account for unlawful purposes. Your use of the Services and behavior on our platform must comply with applicable local or national laws or regulations of your country. You are solely responsible for the knowledge of and compliance with such laws and regulations that are applicable to you.

You may not access our Services if you are from a territory where UAE businesses are prohibited from engaging in business. Further, you agree not to upload any content or technology (including information on encryption) whose export is specially controlled under the Export Administration Regulations or other applicable regulations.

If you are a student, the online support services if offered by the instructor enables you to ask questions to the instructors of courses you are enrolled in, and to post reviews of courses. For certain courses, the instructor may invite you to submit content as “homework” or tests. Don’t post or submit anything that is not yours.

If you are an instructor, you can submit courses for publication on the platform and you can also communicate with the students who have enrolled in your courses. In both cases, you must abide by the law and respect the rights of others: you cannot post any course, question, answer, review or other content that violates applicable local or national laws or regulations of your country. You are solely responsible for any courses, content, and actions you post or take via the platform and Services and their consequences. Make sure you understand all the copyright restrictions set forth in the Instructor Terms before you submit any course for publication on DivergentSkills.

If we are put on notice that your course or content violates the law or the rights of others (for example, if it is established that it violates intellectual property or image rights of others, or is about an illegal activity), if we discover that your content or behavior violates our Trust & Safety Guidelines, or if we believe your content or behavior is unlawful, inappropriate, or objectionable (for example if you impersonate someone else), we may remove your content from our platform. DivergentSkills complies with copyright laws. Check out our Intellectual Property Policy for more details.

DivergentSkills has discretion in enforcing these Terms and our Trust & Safety Guidelines. We may terminate or suspend your permission to use our platform and Services or ban your account at any time, with or without notice, for any or no reason, including for any violation of these Terms, if you fail to pay any fees when due, upon the request of law enforcement or government agencies, for extended periods of inactivity, for unexpected technical issues or problems, or if we suspect that you engage in fraudulent or illegal activities, or for any other reason in our sole discretion. Upon any such termination we may delete your account and content, and we may prevent you from further access to the platforms and use of our Services. Your content may still be available on the platforms even if your account is terminated or suspended. You agree that we will have no liability to you or any third party for termination of your account, removal of your content, or blocking of your access to our platforms and services.

If one of our instructors has published a course that infringes your copyright or trademark rights, please let us know. Our Instructor Terms require our instructors to follow the law and respect the intellectual property rights of others. For more details on how to file a copyright or trademark infringement claim with us, see our Intellectual Property Policy.

DivergentSkills’s Rights to Content You Post

You retain ownership of content you post to our platform, including your courses and online services. We’re allowed to share your content to anyone through any media, including promoting it via advertising on other websites.

The content you post as a student or instructor (including courses) remains yours. By posting courses and other content, you allow DivergentSkills to reuse and share it but you do not lose any ownership rights you may have over your content. If you are an instructor, be sure to understand the course licensing terms that are detailed in the Instructor Terms.

When you post content, comments, questions, reviews, and when you submit to us ideas and suggestions for new features or improvements, you authorize DivergentSkills to use and share this content with anyone, distribute it and promote it on any platform and in any media, and to make modifications or edits to it as we see fit.

In legal language, by submitting or posting content on or through the platforms, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display, and distribute your content (including your name and image) in any and all media or distribution methods (existing now or later developed). This includes making your content available to other companies, organizations, or individuals who partner with DivergentSkills for the syndication, broadcast, distribution, or publication of content on other media, as well as using your content for marketing purposes. You also waive any rights of privacy, publicity, or other rights of a similar nature applicable to all these uses, to the extent permissible under applicable law. You represent and warrant that you have all the rights, power, and authority necessary to authorize us to use any content that you submit. You also agree to all such uses of your content with no compensation paid to you.

Using DivergentSkills at Your Own Risk

Anyone can use DivergentSkills to create and publish courses and instructors and we enable instructors and students to interact for teaching and learning. Like other platforms where people can post content and interact, some things can go wrong, and you use DivergentSkills at your own risk.

Our platform model means we do not review or edit the courses for legal issues, and we are not in a position to determine the legality of course content. We do not exercise any editorial control over the courses that are available on the platform and, as such, do not guarantee in any manner the reliability, validity, accuracy, or truthfulness of the courses. If you enroll in a course, you rely on any information provided by an instructor at your own risk.

By using the Services, you may be exposed to content that you consider offensive, indecent, or objectionable. DivergentSkills has no responsibility to keep such content from you and no liability for your access or enrollment in any course, to the extent permissible under applicable law. This also applies to any courses relating to health, wellness, and physical exercise. You acknowledge the inherent risks and dangers in the strenuous nature of these types of courses, and by enrolling in such courses you choose to assume those risks voluntarily, including risk of illness, bodily injury, disability, or death. You assume full responsibility for the choices you make before, during, and after your enrollment in a course.

When you interact directly with a student or an instructor, you must be careful about the types of personal information that you share. While we restrict the types of information instructors may request from students, we do not control what students and instructors do with the information they obtain from other users on the platform. You should not share your email or other personal information about you for your safety.

We do not hire or employ instructors nor are we responsible or liable for any interactions involved between instructors and students. We are not liable for disputes, claims, losses, injuries, or damage of any kind that might arise out of or relate to the conduct of instructors or students.

When you use our Services, you will find links to other websites that we don’t own or control. We are not responsible for the content or any other aspect of these third-party sites, including their collection of information about you. You should also read their terms and conditions and privacy policies.

DivergentSkills’s Rights

We own the DivergentSkills platform and Services, including the website, present or future apps and services, and things like our logos, API, code, and content created by our employees. You can’t tamper with those or use them without authorization.

All right, title, and interest in and to the DivergentSkills platform and Services, including our website, our existing or future applications, our APIs, databases, and the content our employees or partners submit or provide through our Services (but excluding content provided by instructors and students) are and will remain the exclusive property of DivergentSkills and its licensors. Our platforms and services are protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws of UAE. Nothing gives you a right to use the DivergentSkills name or any of the DivergentSkills trademarks, logos, domain names, and other distinctive brand features. Any feedback, comments, or suggestions you may provide regarding DivergentSkills or the Services is entirely voluntary and we will be free to use such feedback, comments, or suggestions as we see fit and without any obligation to you.

You may not do any of the following while accessing or using the DivergentSkills platform and Services:

• access, tamper with, or use non-public areas of the platform (including content storage), DivergentSkills’s computer systems, or the technical delivery systems of DivergentSkills’s service providers.
• disable, interfere with, or try to circumvent any of the features of the platforms related to security or probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of any of our systems.
• copy, modify, create a derivative work of, reverse engineer, reverse assemble, or otherwise attempt to discover any source code of or content on the DivergentSkills platform or Services.
• access or search or attempt to access or search our platform by any means (automated or otherwise) other than through our currently available search functionalities that are provided via our website, mobile apps, or API (and only pursuant to those API terms and conditions). You may not scrape, spider, use a robot, or use other automated means of any kind to access the Services.
• in any way use the Services to send altered, deceptive, or false source-identifying information (such as sending email communications falsely appearing as DivergentSkills); or interfere with, or disrupt, (or attempt to do so), the access of any user, host, or network, including, without limitation, sending a virus, overloading, flooding, spamming, or mail-bombing the platforms or services, or in any other manner interfering with or creating an undue burden on the Services.

Miscellaneous Legal Terms

These Terms are like any other contract, and they have boring but important legal terms that protect us from the countless things that could happen and that clarify the legal relationship between us and you.

Binding Agreement

You agree that by registering, accessing, or using our Services, you are agreeing to enter into a legally binding contract with DivergentSkills. If you do not agree to these Terms, do not register, access, or otherwise use any of our Services.

If you are an instructor accepting these Terms and using our Services on behalf of a company, organization, government, or other legal entity, you represent and warrant that you are authorized to do so.

Any version of these Terms in a language other than English is provided for convenience and you understand and agree that the English language will control if there is any conflict.

These Terms (including any agreements and policies linked from these Terms) constitute the entire agreement between you and us (which include, if you are an instructor, the Instructor Terms and the Promotions Policy).

If any part of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable by applicable law, then that provision will be deemed superseded by a valid, enforceable provision that most closely matches the intent of the original provision and the remainder of these Terms will continue in effect.

Even if we are delayed in exercising our rights or fail to exercise a right in one case, it doesn’t mean we waive our rights under these Terms, and we may decide to enforce them in the future. If we decide to waive any of our rights in a particular instance, it doesn’t mean we waive our rights generally or in the future.

Disclaimers

It may happen that our platform is down, either for planned maintenance or because something goes down with the site. It may happen that one of our instructors is making misleading statements in their course. It may also happen that we encounter security issues. These are just examples. You accept that you will not have any recourse against us in any of these types of cases where things don’t work out right. In legal, more complete language, the Services and their content are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. We (and our affiliates, suppliers, partners, and agents) make no representations or warranties about the suitability, reliability, availability, timeliness, security, lack of errors, or accuracy of the Services or their content, and expressly disclaim any warranties or conditions (express or implied), including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. We (and our affiliates, suppliers, partners, and agents) make no warranty that you will obtain specific results from use of the Services. Your use of the Services (including any content) is entirely at your own risk. Some jurisdictions don’t allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so some of the above exclusions may not apply to you.

We may decide to cease making available certain features of the Services at any time and for any reason. Under no circumstances will DivergentSkills or its affiliates, suppliers, partners or agents be held liable for any damages due to such interruptions or lack of availability of such features.

We are not responsible for delay or failure of our performance of any of the Services caused by events beyond our reasonable control, like an act of war, hostility, or sabotage; natural disaster; electrical, internet, or telecommunication outage; or government restrictions.

Limitation of Liability

There are risks inherent to using our Services, for example, if you enroll in a health and wellness course like yoga, and you injure yourself. You fully accept these risks and you agree that you will have no recourse to seek damages against even if you suffer loss or damage from using our platform and Services. In legal, more complete language, to the extent permitted by law, we (and our group companies, suppliers, partners, and agents) will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, punitive, or consequential damages (including loss of data, revenue, profits, or business opportunities, or personal injury or death), whether arising in contract, warranty, tort, product liability, or otherwise, and even if we’ve been advised of the possibility of damages in advance. Our liability (and the liability of each of our group companies, suppliers, partners, and agents) to you or any third parties under any circumstance is limited to the greater of one hundred dollars ($100) or the amount you have paid us in the twelve (12) months before the event giving rise to your claims. Some jurisdictions don’t allow the exclusion or limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages, so some of the above may not apply to you.

Indemnification

If you behave in a way that gets us in legal trouble, we may exercise legal recourse against you. You agree to indemnify, defend (if we so request), and hold harmless DivergentSkills, our group companies, and their officers, directors, suppliers, partners, and agents from an against any third-party claims, demands, losses, damages, or expenses (including reasonable attorney fees) arising from (a) the content you post or submit, (b) your use of the Services (c) your violation of these Terms, or (d) your violation of any rights of a third party. Your indemnification obligation will survive the termination of these Terms and your use of the Services.

Governing Law and Jurisdiction

When these Terms mention “DivergentSkills,” they’re referring to the DivergentSkills entity that you’re contracting with. If you’re a student, your contracting entity and governing law will generally be determined based on your location.

If you’re a student located in India, you’re contracting with Blue Stone Learning Solutions India Pvt Ltd and these Terms are governed by the laws of India, without reference to its choice or conflicts of law principles, and you consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the courts in Delhi, India.

If you’re a student located in a geographical region other than India, or if you’re accessing our Services as an instructor, you’re contracting with Blue Stone Learning Solutions FZE UAE and these Terms are governed by the laws of the UAE. In cases where the “Dispute Resolution” section below doesn’t apply to you, you consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of federal and state courts in UAE.

Legal Actions and Notices

No action, regardless of form, arising out of or relating to this Agreement may be brought by either party more than one (1) year after the cause of action has accrued, except where this limitation cannot be imposed by law.

Any notice or other communication to be given hereunder will be in writing and given by registered or certified mail return receipt requested, or email (by us to the email associated with your account or by you to notices@DivergentSkills.com).

Relationship Between Us

You and we agree that no joint venture, partnership, employment, contractor, or agency relationship exists between us.

No Assignment

You may not assign or transfer these Terms (or the rights and licenses granted under them). For example, if you registered an account as an employee of a company, your account cannot be transferred to another employee. We may assign these Terms (or the rights and licenses granted under them) to another company or person without restriction. Nothing in these Terms confers any right, benefit, or remedy on any third-party person or entity. You agree that your account is non-transferable and that all rights to your account and other rights under these Terms terminate upon your death.

Updating These Terms

From time to time, we may update these Terms to clarify our practices or to reflect new or different practices (such as when we add new features), and DivergentSkills reserves the right in its sole discretion to modify and/or make changes to these Terms at any time. If we make any material change, we will notify you using prominent means, such as by email notice sent to the email address specified in your account or by posting a notice through our Services. Modifications will become effective on the day they are posted unless stated otherwise.

Your continued use of our Services after changes become effective shall mean that you accept those changes. Any revised Terms shall supersede all previous Terms.

How to Contact Us

The best way to get in touch with us is to contact our Support Team. We’d love to hear your questions, concerns, and feedback about our Services.

Thanks for teaching and learning with us!

×

Privacy Policy

We may collect different data from or about you depending on how you use the Services.

When you create an account and use the Services, including through a third-party platform, we collect any data you provide directly, including:

Account Data

In order to use certain features such as enrolling in a course, you need to create a user account. When you signup or update your account, we collect and store the data you provide, like your email address, password, phone number, occupation, skill interests, gender, race, ethnicity, government ID information, verification photo, age, date of birth, and account settings and assign you a unique identifer.

Profile Data

You can also choose to provide profile information like a photo, headline, biography, language, website link, social media profiles, country, or other data. Your Profile Data will be publicly viewable by others.

Shared Content

Parts of the Services let you interact with other users or share content publicly, including by posting reviews on a course page, asking or answering questions, participating in group discussions, sending messages to students or instructors, or posting photos or other work you upload. Such shared content may be publicly viewable by others depending on where it is posted.

Course Data

When you enroll in and take courses, we collect certain data including which courses, assignments and quizzes you’ve started and completed; course purchases and credits; subscriptions; course certificates; your exchanges with instructors, teaching assistants, and other students; and essays, answers to questions, and other items submitted to satisfy course requirements. If you are an instructor, we store course content that may contain data about you.

Student Payment Data

If you make purchases, we collect certain data about your purchase (such as your name and zip code) as necessary to process your order. You must provide certain payment and billing data directly to our payment processing partners, including your name, credit card information, billing address, and zip code. For security, DivergentSkills does not collect or store sensitive cardholder data, such as full credit card numbers or card authentication data.

Instructor Payment Data

If you are an instructor, you can link your PayPal  or other payment account to the Services to receive payments. When you link a payment account, we collect and use certain information, including your payment account email address, account ID, physical address, or other data necessary for us to send payments to your account. In some instances, we may collect ACH or wire information to send payments to your account. In order to comply with applicable laws, we also work with trusted third parties who collect tax information as legally required. This tax information may include residency information, tax identification numbers, biographical information, and other personal information necessary for taxation purposes. For security, DivergentSkills does not collect or store sensitive bank account information. The collection, use, and disclosure of your payment, billing, and taxation data is subject to the privacy policy and other terms of your payment account provider.

Data About Your Accounts on Other Services

We may obtain certain information through your social media or other online accounts if they are connected to your DivergentSkills account. For example, if you choose to integrate your Google Calendar with DivergentSkills via Gmail account, we ask for your permission to access certain information about that other account. For example, depending on the platform or service we may collect your name, profile picture, account ID number, login email address, location, physical location of your access devices, gender, birthday, and list of friends or contacts.

Those platforms and services make information available to us through their APIs. The information we receive depends on what information you (via your privacy settings) or the platform or service decide to give us.

If you access or use our Services through a third-party platform or service, or click on any third-party links, the collection, use, and sharing of your data will also be subject to the privacy policies and other agreements of that third party.

Sweepstakes, Promotions, and Surveys

We may invite you to complete a survey or participate in a promotion (like a contest, sweepstakes, or challenge), either through the Services or a third-party platform. If you participate, we will collect and store the data you provide as part of participating, such as your name, email address, postal address, date of birth, or phone number. That data is subject to this Privacy Policy unless otherwise stated in the official rules of the promotion or in another privacy policy. The data collected will be used to administer the promotion or survey, including for notifying winners and distributing rewards. To receive a reward, you may be required to allow us to post some of your information publicly (like on a winner’s page). Where we use a third-party platform to administer a survey or promotion, the third party’s privacy policy will apply.

Communications and Support

If you contact us for support or to report a problem or concern (regardless of whether you have created an account), we collect and store your contact information, messages, and other data about you like your name, email address, messages, location, DivergentSkills user ID, refund transaction IDs, and any other data you provide or that we collect through automated means (which we cover below). We use this data to respond to you and research your question or concern, in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
The data listed above is stored by us and associated with your account.

When you access the Services (including browsing courses), we collect certain data by automated means, including:

System Data

Technical data about your computer or device, like your IP address, device type, operating system type and version, unique device identifiers, browser, browser language, domain and other systems data, and platform types (“System Data”).

Usage Data

Usage statistics about your interactions with the Services, including courses accessed, time spent on pages or the Service, pages visited, features used, your search queries, click data, date and time, referrer, and other data regarding your use of the Services (“Usage Data”).

Approximate Geographic Data

An approximate geographic location, including information like country, city, and geographic coordinates, calculated based on your IP address.

The data listed above is collected through the use of server log files and tracking technologies, as detailed in the “Cookies and Data Collection Tools” section below. It is stored by us and associated with your account.

Google Calendar Data

DivergentSkills allows connecting bookings of your website with one or more Google Calendars so that bookings made in your website create Google Calendar events and events created in Google Calendar create bookings in order to reserve available time-slot. Through the WPBaseCalendar app we offfer you the choice to integrate your online booking service with your Google Calendar. It is not mandatory to use this option. This option allows you to integrate your online booking services with Google Calendar. To understand the basics of privacy in Google Calendar you may refer to this article.

How We Get Data About You

Cookies and Data Collection Tools

We use cookies, which are small text files stored by your browser, to collect, store, and share data about your activities across websites, including on DivergentSkills. They allow us to remember things about your visits to DivergentSkills, like your preferred language, and to make the site easier to use. To learn more about cookies, visit https://cookiepedia.co.uk/all-about-cookies.

DivergentSkills and service providers acting on our behalf (like Google Analytics and third-party advertisers) use server log files and automated data collection tools like cookies, tags, scripts, customized links, device or browser fingerprints, and web beacons (together, “Data Collection Tools“) when you access and use the Services. These Data Collection Tools automatically track and collect certain System Data and Usage Data when you use the Services. In some cases, we tie data gathered through those Data Collection Tools to other data that we collect as described in this Privacy Policy.

Why We Use Data Collection Tools

DivergentSkills uses the following types of Data Collection Tools for the purposes described:

• Strictly Necessary: These Data Collection Tools enable you to access the site, provide basic functionality (like logging in or enrolling in courses), secure the site, protect against fraudulent logins, and detect and prevent abuse or unauthorized use of your account. These are required for the Services to work properly, so if you disable them, parts of the site will break or be unavailable.
• Functional: These Data Collection Tools remember data about your browser and your preferences, provide additional site functionality, customize content to be more relevant to you, and remember settings affecting the appearance and behavior of the Services (like your preferred language or volume level for video playback).
• Performance: These Data Collection Tools help measure and improve the Services by providing usage and performance data, visit counts, traffic sources, or where an application was downloaded from. These tools can help us test different versions of DivergentSkills to see which features or content users prefer and determine which email messages are opened.
• Advertising: These Data Collection Tools are used to deliver relevant ads (on the site and/or other sites) based on things we know about you like your Usage and System Data (as detailed in Section 1), and things that the ad service providers know about you based on their tracking data. The ads can be based on your recent activity or activity over time and across other sites and services. To help deliver tailored advertising, we may provide these service providers with a hashed, anonymized version of your email address (in a non-human-readable form) and content that you share publicly on the Services.
• Social Media: These Data Collection Tools enable social media functionality, like sharing content with friends and networks. These cookies may track a user or device across other sites and build a profile of user interests for targeted advertising purposes.

You can set your web browser to alert you about attempts to place cookies on your computer, limit the types of cookies you allow, or refuse cookies altogether. If you do, you may not be able to use some or all features of the Services, and your experience may be different or less functional.

We Use Your Data For

We use the data we collect through your use of the Services to:

• Provide and administer the Services, including to facilitate course participation, issue course completion certificates, display customized content, and facilitate communication with other users;
• Process instructor payments;
• Process your requests and orders for courses, products, specific services, information, or features;
• Communicate with you about your account by:
  • Responding to your questions and concerns;
  • Sending you administrative messages and information, including messages from instructors, students, and teaching assistants; notifications about changes to our Service; and updates to our agreements;
  • Sending you information, such as by email or text messages, about your progress in courses, rewards programs, new services, new features, promotions, newsletters, and other available courses (which you can opt out of at any time);
  • Sending push notifications to your wireless device to provide updates and other relevant messages (which you can manage from the “options” or “settings” page of the mobile app);
• Manage your account and account preferences;
• Facilitate the Services’ technical functioning, including troubleshooting and resolving issues, securing the Services, and preventing fraud and abuse;
• Solicit feedback from users;
• Market and administer surveys and promotions administered or sponsored by DivergentSkills;
• Learn more about you by linking your data with additional data through third-party data providers and/or analyzing the data with the help of analytics service providers;
• Identify unique users across devices;
• Tailor advertisements across devices;
• Improve our Services and develop new products, services, and features;
• Analyze trends and traffic, track purchases, and track usage data;
• Advertise the Services on third-party websites and applications;
• As required or permitted by law; or
• As we, in our sole discretion, otherwise determine to be necessary to ensure the safety or integrity of our users, employees, third parties, the public, or our Services.

Who We Share Your Data With

We may share your data with third parties under the following circumstances or as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy:

• With Your Instructors:
  We share data that we have about you (except your email address) with instructors or teaching assistants for courses you enroll in or request information about, so they can improve their courses for you and other students. This data may include things like your city, country, browser language, operating system, device settings, the site that brought you to DivergentSkills, and your activities on DivergentSkills. If we collect additional data about you (like age or gender), we may share that too. We will not share your email address with instructors or teaching assistants. We also enable our instructors to implement Google Analytics on their course pages to track sources of traffic to their courses and optimize their course pages.
• With Other Students and Instructors:
  Depending on your settings, your shared content and profile data may be publicly viewable, including to other students and instructors. If you ask a question to an instructor or teaching assistant, your information (including your name) may also be publicly viewable by other users depending on your settings.
• With Service Providers, Contractors, and Agents:
  We share your data with third-party companies who perform services on our behalf, like payment processing, fraud and abuse prevention, data analysis, marketing and advertising services (including retargeted advertising), email and hosting services, and customer services and support. These service providers may access your personal data and are required to use it solely as we direct, to provide our requested service.
• With DivergentSkills Affiliates:
  We may share your data within our corporate family of companies that are related by common ownership or control to enable or support us in providing the Services.
• With Business Partners:
  We have agreements with other websites and platforms to distribute our Services and drive traffic to DivergentSkills. For example, we work with Benesse in Japan. Depending on your location, we may share your data with these partners.
• With Analytics and Data Enrichment Services:
  As part of our use of third-party analytics tools like Google Analytics and data enrichment services like ZoomInfo, we share certain contact information, Account Data, System Data, Usage Data (as detailed in Section 1), or de-identified data as needed. De-identified data means data where we’ve removed things like your name and email address and replaced it with a token ID. This allows these providers to provide analytics services or match your data with publicly-available database information (including contact and social information from other sources). We do this to communicate with you in a more effective and customized manner.
• To Power Social Media Features:
  The social media features in the Services (like the Facebook Like button) may allow the third-party social media provider to collect things like your IP address and which page of the Services you’re visiting, and to set a cookie to enable the feature. Your interactions with these features are governed by the third-party company’s privacy policy.
• To Administer Promotions and Surveys:
  We may share your data as necessary to administer, market, or sponsor promotions and surveys you choose to participate in, as required by applicable law (like to provide a winners list or make required filings), or in accordance with the rules of the promotion or survey.
• For Advertising:
  If we decide to use an advertising-supported revenue model in the future, we may use and share certain System Data and Usage Data with third-party advertisers and networks to show general demographic and preference information among our users. We may also allow advertisers to collect System Data through Data Collection Tools, to use this data to offer you targeted ad delivery to personalize your user experience (through behavioral advertising), and to undertake web analytics. Advertisers may also share with us the data they collect about you.  Note that if you opt out, you’ll continue to be served generic ads.
• For Security and Legal Compliance:
  We may disclose your data to third parties if we (in our sole discretion) have a good faith belief that the disclosure is:
  • Permitted or required by law;
  • Requested as part of a judicial, governmental, or legal inquiry, order, or proceeding;
  • Reasonably necessary as part of a valid subpoena, warrant, or other legally-valid request;
  • Reasonably necessary to enforce our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and other legal agreements;
  • Required to detect, prevent, or address fraud, abuse, misuse, potential violations of law (or rule or regulation), or security or technical issues; or
  • Reasonably necessary in our discretion to protect against imminent harm to the rights, property, or safety of DivergentSkills, our users, employees, members of the public, or our Services.
  • We may also disclose data about you to our auditors and legal advisors in order to assess our disclosure obligations and rights under this Privacy Policy.
• During a Change in Control:
  If DivergentSkills undergoes a business transaction like a merger, acquisition, corporate divestiture, or dissolution (including bankruptcy), or a sale of all or some of its assets, we may share, disclose, or transfer all of your data to the successor organization during such transition or in contemplation of a transition (including during due diligence).
• After Aggregation/De-identification:
  we may disclose or use aggregated or de-identified data for any purpose.
• With Your Permission:
  with your consent, we may share data to third parties outside the scope of this Privacy Policy.

Security

DivergentSkills takes appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction of your personal data that we collect and store. These measures vary based on the type and sensitivity of the data. Unfortunately, however, no system can be 100% secured, so we cannot guarantee that communications between you and DivergentSkills, the Services, or any information provided to us in connection with the data we collect through the Services will be free from unauthorized access by third parties. Your password is an important part of our security system, and it is your responsibility to protect it. You should not share your password with any third party, and if you believe your password or account has been compromised, you should change it immediately and contact our Support Team with any concerns.

Your Rights

Your Choices About the Use of Your Data

You can choose not to provide certain data to us, but you may not be able to use certain features of the Services.

• To stop receiving promotional communications from us, you can opt out by using the unsubscribe mechanism in the promotional communication you receive. Note that regardless of your email preference settings, we will send you transactional and relationship messages regarding the Services, including administrative confirmations, order confirmations, important updates about the Services, and notices about our policies.
• If you’re located in the European Economic Area, you may opt out of certain Data Collection Tools by clicking the “Cookie settings“ link at the bottom of any page.
• The browser or device you use may allow you to control cookies and other types of local data storage. To learn more about managing cookies, visit https://cookiepedia.co.uk/how-to-manage-cookies. Your wireless device may also allow you to control whether location or other data is collected and shared.
• To get information and control cookies used for tailored advertising from participating companies, see the consumer opt-out pages for the Network Advertising Initiative and Digital Advertising Alliance, or if you’re located in the European Economic Area, visit the Your Online Choices site. To opt out of Google’s display advertising or customize Google Display Network ads, visit the Google Ads Settings page. To opt out of Taboola’s targeted ads, see the Opt-out Link in their Cookie Policy.
• To opt out of allowing Google Analytics or ZoomInfo to use your data for analytics or enrichment, see the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, or ZoomInfo’s policy.
• Apple iOS, Android OS, and Microsoft Windows each provide their own instructions on how to control in-app tailored advertising. For other devices and operating systems, you should review your privacy settings on that platform.

If you have any questions about your data, our use of it, or your rights, contact us at privacy@divergentskills.com.

Accessing, Updating, and Deleting Your Personal Data

You can access and update your personal data that DivergentSkills collects and maintains as follows:

• To update data you provide directly, log into your account and update your account at any time.
• To terminate your account:
  • Visit your profile settings page and click on delete account option.
  • If you have any issues terminating your account, please contact our Support Team.
  • Please note: even after your account is terminated, some or all of your data may still be visible to others, including without limitation any data that has been (a) copied, stored, or disseminated by other users (including in course comment); (b) shared or disseminated by you or others (including in your shared content); or (c) posted to a third-party platform. Even after your account is terminated, we retain your data for as long as we have a legitimate purpose to do so (and in accordance with applicable law), including to assist with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. We may retain and disclose such data pursuant to this Privacy Policy after your account has been terminated.

Our Policy Concerning Children

We recognize the privacy interests of children and encourage parents and guardians to take an active role in their children’s online activities and interests. Individuals younger than 18 years of age, but of the required age for consent to use online services where they live (for example, 13 in the US or 16 in Ireland), may not set up an account, but may have a parent or guardian open an account and help them enroll in appropriate courses. Individuals younger than the required age for consent to use online services may not use the Services. If we learn that we’ve collected personal data from a child under those ages, we will take reasonable steps to delete it.

Parents who believe that DivergentSkills may have collected personal data from a child under those ages can submit a request that it be removed to support@divergentskills.com.

Modifications to This Privacy Policy

From time to time, we may update this Privacy Policy. If we make any material change to it, we will notify you via email, through a notification posted on the Services, or as required by applicable law. We will also include a summary of the key changes. Unless stated otherwise, modifications will become effective on the day they are posted.

As permitted by applicable law, if you continue to use the Services after the effective date of any change, then your access and/or use will be deemed an acceptance of (and agreement to follow and be bound by) the revised Privacy Policy. The revised Privacy Policy supersedes all previous Privacy Policies.

Interpretation

Any capitalized terms not defined in this policy are defined as specified in DivergentSkills’s Terms of Use.

Questions

If you have any questions, concerns, or disputes regarding our Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us at privacy@divergentskills.com. You can also send mail to us at BlueStone Learning Solutions FZE, Attn: Support, P O Box 282012, United Arab Emirates.

×