PaintBox measures how people find and use it in three ways: with its own analytics, with Google Analytics, and with Meta's and Reddit's ad pixels, which tell those two ad platforms which PaintBox ads brought people here. This page says what each collects, the cookies involved, who sees the data, and how to turn Google Analytics and the ad pixels off.
When a visit starts: the page you landed on (its path only, never its query string), the site that referred you (its address without any query string), and any campaign tags on the link you followed (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_content).
While you use PaintBox: that the editor opened, that a button on the welcome page was clicked (such as opening the editor or signing in), that a sign-in with Bike4Mind completed, that a file was exported (its format, such as PNG, never its name or contents), that you followed a link to another Bike4Mind app, and, when you are signed in, that your account was created, that you accepted your first AI edit, that a document was saved to your account, and that a document was published for review. On a shared link: that the link was reported (the report category only, never its text), and on the copyright notice page, that a notice was sent (how many links it named, never who sent it).
If you send a copyright notice, PaintBox keeps the name, email, phone number and postal address you give, with the notice, so a person can review it and contact you. Once it is resolved, the notice and those details are deleted after three years.
When an AI agent connects to PaintBox through its MCP address, and PaintBox's operators have switched this measurement on (it is off until they do), PaintBox counts which agent program connected (the name and version it announces, such as its product name), which of PaintBox's own tools it called, and how far the session got: connected, listed documents, sent a proposal, had one accepted. These are counts only. They carry no account number, email address, IP address, document, prompt, tool input or file, and a session is told apart only by a one-way scrambled code. Connecting an agent is your choice, made when you approve it on the page where you approve an agent; this measurement keeps nothing about you to switch off, and it is covered by the same Overwatch retention below.
Events from a signed-in account carry PaintBox's own internal account number so visits can be counted per person. They never carry your email address, your name, your IP address, file names, document contents or anything you typed.
Events from test accounts and from the PaintBox team's own accounts are labeled as such, so they are never counted as real visitors. The label is worked out on the PaintBox server; your email address is not sent.
A link to Bike4Mind itself carries a one-time code, valid for ten minutes, so Bike4Mind can tell that the visit came from PaintBox. The code identifies the click, not you.
On the live site, paintbox.bike4mind.com, PaintBox also uses Google Analytics, a service run by Google. It records the pages you open (their address without the query string, apart from any campaign tags), the site that referred you, the events listed above that happen in your browser (such as opening the editor, signing in or exporting a file), and what Google Analytics collects on every site that uses it: your browser, device type, screen size and language, how long you stay, and your rough location (country and city), which Google works out from your IP address.
It never receives your images, prompts, file names, document names, your email address or your name. Traffic from test accounts and the PaintBox team's own accounts carries a label so it can be left out of reports; the label is worked out in your browser, and only the label is sent.
PaintBox does not use Google Analytics for advertising: Google signals, ad personalization and every advertising consent signal are off. Google handles this data under its own terms; Google explains how it uses information from sites that use its services at policies.google.com.
On the live site, PaintBox also loads the Meta pixel and the Reddit pixel, run by Meta and Reddit, so that PaintBox's ads on Facebook, Instagram and Reddit can be measured and shown again to people who have visited. They are Bike4Mind's own pixels, the same ones bike4mind.com uses. Each receives the address of every page you open and the site that referred you, plus two events: that you created a PaintBox account, and that you accepted your first AI edit. Like any site that loads them, they also receive your browser and device type, your IP address and their own cookies, and Meta and Reddit may link the visit to an account you hold with them.
They never receive your images, prompts, file names, document names, your email address or your name: the events carry no details, and the Meta pixel's automatic collection of clicks and page details is off. In the editor, a signed-in test account or PaintBox team account sends them nothing.
Meta and Reddit handle this data under their own terms and may use it to choose the ads they show you: see Meta's privacy policy and Reddit's privacy policy.
One choice covers Google Analytics and the ad pixels. In the United States, they are on unless you turn them off. Everywhere else, including the EU, the UK and Switzerland, PaintBox asks first, and none of them loads at all until you allow it. PaintBox tells the two apart from your browser's time zone setting; it does not look up where you are. If you allowed Google Analytics before the ad pixels were added, PaintBox asks again.
You can change your choice at any time with Cookie settings, here or at the foot of the welcome page. Turning them off stops them at once and deletes their cookies: the ad pixels' on this site and on bike4mind.com, and Google Analytics', including any copies set on bike4mind.com by an earlier version of this site. Your choice is kept in your browser's local storage (paintbox.analytics-consent), not in a cookie, and is not sent anywhere.
Google also offers a browser add-on that turns Google Analytics off on every site: tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Review links (pages under /r/) and the page where you approve an agent never load Google Analytics or the ad pixels.
PaintBox's own analytics cookie, ow_sid. It holds a random visit number and nothing else, so that several page views in one sitting count as one visit. It lasts 30 minutes and each page view restarts those 30 minutes; after half an hour without activity it expires and the next page view starts a new visit. It is readable only by this site (not by scripts on the page, and not by other Bike4Mind sites).
It is set only by the analytics endpoint the page reports to and by the redirect that takes you to another Bike4Mind app, both of which are never cached. It is never set on a cached page.
When Google Analytics is on, it sets two cookies of its own on this site only (paintbox.bike4mind.com, not other bike4mind.com sites), _ga and _ga_E5G0BKKEP5. They hold a random browser number and a count of your visits, so Google can tell returning visitors from new ones. Scripts on the page can read them, and they last up to two years unless you clear them or turn Google Analytics off. Where PaintBox has to ask first, neither is set until you allow it.
When the ad pixels are on, the Meta pixel sets _fbp and the Reddit pixel sets _rdt_uuid, each holding a random browser number. Arriving from one of their ads also sets _fbc or _rdt_cid, which hold that ad click, so a sign-up can be credited to the ad. They are set on bike4mind.com, so Bike4Mind's own site can read them too; scripts on the page can read them, and they last 90 days unless you clear them or turn the pixels off. Where PaintBox has to ask first, none is set until you allow it.
A test account or a PaintBox team account that signs in also gets __Host-ow_lane, which holds only that label ("synthetic" or "internal"), so its visits are kept out of the counts even before it does anything as a signed-in account. Other accounts never get it, and signing out removes it.
Signing in uses separate cookies that keep you signed in; they are not used for analytics.
PaintBox's own analytics events go from the PaintBox server to Overwatch, Bike4Mind's own analytics service, and to no one else. Overwatch keeps raw events for 90 days and per-person daily counts for 180 days, and keeps an archive copy of raw events for 22 months.
Google Analytics data goes from your browser straight to Google, and the PaintBox team reads the reports in Google Analytics. Google keeps it for as long as PaintBox's Google Analytics settings say: event details for two months, Google's default.
Ad pixel data goes from your browser straight to Meta and Reddit. The PaintBox and Bike4Mind teams see it in Meta's and Reddit's ad tools as counts of visits and sign-ups for each ad, and as audiences of past visitors to show ads to, not as a list of people. No other advertising network receives anything from PaintBox.
PaintBox's own analytics does not count crawlers and automated clients, and records no event for them.
Voice is optional and needs a free Bike4Mind sign-in. Voice is transcribed in the cloud, not in your browser.
Push to talk. The microphone records only while you hold the talk button, and the editor shows when it is listening. There is no always-on listening. Voice needs you to be signed in, and a clip is at most 5 MB.
Where it is transcribed. Your clip goes to PaintBox’s server, which passes it to Bike4Mind’s speech-to-text in AWS us-east-2. Bike4Mind sends it to the speech model its operators have chosen: its code supports OpenAI’s transcription API and Amazon Transcribe, and both appear on its list of sub-processors. Which one is switched on is an admin setting, not something in the code, so ask us if you need to know.
Not kept. Audio is not retained after transcription. PaintBox forwards the clip and keeps nothing: no copy, no log line, no database row. Bike4Mind deletes the uploaded audio once transcription finishes, whether or not it succeeded.
Uses credits. Bike4Mind charges your account a few credits for each clip, priced by the clip’s size.
More on where your clip goes, and the sub-processors involved, is on Security and privacy.
Questions or requests about this data: use Feedback in the PaintBox editor, and it reaches the people who run PaintBox.