Who we are

Our website address is: https://www.selfdirectloans.com. Self Direct Loans is an informational website designed to help visitors compare and discover personal-loan services, accredited online education programs, and credit-building products that may be available to them. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect your personal information when you visit our site or interact with our content.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. This information helps us maintain the security and integrity of our website and protect it from abuse.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website, so you should only upload media you are comfortable sharing publicly.

Cookies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to improve your browsing experience, remember your preferences, and help us understand how visitors use our content. A cookie is a small text file that is stored on your device when you visit a website.

We also use first-party local storage and cookies (for example, a key named “sdl_tracking”) to remember your preferences and to correctly attribute referrals to our advertising partners across pages. This data stays on your device, and you can clear it at any time in your browser settings.

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will typically last for one year.

You can control and manage cookies in your browser settings. Most browsers allow you to block cookies, delete existing cookies, or receive a warning before a cookie is stored. Please note that disabling cookies may affect the functionality of this and other websites you visit.

Google AdSense and third-party advertising

We may display advertisements on this website that are served by Google AdSense or other third-party advertising networks. These third parties may use cookies, web beacons, or similar technologies to collect information about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services that are likely to be of interest to you.

In particular, Google, as a third-party vendor, may use cookies to serve ads on this site. Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to our users based on their visit to our site and/or other sites on the Internet. You can learn more about how Google uses data from its partners here: https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

Users may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google’s Ads Settings page: https://adssettings.google.com. You can also opt out of some third-party vendors’ uses of cookies for personalized advertising by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page at https://optout.networkadvertising.org/ or the Digital Advertising Alliance opt-out page at https://optout.aboutads.info/.

Third-party ad servers or ad networks may also use cookies and other tracking technologies to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and to personalize the advertising content that you see. We do not control these third-party cookies and their use is governed by the privacy policies of the respective third parties.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website directly.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website. We have no control over how these third-party websites collect and use your data, and you should review their privacy policies for more information.

Who we share your data with

We do not sell or rent your personal data to third parties. We may share limited data with service providers who help us operate the website, such as analytics providers, security and spam detection tools, or hosting providers. These service providers are only permitted to use your data in accordance with our instructions and applicable data protection laws.

If you request a password reset, your IP address may be included in the reset email for security and fraud prevention purposes.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

We may also retain certain technical and usage data for a reasonable period of time for analytics, security, and troubleshooting purposes, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Depending on your location, you may have additional rights under local data protection laws, such as the right to object to certain types of processing or to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us at [email protected].

Where your data is sent

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service and other security tools designed to protect this website from malicious activity. These services may be located in other countries, meaning your data may be transferred internationally.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal requirements, or the functionality of this website. When we make changes, we will revise the “last updated” date at the top or bottom of this page. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we protect your information.

Contact us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or about how we handle your personal information, you can contact us by email at [email protected] or by mail at: Self Direct Loans, 30 N Gould Street #38464, Sheridan, WY 82801.

Affiliate and lead-generation disclosure

Some links on this site are affiliate or partner links. If you click one and then request information, sign up, or complete an application on a partner’s website, we may receive a commission or referral fee at no additional cost to you. Any personal information you enter on a partner’s website is collected by that partner under their own privacy policy, not ours. We do not sell the personal information collected on this site for money. See our Affiliate Disclosure for more detail.

Your California privacy rights (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a California resident, you may have the right to know what personal information we collect, to request access to or deletion of that information, to correct it, and to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information as those terms are defined under California law. We do not sell your personal information for money. If in the future we share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising (for example, through third-party analytics or advertising tools), we will provide a “Your Privacy Choices” opt-out and will honor Global Privacy Control (GPC) browser signals. To exercise your rights, please contact us at [email protected].