Privacy

Your practice data stays in your browser

The simulator saves your answers, flags, highlights, timings, essays and settings in your browser's local storage so you can resume where you left off. That data is not sent to us. Clearing your browser's site data deletes it.

Accounts

Full access needs an account: a username and a password, with a one-time recovery code instead of an email address. We store the username, a one-way hash of the password and of the recovery code, whether you verified a copy of the book, and when the account was created and changed. We never see or store the password itself.

Signing in sets one cookie named tc_session. It holds a random code that keeps you signed in for up to 30 days; we store only a one-way hash of it. Signing out, or changing your password, ends the session.

You can delete your account at any time from the account page. That removes the account, its sessions, its access records and its coach history. Payment records stay with Stripe, as payment processors are required to keep them.

The book-owner cookie

If you verify your copy of the book by answering a question from it, the site sets one cookie named tc_access. It contains a signed random code that shows the browser answered correctly, and it lasts about 400 days. It holds no personal information. If you are signed in, your account is also marked as a book owner, so the book-owner price applies at checkout.

Payments

Payments are handled by Stripe on its own secure checkout page. We never see or store your card number. From Stripe we keep what we need to give you access and to handle refunds: the checkout and payment reference numbers, what was bought, the amount and the date. Stripe's own privacy policy covers the details you give it.

The AI coach

When you ask the coach a question, we send Google's Gemini API the practice item, its answer key and explanations, the answer you chose, your question and up to six earlier messages from that conversation. We do not send your username or any account details. Google processes the request under its Gemini API terms. Please do not type personal information into a coach question.

We keep each coach reply, a one-way hash of the request and the number of tokens used, so a repeated request is not charged twice and we can check the coach's costs. We do not keep the text of your question.

Video lessons

The video lessons page shows a thumbnail image for each lesson. Your browser loads those images from YouTube's image server, so YouTube receives your network address and the request. The video player loads only when you press play: it is YouTube's privacy-enhanced player (youtube-nocookie.com), and once it loads, YouTube's handling of your data is covered by Google's privacy policy. A "Watch on YouTube" link takes you to YouTube itself. We do not send YouTube anything about your account or your practice.

Free tools

The free tools run entirely in your browser. The scores, grade point averages and choices you enter are not sent to us or stored on our servers; the data each tool uses is loaded from this site.

The launch email list

If you give your email address for a launch notice, we store the address, the page you used and the date. We use it to send one email when the book is available or checkout opens, and for nothing else. We do not sell or share it. To be removed, reply to that email.

Book QR codes

The QR codes in the book go through short links such as /go/ch05. We count visits to each link per day, with no information about the visitor.

Abuse protection

To limit automated guessing and spam, the site counts sign-in, unlock, coach and sign-up attempts per network address and per account over short windows. It stores only one-way hashes, never the address itself, and deletes the counts within about two days.

Hosting and service providers

The site runs on Cloudflare, which processes requests to deliver pages and may keep standard security logs. Stripe handles payments, Google handles coach requests, and YouTube serves the video lessons, as described above. We use only the first-party usage counts described below, with no advertising or social-media trackers.

First-party usage counts

We count public page views, tool interactions, practice-entry clicks and browser-reported practice starts and completions. These counts contain a fixed page category and a broad source category such as Google, an AI assistant, another website or unknown. They contain no answers, essays, scores, usernames, full referring URLs or IP addresses. We do not add a tracking cookie, device fingerprint or browser-storage identifier.

Optional source categories can be linked privately to a newly created account or checkout for up to 90 days. Aggregate daily counts are retained for up to 400 days; random event receipts used to prevent duplicate counts expire after one day. These optional counts respect Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control. Account and payment records needed to operate the service remain separate. Counts are actions, not unique people.

Contact

Questions about your data: support@thinkclearlyprep.com.

Changes

If this policy changes, this page will show the new date at the top.