Cookie Policy
Last updated: August 2026
This page describes, in plain language, the cookies and similar storage BrainTrain AI Academy actually uses. It is a technical disclosure, not legal advice, and is marked pending owner/legal review before it is treated as a final legal document.
1. How This Works
On your first visit, a banner asks you to Accept or Reject optional analytics cookies. Essential cookies are never optional — they're required for the site to function — and are on regardless of your choice. You can change your analytics choice at any time using the "Manage Cookie Preferences" button above or the "Cookie Preferences" link in the site footer.
2. Essential — Always On
These are required for the site to work and are never gated behind a cookie choice:
- Account & login session — maintained by our application platform (Base44) to keep you signed in and protect your account.
- Payments — Stripe Checkout and the Stripe Customer Portal use their own cookies/storage while you're completing a purchase or managing a subscription.
- A device identifier used only to enforce free-tier usage limits on the AI Thinking Tools (preventing abuse of the free demo), stored locally on your device. This is treated as necessary — like a security/anti-abuse control — rather than as marketing analytics, and is not shared with Google Analytics or BrainTrain's traffic-analytics records unless you also accept analytics cookies below.
3. Analytics — Optional, Off Until You Accept
These only run after you accept analytics cookies (or if you previously accepted them on this device):
- Google Analytics 4 — helps us understand traffic and site usage. We use Google's Consent Mode, so Google Analytics does not receive analytics storage permission until you accept.
- BrainTrain first-party analytics — our own record of page views, clicks, downloads, and which page/video/link brought you to the site (for example, which YouTube video). This uses randomly-generated identifiers stored on your device, not your name or email, and is only created after you accept.
4. Third-Party Video (YouTube)
Lesson and blog pages embed YouTube videos using YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode (the youtube-nocookie.com domain), which YouTube states does not store information about visitors on that domain unless they play the video. Playing an embedded video is still an interaction with YouTube/Google's own service, governed by YouTube's own policies, outside our control.
5. Questions
For questions about this Cookie Policy, see our Privacy Policy or contact us via the support link in your account dashboard.
