Privacy Policy

Located at: https://www.bned.com/privacy-policy/

Student and Faculty Portal Privacy Policy

Barnes & Noble Education, Inc. Student and Faculty Portal Privacy Policy

EFFECTIVE AS OF 4/28/2025

TO SUBMIT A PRIVACY RIGHTS REQUEST WITH EXPEDITED IDENTIFICATION VERIFICATION, PLEASE CLICK ON OUR WEB FORM HERE.


TABLE OF CONTENTS



  1. INTRODUCTION

    1. This Student and Faculty Portal Privacy Policy ("Policy") describes how Barnes & Noble Education, Inc., a Delaware corporation, our subsidiaries, including Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC and MBS Textbook Exchange, LLC, and affiliates (collectively, "BNED", "we", "us", "our"), collect, use and disclose your personal information on our student and faculty portals (collectively, our "Services"), and the choices you can make regarding your privacy rights.
    2. This Policy does not apply to:
      • our websites, social media accounts, and on any mobile applications or digital platforms where other privacy policies are posted; our stores, or when you interact with us at events; our customer service channels; or our other online and offline interactions with you. For more information about how we process this information, visit our privacy policy posted at https://www.bned.com/privacy-policy/.
      • information about our employees, contractors, agents, and job applicants. For more information about how we process this information, please consult our employee, contractor, agent and job applicant privacy policies.
      • the practices of companies we do not own or control. For more information about how these companies process your personal information, or to exercise your privacy rights with respect to personal information held by such companies, please visit each company's posted privacy policy.
    3. If you are a resident of California, please find additional information about your rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended, in the California and Other Region Specific Disclosures section.
    4. BNED is headquartered at 120 Mountain View Blvd., Basking Ridge, New Jersey 07920 in the United States ("U.S."). The Services are intended for use by residents of the United States, in accordance with applicable law, and the applicable Terms of Use. This Policy applies to all personal information collected by us and includes any cross-border data transfers.
    5. Any personal information we collect about you may be transferred to the U.S. or to other countries by us or our Service Providers (as defined below). If your information is transferred outside the U.S., we work to ensure that such transfers comply with applicable laws, including providing adequate protection through contractual clauses or other mechanisms. By using our Services, you acknowledge the terms of this Policy and the collection, use, maintenance, transfer to and processing of your personal information in the U.S. and in other countries or territories.

  2. SOURCES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION


    Information You Provide.

    Depending on how you interact with our Services, you may provide us, our agents, our customers, BNED's service providers, our licensees, and other third parties who perform services on our behalf under written contract (collectively, "Service Providers") with the following personal information:

    1. your name, email address(es), username, password, alias, unique identifier, signature, billing address(es), shipping address(es), which may include on-campus and/or drop-ship location(s), phone number(s), date of birth, age, financial account number(s) and other financial information, e.g., campus debit card and financial aid transactions, government-issued identifier, gender, physical characteristics, school attending, graduation year, school identifier, enrollment information, and other registration information;
    2. information about your preferences;
    3. non-precise geolocation for Services based on information you provide;
    4. transaction-related information, such as your orders for any Services or purchases, if any, that you make from us or our Service Providers;
    5. information you otherwise provide us or our Service Providers, such as when you contact us for assistance; and
    6. other information related to your use of our Services.

    You must maintain the confidentiality of your account access information and are responsible for controlling access to your account. If you ever use a public computer to visit your account, we strongly encourage you to log out at the conclusion of your session. BNED does not store your payment card information unless you choose to include it in your account.


    Information Collected Automatically. We and our Service Providers may automatically collect certain information when you use our Services, including by automatically receiving or collecting certain information, which may include your:
    1. browser or operating system;
    2. manner of connecting to the Internet, including your device type, and the name of your Internet provider or wireless carrier;
    3. Internet protocol ("IP") address;
    4. data relating to malfunctions or problems, if any, that may occur when you use our Services;
    5. log file information, including your referring and exit pages and URLs, number of clicks and how you interact with links on our Services, domain names, landing pages, pages viewed, and other similar information;
    6. non-precise geolocation based on IP address for other Services collected automatically such as through tracking technologies;
    7. browsing and purchasing behavior; and
    8. preferences.

    Information From Other Sources. We may also collect personal information about you from our affiliates that have shared management or ownership with us, as well as external sources, including your friends, our Service Providers, our customers, including applicable educational institution(s), and other third parties that provide information to us, including advertising networks, government sources or publicly available information. For students, this information may include your identification number and other information available through your institutions' student information system(s) and/or learning management system(s), including without limitation name, email, campus or other location, financial aid, term, course enrollment and courses.

  3. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION


    We may use the personal information we collect for various purposes, including to:
    1. process and verify your registration, fulfill your request(s) for Services, and process your transactions;
    2. manage your account, including your payment information and preferences;
    3. improve our Services;
    4. fulfill other purposes disclosed to you at the time you provide us, our customers, or our Service Providers with your information or otherwise where we are legally permitted to do so;
    5. respond to your inquiries;
    6. provide you with Services updates, legal notices and other information regarding our Services;
    7. understand your non-precise geolocation based on IP address;
    8. keep our Services safe and secure, and to prevent and detect fraud, abuse, or other illegal activities;
    9. comply with our legal obligations, policies, and procedures including, without limitation, our agreements with applicable educational institution(s) and Service Providers; and
    10. administer and manage our Services, including content and layout, usage, troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, and for statistical and survey purposes.

  4. HOW WE DISCLOSE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION


    We may disclose your personal information to:
    1. BNED affiliates. We may disclose your personal information to our affiliates who may have content of interest to you;
    2. Service Providers. We may disclose your personal information to our Service Providers who assist with the delivery of our Services and the performance of our business operations, such as hosting, payment processing, analytics, customer support, and maintaining the integrity of our Services;
    3. Institutions. We may disclose your personal information to certain educational institution(s) with whom we contract, and certain of such institutions' subcontractors;
    4. Government and law enforcement authorities. We may disclose your personal information as required or permitted by law, such as in response to a verified request, e.g., court order, search warrant, or subpoena, relating to a criminal investigation or alleged illegal activity, or any other activity that may expose us, you, or any other party to legal liability;
    5. Security and safety. Where permitted by applicable law, we may disclose your personal information for the purpose of protecting the rights, property, life, health, security, and safety of BNED, our Services, our users, or any other party. We may also disclose your personal information if we have a good faith belief that a crime has been or is being committed; and
    6. Business transactions. We may disclose your personal information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any proposed or actual business transaction, e.g., merger, purchase, sale, or any other type of business transaction regarding all or any portion of our assets, including transfer of all or any portion of our business to another party.

  5. EXTERNAL SERVICES AND ANALYTICS


    Please note that any links to external services are provided for your convenience only. Since this Policy does not apply to the practices of companies that we do not own or control, if you wish to learn more about the privacy practices of any external services or certain vendors or Service Providers, we encourage you to review their privacy policies directly.

    1. Analytics. We may use third party tools, such as Adobe Analytics, to help us analyze our performance, and to deliver Services to you.

  6. YOUR CHOICES


    When it comes to your personal information, you have options, and we want to make sure you are informed of your choices.
    1. Access, Update, or Correct Your Information. If you have an account on our Services, you may access, update, and/or correct the information you provide to us at any time by accessing your account settings.
    2. Choices Regarding Tracking Technologies.

      • Browser Settings. Some browsers have incorporated "Do Not Track" features that can send a signal to websites you visit indicating that you do not wish to be tracked. Because there is no consensus on how to interpret "Do Not Track" signals, our Services do not currently respond to browser Do Not Track" signals. To find out more about "Do Not Track," you can visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com. You can control information collection and use by using other means, such as by clearing your browser cache history or by using the tools discussed below.
      • Self-Regulatory Advertising Organizations. Certain vendors that perform advertising-related services on our behalf participate in voluntary programs that provide tools to opt-out of interest-based advertising, such as the Digital Advertising Alliance's ("DAA") Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising. We support this program, and we expect those ad networks we directly engage to serve you interest-based advertising will do so as well, although we cannot guarantee their compliance. To learn more about how you can exercise certain choices regarding interest-based advertising for DAA members, visit http://www.aboutads.info/choices/, and http://www.aboutads.info/appchoices for information on the DAA's opt-out program for mobile apps. Some of these companies are also members of the Network Advertising Initiative ("NAI"). To learn more about the NAI and opt-out options for their members, see http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/. We are not responsible for the effectiveness of, or compliance with, any third party opt-out options or programs, nor the accuracy of their statements regarding their programs.
      • Mobile Device Settings. You can use mobile device settings to limit mobile Tracking Technologies and associated activities. Additionally, you can also choose to uninstall mobile applications.

      If you use more than one browser or device, we recommend you make these choices in each browser or device to ensure your preferences are accounted for properly.

      BNED may implement Google's Invisible reCAPTCHA technology on our Services in order to reduce spam and prevent abuse of our Services. Your use of the Invisible reCAPTCHA is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Google Terms of Service.

  7. USER-GENERATED CONTENT


    Our Services may permit you to post or submit User Generated Content ("UGC") including, without limitation, written content, user profiles, audio or visual recordings, computer graphics, pictures, data, or other content, including personal information. If you choose to submit UGC to any public area of our Services, your UGC will be considered "public" and will be accessible by anyone, including BNED. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, unless otherwise explicitly agreed by us, personal information included in UGC is not subject to our usage or sharing limitations, or other obligations, and may be used and shared by BNED and other parties. We encourage you to exercise caution when making decisions about what you disclose in such public areas. For more information on how UGC is treated under the applicable Terms of Use.

  8. MINORS


    Our Services are not intended for children under the age of 16 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 16. If we become aware that we have obtained personal information from a child under the age of 16, we will delete such information in accordance with applicable law.

  9. SECURITY


    We take steps to help protect your personal information. We maintain appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to help protect personal information collected or received through our Services. Additionally, we limit access to personal information to employees and authorized parties who need to access that information to operate, develop, or improve our Services. Although we use reasonable efforts to safeguard personal information, transmission via the Internet is not completely secure and we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information collected through our Services.

  10. DATA RETENTION


    Except as otherwise permitted or required by applicable law or regulation, we will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, as required to satisfy any legal obligations, or as necessary to resolve disputes. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider applicable legal requirements, the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal information, the purposes we process your personal information for, and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means. We will maintain certain types of personal information for a limited duration.

  11. CALIFORNIA AND OTHER REGION SPECIFIC DISCLOSURES


    U.S. REGULATORY STATES PRIVACY NOTICE


    If you live in California or certain other states in the U.S. that have enacted applicable consumer privacy laws (collectively, the "Applicable Law"), you may have certain rights regarding the processing of your personal information. For the purpose of this notice, personal Information applies to "Personal Information" and "Personal Data" as defined by Applicable Law.

    This information supplements other sections of this Policy and provides additional information for residents of certain states in accordance with the requirements of Applicable Law. Information provided here details our Personal Information processing practices in the previous twelve months and our current Personal Information collection practices. This section should be viewed in conjunction with the other portions of this Policy. For example, we have described the Personal Information we collect, the sources from which we collect Personal Information, our purposes for that collection, and how we disclosed Personal Information in this Policy.

    COLLECTION AND DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION


    What Personal Information We Collect and Why We Collect It.


    We collect the categories of Personal Information about California residents that are indicated in the chart below. Note that the specific pieces of Personal Information we collect about you may vary depending on the nature of your interactions with us and may not include all of the examples listed.

    The disclosures in the chart below also apply to residents in other U.S. states that have enacted Applicable Laws.

    Category of PI Purposes for Collection, Use, and Disclosure
    Identifiers such as name, email address, postal address, phone number, date of birth, school identifier, government issued identifier, IP address or other similar identifiers
    1. To develop, improve, and provide our Services
    2. To operate our business, complete transactions, and comply with legal requirements
    3. To prevent fraud and illegal activity
    Personal Information as described in Section 1798.80(e) of the California Civil Code such as a phone number and bank account number
    1. To develop, improve, and provide our Services
    2. To operate our business, complete transactions, and comply with legal requirements
    3. To prevent fraud and illegal activity
    Commercial Information such as purchase history
    1. To develop, improve, and provide our Services
    2. To operate our business, complete transactions, and comply with legal requirements
    3. To prevent fraud and illegal activity
    Non- Precise Geolocation
    1. To develop, improve, and provide our Services
    2. To operate our business and comply with legal requirements
    3. To prevent fraud and illegal activity
    Internet or Other Electronic Network Activity Information such as IP address, mobile network provider, and other related information
    1. To develop, improve, and provide our Services
    2. To operate our business, complete transactions, and comply with legal requirements
    3. To prevent fraud and illegal activity
    Inferences drawn from personal information collected to generate information about your likely preferences
    1. To develop, improve, and provide our Services
    2. To operate our business, complete transactions, and comply with legal requirements
    3. To prevent fraud and illegal activity
    Sensitive Personal Information, specifically: Account Access Credentials, such as your account username and password.
    1. To develop, improve, and provide our Service
    2. To provide access to your account
    3. To operate our business, complete transactions, and comply with legal requirements
    4. To prevent fraud and illegal activity

    Sources of Personal Information

    We collect Personal Information from:

    1. you;
    2. your devices and/or browsers;
    3. our affiliates;
    4. Service Providers;
    5. Applicable educational institution(s); and
    6. other external sources, including publicly available sources.

    Categories of Recipients of Personal Information.

    We may disclose each category of Personal Information and sensitive Personal Information, described herein, to these categories of recipients:

    1. our affiliates;
    2. Service Providers;
    3. Applicable educational institution(s); and
    4. governmental and law enforcement authorities.

    Selling and Sharing of Personal Information.

    We do not sell and/or share with third parties for cross-context behavioral advertising.


    CALIFORNIA RIGHTS DISCLOSURE.

    The CCPA gives California consumers certain rights:


    Right to Know

    California consumers have the right to request more information about the following:

    1. The categories of Personal Information we have collected about you;
    2. The categories of sources from which the Personal Information was collected;
    3. Our business or commercial purposes for collecting, selling, or sharing your Personal Information;
    4. The categories of third parties to which we disclosed your Personal Information;
    5. The categories of Personal Information we sold or shared about you and the categories of third parties to which each category of Personal Information was sold or shared;
    6. The categories of Personal Information we disclosed about you for a business purpose and the categories of recipients to which it was disclosed; and
    7. The specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected about you

    Right to Request Deletion of Personal Information

    You may request that we delete your Personal Information that we have collected directly from you and are currently maintaining. Please note, however, that we may have a legal basis for retaining certain Personal Information under the CCPA, despite your request. Requests of this nature may be made no more than twice in a twelve-month period.


    Right to Opt-out of the Sale and Sharing of Personal Information

    We do not engage in sales and/or sharing via Tracking Technologies.


    Right to Correct Personal Information

    You may request that we correct Personal Information that we maintain about you if you believe such Personal Information is inaccurate. We may request documentation from you in connection with your request. We will also require you (or your agent) to be verified before honoring your correction requests. Upon receipt of a verifiable request to correct inaccurate Personal Information, we will use commercially reasonable efforts to correct the information as you direct.


    Right to Limit Use of Your Sensitive Personal Information

    We limit the use and disclosure of your sensitive Personal Information to uses/disclosures that are reasonably necessary to provide our goods and services, or as needed: to ensure security and integrity; to prevent fraud or illegal activity; for physical safety; for short-term, transient use,; to perform services on behalf of the business; and to verify or maintain the quality or safety of a service or device owned, manufactured, manufactured for, or controlled by us, and to improve, upgrade, or enhance such services or devices. You do not have the right to further limit our use of your sensitive Personal Information.


    Right to Non-discrimination for the Exercise of Your Privacy Rights

    We will not discriminate against you if you choose to exercise any of the privacy rights described herein.


    Exercise CCPA Rights.

    You may submit CCPA-related requests to BNED for BNED-controlled sites on our privacy portal HERE, or toll-free at 833-720-0427.


    Please note that, if you submit privacy rights requests, we may ask you for specific information to help us confirm your identity prior to processing your request. Please follow any instructions provided and promptly respond to any follow-up inquiries so that we may confirm your identity and respond to your request. If you ask that we give you specific pieces of Personal Information or that we delete or correct certain types of Personal Information, we may apply heightened verification standards, which require additional proof of your identity.

    Only you, or someone you authorize to act for you, may make a request related to your Personal Information. If you designate an authorized agent to make a request for you, you may still need to verify your identity directly with us before your request can be processed.

    If we decline to fulfill your privacy rights request, we will tell you why, unless we are not legally permitted to do so.

    In order to fully exercise your rights under the CCPA for each BNED-controlled site you use, please complete the BNED privacy portal webform from each browser, on each device, and on each such BNED-run website.

    Shine the Light.

    California law permits customers in California to request certain details about how their Personal Information is shared with third parties, and in some cases our affiliates, if Personal Information is shared for those third parties' or our affiliates' own direct marketing purposes. We do not share Personal Information with third parties or our affiliates for those third parties' or affiliates' own direct marketing purposes. Californians may request information about our compliance with this law by contacting us by mailing:

    Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC
    120 Mountain View Boulevard
    Legal Department
    Basking Ridge, NJ 07920
    Attention: Chief Privacy Officer

    Any such request must include your name and "California Shine the Light Privacy Rights Request" in the first line of the description and, if sent by mail, must include your street address, city, state, and zip code.

    Please note that "Shine the Light" rights and CCPA rights are granted by different laws and must be exercised separately.

    12. Minors.


    California residents under the age of 18 who have registered to use our Services, and who have posted content or information on or through our Services, can request that such information be removed by contacting us in the manner described in the "Contact Us" section below stating that they personally posted such content or information and detailing where the content or information is posted.

    We will make a reasonably good faith effort to remove the content from prospective public view or anonymize it so the minor cannot be individually identified. However, this removal process cannot ensure complete or comprehensive deletion from the Internet. For instance, other parties may have republished the content or archived copies of it may be stored by search engines or other parties that we do not control.


    OTHER STATE-SPECIFIC RIGHTS


    Your Rights Under Other Applicable Law.

    This section applies to consumers residing in certain U.S. states other than California. As used in this section, the term "Personal Information" includes "Personal Data" as defined by Applicable Laws. You can learn more about the Personal Information we process in the "Personal Information We Collect" section and the purpose for processing such Personal Information in the "How We Use Your Personal Information" section. You can also learn more about our disclosure of Personal Information and the categories of external parties we disclose Personal Information to in the "How We Disclose Your Personal Information" section. You can learn more about the purposes for which we process each category of personal information we collect in the "What Personal Information We Collect and Why We Collect It" subsection of the California and Other Region Specific Disclosures section above.

    We do not process your Personal Information for Targeted Advertising.

    Subject to certain conditions and restrictions, which are set out in such Applicable Laws, you may have the following rights with regard to your Personal Information:


    Right to Access and Data Portability

    You have the right to confirm whether we are processing your Personal Information, to access your Personal Information, and to obtain a copy of your Personal Information in a portable format. Oregon and Delaware consumers may also request either a list of third parties or categories of third parties to which we disclosed Personal Information.


    Right to Correct

    You have the right to request that we correct inaccuracies in your Personal Information, taking into account the nature of the Personal Information and our purposes for processing it.


    Right to Delete

    You have the right to request that we delete certain Personal Information that we have collected from or obtained about you, subject to certain exemptions.


    Right to Opt Out of Sales

    We do not "sell" your Personal Information as "sales" under Applicable Laws.


    Right to Opt Out of Targeted Advertising

    We do not disclosure your Personal Information for Targeted Advertising.


    Right to Opt Out of Profiling

    You have the right to opt out of our processing of Personal Information for the purposes of profiling. We do not process Personal Information for the purposes of profiling, and as such this right is not applicable.


    Right to Appeal

    If you are unsatisfied with our actions related to the exercise of one of your privacy rights described herein, you may appeal our decision using the contact email address below.

    Exercise Applicable Law Rights.

    Consumers may submit their requests under U.S. privacy laws HERE for BNED-run sites. Please note that, depending on the nature of your request, you may be asked to provide information to verify your identity before your request can be processed. We will respond to your request as soon as we reasonably can and no later than as legally required.

    You may designate an authorized agent to make certain requests on your behalf, but you may still need to authenticate your identity directly with us before your request can be processed.

    If you choose to exercise any of the privacy rights described herein, we will not deny our Services to you, charge you different prices, or provide a different level or quality of Services to you unless those differences are related to the value of your personal information. If we decline to fulfill your privacy rights request, we will tell you why, unless we are not legally permitted to do so.


    Your Nevada Privacy Rights.

    Under Nevada privacy law, Nevada residents may opt out of the sale of certain "covered information" collected by operators of websites or online services. We currently do not "sell" covered information as "sale" is defined by such law, and we do not have plans to "sell" this information.

  12. CHANGES TO THIS POLICY


    From time to time, we may amend this Policy. If we amend this Policy, we will post an updated date at the top of the Policy. Your continued use of our Services after any update to this Policy will constitute your acceptance of the changes.

    To the extent any provision of this Policy is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be severed to the extent necessary for the remainder of this Policy to be valid and enforceable.

  13. CONTACT US


    If you have any questions or concerns about this Policy, you may contact us:

    By mail:

    Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC
    120 Mountain View Boulevard
    Legal Department
    Basking Ridge, NJ 07920
    Attention: Chief Privacy Officer