This page explains, in plain English, what Vine stores in your browser and why. It’s a companion to the Privacy Policy, which is the full legal document. Both were written to be readable by a parent or a kid without a law degree.

1. Quick summary

• Vine only uses essential browser storage inside the kids’ app, at /app. No advertising, no third-party trackers, no analytics.
• On our public marketing pages (like the homepage, /about, /parents, /teachers, /calculator), we run Google Analytics 4 — but ONLY after you tap “Accept” on the consent banner. Tapping “Essential only” keeps analytics off.
• We do not sell your data. We do not use advertising cookies. We do not follow you across other websites.

2. What is a cookie? What is local storage?

A cookie is a small piece of text a website asks your browser to remember. When you come back, your browser hands that text back so the site can pick up where you left off (for example, keeping you signed in). Cookies belong either to the site you’re on (“first-party”) or to another service the site embedded (“third-party”).

Local storage is similar but bigger, and it stays inside your browser — nothing is sent back automatically on every request. Vine uses local storage to save your practice portfolio and lesson progress so it’s there when you come back, even offline.

3. Essential items — always on, needed for Vine to work

These are used regardless of your consent choice. Vine literally cannot function without them, and none are used for tracking.

• Firebase Auth session (firebaseLocalStorage) — keeps you signed in across page loads. Set by the Google Firebase Auth SDK on your device; the token expires and refreshes on its own.
• Your practice portfolio & progress (vine.portfolio.v1, vine.progress.v1, vine.watchlist, vine.goal, vine.inbox) — your practice cash balance, holdings, lessons completed, watchlist, savings goal. Stored on your device so the app works offline; synced to Firestore when you’re signed in.
• Language & theme preference — remembers your Spanish/English pick and dark-mode choice so you don’t re-set them every visit.
• App Check token — a short-lived reCAPTCHA-derived token that proves the request is coming from the real Vine site (blocks bots and scrapers from hitting our Firebase project). Silent, no click required.
• Cookie-consent choice (vine.consent) — remembers whether you tapped “Accept” or “Essential only” so we don’t ask again every visit.

4. Analytics items — public pages only, off unless you accept

On public marketing pages we use Google Analytics 4 to understand how visitors find Vine (which page they landed on, roughly where they came from geographically at country level, whether they made it to sign-up). This helps us know which lessons and pages actually help kids learn.

• Google Analytics 4 — property G-HCNZMS9PLZ. Sets cookies named _ga, _ga_<property-id>, and _gid. Data goes to Google under Google’s cookie policy. We’ve set the retention window to 14 months, after which Google auto-deletes.
• These cookies are set only after you tap “Accept” on the consent banner. Tapping “Essential only” keeps them off entirely, and if you switch to “Essential only” later the existing cookies are cleared.
• We do not enable Google Signals, remarketing, or the Google advertising features on our GA property. Analytics is for understanding traffic, not for targeting ads.

5. What we do NOT use

• No advertising cookies. Vine shows no ads inside the app or on the marketing pages.
• No third-party tracking pixels. No Meta pixel, no TikTok pixel, no LinkedIn Insight tag, no ad-network scripts.
• No cross-site tracking. We don’t follow you between Vine and any other website.
• No analytics inside the kids’ app. The entire /app, /onboarding, and /verify surface runs zero analytics under ANY consent choice. This is a hard rule enforced in code, not a promise — it’s scoped by URL path.
• No advertising ID. We use Firebase Analytics’ “Without-AdId” SDK variant on iOS so we never receive Apple’s IDFA.

6. How to control cookies

Inside Vine

The consent banner shows on your first visit to any public page. You can change your choice at any time by clearing your browser’s site data for vineteach.com, which resets Vine’s consent record. Next visit, the banner will ask again.

In your browser

Every modern browser lets you view and delete cookies + local storage for a specific site. Rough steps:

• Chrome / Edge: Settings → Privacy & Security → Cookies & site data → See all site data → search “vineteach”.
• Safari: Settings → Privacy → Manage Website Data → search “vineteach”.
• Firefox: Settings → Privacy & Security → Cookies and Site Data → Manage Data.

Clearing site data signs you out and resets your consent choice. If you were signed in, your Vine cloud data (portfolio, lessons, goals) is not affected — it’s stored server-side by your account and reloads on your next sign-in.

7. For parents of kids under 13

Cookies used inside the kids’ product surface are essential-only and are covered by our COPPA-conscious design — see the full For Parents page. In short: no analytics, no ads, no cross-site tracking, ever.

8. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. If we start using a new cookie or add a new third-party service, we’ll update this page and bump the “Reviewed” date at the top. Meaningful changes (new tracking, new data sharing) will also be announced in-app or by email to signed-in users. Continuing to use Vine after the updated policy takes effect means you accept the change.

9. Contact

Questions about cookies or anything on this page? Email vineteam@vineteach.com. A real person reads everything that arrives there.