Cookie Policy

Last updated June 12, 2026.

This Cookie Policy explains how Purple IQ, LLC (“we,” “us,” or “our”) uses cookies on https://www.purpleiq.com: what cookies are, exactly which ones we set, and how you can control them. It is the companion to our Privacy Policy, which covers personal information more broadly.

Purple IQ uses cookies the way they were originally intended: to keep you signed in and to count things. Not to follow you around.

1. What are cookies?

In short: Small data files a website asks your browser to keep. Ours are set by us alone, and there are two.

Cookies are small data files that a website places on your computer or phone. They are how a website remembers anything between page loads. Without them, every visit would start from zero, and nobody could stay signed in to anything.

Cookies set by the site you are visiting are called “first-party cookies.” Cookies set by anyone else (ad networks, analytics companies, social-media widgets) are called “third-party cookies,” and they are how the same company can recognize you across many unrelated websites. That recognition is most of what gave cookies their reputation.

Every cookie on Purple IQ is first-party: set by us, readable only here, and used for exactly the purposes listed in the next section.

2. What cookies do we set?

In short: Two. This section is the complete inventory: if a cookie is not described here, we do not set it.

__Host-piq_session: keeps you signed in

Set when you sign in, so you stay signed in. The cookie is a sealed (encrypted and tamper-evident) envelope around a single random session identifier; the session itself lives on our servers, which is why signing out (or using “log out everywhere” on your account page) takes effect instantly. Page scripts cannot read this cookie, it travels only over HTTPS, and the __Host- prefix tells your browser to lock it to this exact site.

• Set: when you sign in.
• Contains: one random session identifier, encrypted. Your email, name, and account details are never in the cookie.
• Expires: about 90 days after your last visit; it renews itself while you keep using Purple IQ.
• If you delete it: you are signed out on that device. Sign back in with an emailed code.

piq_anon: counts your free searches

Created by your own browser the first time you open Purple IQ, so that free searches can be counted per browser before an account is needed. It is a random number generated on your device, and it is not connected to your name, your email, or anything else about you, because there is nothing else to connect it to.

• Set: on your first visit.
• Contains: a random number your browser generates itself.
• Expires: 400 days after it is created (about 13 months).
• If you delete it: your browser simply gets a new one on the next visit. A coarse per-network limit, described in our Privacy Policy, keeps the free allowance from being infinite.

Both cookies are strictly necessary: without the first you could not stay signed in, and without the second there would be no way to offer free searches at all. Neither is ever used to track what you search for or where you go.

3. What cookies do we never set?

In short: Everything cookies are infamous for.

No advertising cookies. No cross-site tracking cookies. No analytics cookies. No social-media cookies. No third-party cookies of any kind: no one but Purple IQ sets cookies on this site, and the two in Section 2 are the complete list.

This is also why there is no cookie consent banner here. Consent banners exist because laws in much of the world (sensibly) require permission before a site sets cookies that are not strictly necessary for the service you asked for. Both of our cookies are strictly necessary, so there is nothing to ask your permission for, and we would rather not interrupt you to say so.

4. Do we serve targeted advertising?

In short: No.

There are no advertisements on Purple IQ at all. Your subscription pays for the product, so nothing about you is collected for advertisers, packaged into an interest profile, or shared with ad networks, and no ad network has any presence on this site. Cookie policies often link to advertising-industry opt-out programs at this point; we have nothing for those programs to opt you out of.

5. What about web beacons, local storage, and other technologies?

In short: No beacons or tracking pixels anywhere, on pages or in emails. Cookieless performance measurements, and one session-scoped browser-storage flag that never leaves your device.

Web beacons and tracking pixels.Some sites embed tiny invisible images (“beacons,” “pixels,” “clear gifs”) in pages and emails to record who viewed them and when. We do not use them on the site, and our emails contain none either: a sign-in email is a code in plain text, with no way for us to know whether you opened it.

Performance measurements. We collect anonymous, cookieless performance and traffic measurements so we know when pages are slow or broken. They measure pages, not people: no cookie is set, no identifier is stored on your device, and nothing links the measurements to you.

Browser storage.We use one entry of your browser’s session storage, named piq:gate-dismissed, to remember that you closed the sign-up invitation so it does not reappear mid-search. Unlike a cookie, it is never sent to our servers, and your browser discards it when your browsing session ends.

Flash cookies and other relics.We do not use Flash cookies or “local shared objects” (Adobe retired Flash itself in 2020), nor any fingerprinting techniques that try to recognize your device without cookies.

6. What about cookies when you pay?

In short:Checkout happens on Stripe’s pages, under Stripe’s policies.

When you subscribe, payment happens on a checkout page hosted by Stripe, our payment processor. Your card details never touch our servers. Any cookies Stripe sets there live on Stripe’s domain and are governed by Stripe’s privacy policy, not this one. Stripe sets no cookies on purpleiq.com.

7. How can you control cookies?

In short: Your browser is the control panel. Blocking or clearing our cookies costs you, at most, a sign-in.

You can clear or block cookies at any time in your browser’s settings. Because we set nothing optional, there is no preference center to configure here: the two cookies we set are essential, and your browser already gives you full control over both. Concretely:

• Clearing cookies signs you out (sign back in with an emailed code) and resets the anonymous counter, which simply starts again.
• Blocking cookies entirely still lets you search until the free allowance runs out, but signing in becomes impossible, because a session has to live somewhere.

How to manage cookies in the most popular browsers:

• Chrome
• Safari
• Firefox
• Edge
• Opera

8. How often will we update this Cookie Policy?

In short: Whenever the cookies change. The date at the top tells you when that last happened.

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time, for example if the cookies we use change or if the law does. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision. And if we ever wanted to set a cookie that is not strictly necessary, a quiet edit to this page would not be enough: the law in much of the world requires asking your permission first, so you would see that change as a consent prompt, not as fine print.

9. Where can you get more information?

For how we handle personal information generally (what we collect, how long we keep it, and your rights over it), see our Privacy Policy. If you have questions about our use of cookies, email us at hello@purpleiq.com or write to: