Privacy Policy

What We Collect

We collect the following information when you use CookOS:

• Your email address when you create an account
• Recipe URLs you submit for saving
• Search queries to improve recipe recommendations
• Basic usage data such as pages visited and features used
• Device type and browser information for compatibility
• The rating and any comment you send from a feedback box under a recipe or search results, with the address of the page (and, under search results, your search)
• The ingredients you keep in My Kitchen. Without an account they stay in your browser. When you are signed in we save them to your account so they follow you to your other devices; you can remove any item, and deleting your account deletes them. To show what you can make, your browser sends the ingredient names to CookOS, and we do not keep that request.
• Your IP address, which we use to prevent misuse (for example, to limit repeated requests) and keep with searches, sign-ups, notification subscriptions, creator claims and our service logs

How We Use Your Information

• To provide the CookOS recipe saving and discovery service
• To improve our product based on how people use it
• To communicate service updates (you can opt out anytime)
• To prevent misuse and protect our users

What We Don't Do

• We never sell your personal information
• We never share your email with advertisers or third parties
• We don't serve ads — CookOS is ad-free by design
• We don't track your activity on other websites. Google, whose analytics and video player we use, follows its own policies, described below.

Cookies and Analytics

We use cookies and similar storage in your browser. Some keep CookOS working, such as remembering your login and preferences. Others measure how people use CookOS:

• Our own measurement. A CookOS cookie holds a random ID for your browser, not your name or email, and is renewed for a year each time you visit. With it we record the pages and features you use, the page that sent you here, and your device type and browser window size.
• Google Analytics. CookOS pages use Google Analytics, a Google service. It sets its own cookies, which last up to two years by Google's default. Google receives the address and title of each page you view, the page that sent you here, the features you use (such as watching a video, scrolling a recipe, searching or pressing Shop ingredients), your device and browser type, and a random number for your visit (a new one in each new browser tab). Google does not receive the words you search for or the random CookOS ID above: we take search words out of page addresses and titles before anything is sent to Google. Google also receives your IP address and uses it to work out your approximate location; Google says Google Analytics does not log or store the address itself. Google explains how it uses this information in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services. To opt out, install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. You can also block or delete cookies and site data in your browser's settings.
• Vercel. Our hosting provider, Vercel, counts page views and measures how fast pages load. It records the page address, the page that sent you here, your approximate location (country, region and city), and your browser, operating system and device type. Vercel says this uses no third-party cookies and is not tied to you or your IP address.

Videos and Photos from Other Sites

• When a recipe page plays a video from YouTube, it plays in YouTube's own player, loaded from youtube-nocookie.com, YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode. Opening that recipe sends Google information such as your IP address. YouTube says views in this mode are not used to personalize your YouTube experience or the ads you see elsewhere. You can manage ad personalization in Google's Ad Settings.
• Some recipe photos load straight from the website or service that published them. As with any website you visit, that site receives your IP address, your browser type and the fact that you came from cookos.ai.

Data Storage

Your information is stored securely with encryption. Recipe data you save is kept unless you request its removal. We use industry-standard cloud infrastructure with data centers in the United States.

Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Request a copy of the data we hold about you
• Request deletion of your account and associated data
• Opt out of any non-essential communications

To exercise these rights, contact us at [email protected].

Third-Party Services

We use a limited number of third-party services to operate CookOS: Vercel for hosting, Cloudflare for the network that delivers our pages, Supabase for database and file storage, Meilisearch for search, Anthropic for the AI that interprets searches and reads the recipe links you submit, and OpenAI for transcribing recipe videos. These services process data on our behalf to run CookOS. Google is different: Google may also use what Google Analytics and YouTube receive for its own purposes, as Google explains in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.

Shop with Instacart Integration

When you click “Shop ingredients” on a recipe page, CookOS sends the recipe details to Instacart so they can build a shopping page matched to your nearby retailers. The information we send includes:

• Recipe title, description, image, and instructions
• Ingredient names, quantities, and units
• The recipe's page URL on cookos.ai (so Instacart can link back)
• Recipe author/creator name (when available from the original source)

When you click “Shop ingredients” in the “Shop all” box on your saved recipes page, CookOS sends Instacart one shopping list for the saved recipes that box covers (up to 10): their titles, their ingredient lines, leaving off any you checked as already in your kitchen, and the link to your saved recipes page on cookos.ai (so Instacart can link back).

We do not send your name, email, IP address, location, or any account information to Instacart. The shopping experience that follows — selecting a retailer, building your cart, checkout, payment, and delivery — happens on Instacart's site under Instacart's privacy policy. CookOS may receive an affiliate commission on orders you place through this link, at no additional cost to you.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy as CookOS grows. If we make significant changes, we'll notify you through the app.

Questions?

Email us at [email protected]