Cookalong privacy

What happens to your Cookalong information

This notice explains how PICIUS handles information when someone creates or uses a Cookalong. It does not cover general PICIUS Creator account administration.

Updated August 2026

What you submit and what we create

When you submit a public recipe-video page, PICIUS receives the page URL and retrieves the source page and media needed to understand the recipe. The source service may receive the usual request information involved in retrieving that public content.

PICIUS and its processing providers use that material to create and store Cookalong artifacts, such as the recipe title, structured ingredients and steps, thumbnails, and the media needed for the guided experience. The original recipe remains the source of the content, and the Cookalong links back to it.

Unlisted Cookalongs

A personal Cookalong is unlisted and is not intended for search or public discovery. Anyone who has its URL can open the read-only result, so treat the URL as a shareable link.

PICIUS does not currently delete Cookalongs on an automatic schedule. To report a Cookalong or request removal, use the report action on the Cookalong or email contact@picius.io.

Cookies and local storage

PICIUS uses first-party cookies, local storage, and session storage for the specific purposes below. This notice is informational: opening it does not grant permission or change your measurement choice. Where optional measurement is available, it is on unless you turn it off in .

Server-side rate limits, abuse and security controls, operational feature gates, and spend controls continue to work whether or not optional measurement is available or enabled. Request information, including an IP-derived protected quota key, may be used for those essential operations.

Cookalong access and security

Necessary

Provider / controller: PICIUS
Technology: Secure first-party HTTP-only cookies: picius_cook_session, __Host-picius-ai-help-visitor, and picius_phone_preview.
Purpose: Continue access to a requested personal Cookalong or creator preview and apply AI-help security and abuse limits.
Approximate duration: Up to 90 days for Cookalong access, 30 days for AI-help visitor security, and 400 days for creator phone-preview access.
Regional availability: Used wherever the related requested feature is available, independently of optional measurement.
Your control: Browser cookie controls. Clearing these cookies may remove session or access continuity.

Recent Cookalongs

Necessary product function

Provider / controller: PICIUS
Technology: Browser local storage under picius:cook:recent.
Purpose: Show recent personal Cookalongs on this browser, including enough job, title, source, status, and result-link information to reopen or refresh them.
Approximate duration: Until browser storage is cleared. PICIUS keeps at most 60 recent entries.
Regional availability: All regions.
Your control: Clear site data in your browser. This removes the list from that browser but does not delete stored Cookalong artifacts from PICIUS.

Cooking and voice-help continuity

Necessary product function

Provider / controller: PICIUS
Technology: Browser session storage.
Purpose: Link a cooking attempt across reloads in the same tab and remember the voice-help disclosure choice for that browser session.
Approximate duration: The current tab or browser session. Cooking-attempt state is removed when that attempt completes.
Regional availability: Cooking continuity is available everywhere. Voice help is unavailable in the EEA, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and unknown regions.
Your control: Close the tab or clear site data. Microphone permission remains controlled separately by your browser.

Optional-measurement preference

Necessary preference

Provider / controller: PICIUS
Technology: First-party picius_optional_measurement cookie.
Purpose: Remember whether optional PostHog and Google browser measurement is enabled or disabled across PICIUS pages.
Approximate duration: One year.
Regional availability: The preference can be remembered wherever the setting is shown, but it does not override regional or environment suppression.
Your control: Change it in , or clear site data in your browser.

PostHog browser analytics

Optional

Provider / controller: PICIUS and PostHog
Technology: Project-scoped first-party cookie and browser local storage. PostHog controls the generated storage names; see its JavaScript storage configuration.
Purpose: Maintain an anonymous browser identity and session so PICIUS can understand Cookalong usage and performance. A returning browser can keep the same anonymous identity while receiving a new session ID.
Approximate duration: PostHog's current cookie configuration is 365 days. Local-storage identity remains until it is cleared, reset, or optional measurement is disabled.
Regional availability: Production only, outside the EEA, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and unknown regions.
Your control: Turn it off in . PICIUS then resets the PostHog browser identity and stops future capture; it does not delete events already collected. Turning it on later creates a new identity. PostHog documents its opt-out behavior.

Google Ads measurement

Optional

Provider / controller: PICIUS and Google
Technology: Google-managed first-party attribution cookies and local storage, plus a PICIUS session-storage guard that prevents the same conversion from being sent twice in one browser session. Google documents its conversion-linker storage.
Purpose: Attribute an accepted Cookalong import or preview opening to an ad click and avoid duplicate conversion events. Ad personalization is disabled.
Approximate duration: Google says its _gcl_attribution cookies last 90 days; local storage follows Google's tag and browser behavior. The PICIUS duplicate guard lasts for the browser session. See Google's cookie information.
Regional availability: Production only, outside the EEA, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and unknown regions.
Your control: Turn it off in . This stops future Google measurement; provider-managed storage remains until it expires or you clear it in your browser. See Google's consent-mode documentation.

Optional measurement

PICIUS uses optional browser measurement to understand whether Cookalongs work well. It is unavailable in the EEA, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and when a visitor's region cannot be determined. PICIUS also keeps real optional measurement off in local development, previews, staging, tests, and UI mocks.

Where optional measurement is available, one setting covers PostHog browser analytics and Google Ads conversion measurement. Turning it off stops future optional browser measurement and clears PICIUS-controlled measurement identifiers from that browser. It does not automatically delete events already collected. Turning it on again starts a new PostHog analytics identity.

PostHog may receive the current page URL, standard campaign tags, masked advertising-click markers, Cookalong or job reference, public source URL, recipe title or header, source platform and creator, and approved funnel, progress, performance, and error details. PICIUS does not send full recipe text, recipe JSON snapshots, raw advertising click identifiers, signed media links, credentials, or tokens in browser analytics events.

Google Ads conversion measurement is limited to standard attribution context and approved conversion data. PICIUS does not send Google submitted source URLs, recipe titles or content, generated recipe material, signed media links, credentials, or tokens. Personalized advertising is disabled.

Voice help

Voice help is separate from optional measurement. It is not available in the EEA, United Kingdom, Switzerland, or when a visitor's region cannot be determined.

Where voice help is available, PICIUS shows a disclosure before asking the browser for microphone access. If you continue, microphone audio and the current recipe are processed by an AI provider so it can answer. The transcript is saved for product analysis; microphone audio is not saved. Canceling the disclosure does not request microphone access.

Service-provider categories

PICIUS uses service providers in these categories to run Cookalongs:

hosting and app delivery;
database and media storage;
social-media page and media retrieval;
AI and recipe processing; and
security and service operations.

These providers process information for the service they perform. PostHog and Google are identified above because they are connected to the visitor's one optional-measurement setting.

Questions, removal, and applicable rights

Email contact@picius.io to ask a privacy question, report a Cookalong, request removal, or ask to exercise a right that applies to you. Include the Cookalong URL when your request concerns a specific result so PICIUS can find it.