Cookie notice.

A cookie is a small named value that this site asks your browser to remember. The next time you load a page, your browser hands the value back to us, and we use it to recognise that this is the same session that came before. Cookies are how you stay signed in across pages, how your cart survives a refresh, and how your reading preferences travel with you.

We use a parallel mechanism called local storage for the same purpose. Where this notice says "cookie," read it as "cookie or local storage." Both are governed by this notice.

Essential — Session identifier, signed-in flag, cart contents, karma balance, watchlist, journal draft, density preference, and language preference. These are not optional; the site cannot present a coherent account without them. They are set the moment you arrive.

Functional — Reading position on long-form essays, audio playback position, "continue watching" anchors, recently-read history. These improve the experience but are not required. You can clear them at any time in Profile → Settings → Privacy.

Analytics — Coarse, aggregate, server-side. We record what pages were loaded and roughly how long they were open. We do not assemble this into a per-user profile. No third-party analytics pixel runs on any page.

Advertising — None. The Promised Studios does not place advertising on its surfaces and does not embed any third-party advertising trackers. There is no audience pixel, no retargeting tag, no social-network conversion script.

YouTube embeds — We use youtube-nocookie.com so that no YouTube cookie is set until you press play. If you press play, YouTube’s standard cookies are set; that interaction is governed by YouTube’s policy, not ours.

Stripe — When you reach checkout, Stripe sets cookies required to process the payment and to defend against card fraud. These cookies are essential to the transaction and are set only on the checkout flow.

Cloudflare — Our infrastructure provider sets cookies for traffic security (challenge tokens, bot defence). These are essential and are not used for tracking.

When you first arrive we ask whether you accept all cookies or essential only. "Essential only" prevents the functional category from being written; analytics remains coarse and server-side regardless. Your choice is stored as itself a cookie (tps_cookie_consent_v1) so we do not ask you again on the same browser.

You can revisit this choice any time at the foot of this page, or in Profile → Settings → Privacy.

You may also clear cookies in your browser. Doing so will sign you out and reset your reading preferences, but no data of yours is lost on our side.

Surfaces directed at children — the Jataka Tales reader, the children’s pilgrimage track — set the minimum essential cookie set only. We do not enable functional or analytics cookies on those surfaces regardless of consent state. This is consistent with COPPA (United States) and the equivalent provisions of India’s DPDPA and the United Kingdom Age Appropriate Design Code.

Write to privacy@thepromisedstudios.com. Questions specific to cookies are routed to our Data Protection Officer and answered within ten business days.