braincultures is a clothing brand owned and operated by SYNAP LLC (“we”, “us”). This policy explains what we collect at braincultures.com and in our emails, why, who helps us, how long we keep it, and the choices and rights you have. The short version: we collect what we need to sell you clothes and get them to you, we count visits ourselves on our own server, nothing about you goes to an advertising platform unless you say yes, and you can change your mind at any time.
Who we are
braincultures is owned and operated by SYNAP LLC, which is responsible for your information. Our postal address: . Questions about privacy: privacy@braincultures.com. Anything else: support@braincultures.com.
What we collect
- When you buy: your name, email address, shipping address, phone number (carriers need it to deliver), what you bought and what you paid. Your payment is taken by Stripe; we see only your card’s brand and last four digits (or the wallet you used, like Apple Pay) and Stripe’s fraud check of the payment. We also note roughly where an order was placed from (city, state and country, worked out from the IP address) to spot fraud.
- When you make an account: your email address, your name if you give it, and your password, stored only as a one-way scrambled hash we can’t read. If you sign in with Google or Apple, they tell us your account ID with them, your email address and your name (Apple shares the name only the first time; if you choose to hide your email, Apple gives us an address of its private relay that forwards to yours). With Apple we also keep a token Apple gives us, used only to tell Apple when you delete your account. We keep the date and version of the terms you accepted and whether you want our emails. For each browser you sign in on we keep the browser, its IP address, a rough location and when it was last used, so you can see them on your account page (“where you’re signed in”); the IP address is erased after 90 days.
- Your cart: what you put in it, in your browser and, while you are signed in, with your account.
- When you write to us: your email address and what you write. Our own mail server receives it; the people who run the shop read it, and we note which order or piece it is about so we can answer.
- On social media: when you comment on, reply to, mention or message our accounts (on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, X, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Bluesky or Snapchat), the platform shows us your name or handle there, your profile picture and what you wrote. Our own system keeps a copy so we can read and answer everything in one place; our answers go out through the platform. The platforms also give us totals about our accounts and posts (how many people saw them, followed or unfollowed, and their age ranges, countries and cities), never who. What you do on a platform is covered by its own privacy policy.
- Statistics about visits, unless you turn them off, and advertising measurement, only if you turn it on. Both are described below.
Statistics
We count how the site is used ourselves, on our own server. No analytics company is involved, and no outside script runs on the site. For each day we count the pages viewed, the pieces looked at and put in carts, how visits arrived (a search engine, a social site, a link on another site, an email or an ad, read from the page you came from and the campaign tags in the link), the country, state and city visits come from (worked out on our server from the IP address with a geolocation database, IP Geolocation by DB-IP), and the kind of device, browser and operating system.
To count each visitor once a day, a scrambled code is made from the IP address and browser with a key that is thrown away every day: it can’t be turned back into the address, and it can’t follow you from one day to the next. A cookie, brain_src, remembers where your first and latest visits came from (for 90 days) so that a purchase can be credited to what brought you. For five minutes after each page, the people who run the shop can see that someone is on the site: the rough place, the device, the page, and your name if you are signed in. That view is held in memory only and never stored.
Statistics are on unless you turn them off in your privacy choices. Visitors from the European Economic Area, the UK, Switzerland, Brazil and Canada are asked first. When statistics are off, none of this is counted for you.
Cookies and similar technology
We use only our own cookies. No advertising company or other outside service sets a cookie through our site. Stripe’s checkout and Google’s and Apple’s sign-in are their own pages, which you visit only when you choose to.
| Name | What it does | How long | Set when |
|---|---|---|---|
__Host-brain-account | keeps you signed in | 30 days unused, 180 at most | you sign in (necessary) |
__Host-brain-oauth | ties a Google or Apple sign-in to your browser | 10 minutes | you sign in with Google or Apple (necessary) |
brain_consent | remembers your privacy choices | 400 days | you choose (necessary) |
brain_src | where your first and latest visits came from | 90 days | statistics are on |
brain_ads | the click IDs ad platforms add to their ads’ links, and a browser ID for Meta | 90 days | advertising is on |
Your browser’s own storage also keeps your cart (brain:cart), what you keep on our alpha page (brain:memory) and, for one tab only, whether this visit was counted.
How we use it
- to take your payment, make your order, ship it, and tell you about it;
- to run your account: your orders, their tracking, your cart;
- to answer you (by email, or on social media where you wrote to us) and handle returns and refunds;
- to prevent fraud and keep the site and your account secure;
- to keep the records that tax and accounting laws require;
- to understand, in totals, how the shop is used and which of our marketing works (statistics);
- to send you news and offers, if you subscribed;
- to measure our ads, only if you allow advertising.
We don’t build profiles of you, and we don’t make automated decisions about you that have legal or similar effects.
Who helps us
These companies work for us. They get only what each one needs and may use it only to do that work:
- Stripe: payments, fraud screening and sales tax;
- our fulfillment and shipping partners: they pack and ship your order and receive your name, shipping address, phone number and email address;
- shipping carriers: they deliver your package and send its tracking updates;
- Google: only if you choose to sign in with Google;
- Apple: only if you choose to sign in with Apple — and if you hide your email with Apple, our emails reach you through Apple’s private relay;
- Have I Been Pwned: when you choose a password, we check it against passwords exposed in data breaches. Only the first five characters of a scrambled code of the password are sent, never the password or anything about you;
- our hosting provider, whose servers in the United States run the site, the shop and our mail.
Our emails go out from our own mail server, so no email marketing company sees your address. Advertising platforms get information only if you allow it (next section). We may also disclose information when the law requires it, to protect our customers and the shop from fraud, or to whoever takes over braincultures if the business is sold. In that case this policy keeps applying to what you gave us.
Advertising
We may advertise braincultures on Meta (Facebook, Instagram), Google (Search, YouTube, Shopping), TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat and Reddit. None of their tracking code (“pixels”) runs on our site. Instead, if you allow advertising in your privacy choices, and only then:
- the click IDs those platforms add to the links of their ads (such as
gclid,fbclidorttclid) are kept in thebrain_adscookie for 90 days, with a browser ID we create for Meta; - when you buy, our server reports the purchase to the platforms we advertise on: what it was worth, the pieces, the click ID, your IP address and browser, and your email address, phone number, city, state, ZIP code and country scrambled with SHA-256 (hashed), so the platform can match the purchase to someone who saw or clicked an ad. We erase the IP address and browser from our records within a week and the report itself after 180 days.
The platforms use this to tell us which ads led to sales and to improve the ads they show, which can include their own advertising profiles. California law calls this “sharing” for cross-context behavioral advertising, and some laws treat it as a “sale”. We don’t receive money for it.
Advertising is off until you turn it on. For visitors in the United States we may instead leave it on until you turn it off, as the law there allows; the banner and your privacy choices always show which applies to you. It is always off when your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, and for visitors from the European Economic Area, the UK, Switzerland, Brazil and Canada until they say yes.
Emails from us
- About your orders and your account (confirmations, shipping, refunds, sign-in links): always sent, because they are part of the service.
- News and offers (new pieces, restocks, offers, reminders): only if you subscribed, by ticking the box when you make an account (in the United States it starts ticked, and you can untick it), the box at Stripe’s checkout, or our preferences page. Each one says it comes from braincultures and SYNAP LLC, gives our postal address, and has a link to choose what you get, pause, or unsubscribe in one click. Your mail app’s own unsubscribe button works too. An unsubscribe takes effect right away.
- A reminder: if you ticked the box at checkout and didn’t finish, we may send one email with a link back to your checkout.
- What we keep: your subscription (when and how you agreed, the kinds you chose, a pause), which emails we sent you, and how many times each link in an email was clicked, in total and not per person. We don’t use tracking pixels to see whether you opened an email. After you unsubscribe, your address stays on our do-not-email list so it isn’t added again.
You can change all of this on your account page or from the link at the bottom of any of our emails.
Your privacy choices
Statistics are on unless you turn them off. Advertising is off unless you turn it on.
- The banner on your first visit lets you accept all, reject all, or choose. The choice is kept in your browser for 400 days and, if you are signed in, with your account, so it applies on every device.
- Global Privacy Control: if your browser sends this signal, we treat it as a request to opt out of the sale and sharing of your information. Advertising is turned off for that browser and, if you are signed in, for your account, and the site says “Opt-Out Request Honored”.
- Do Not Track: we treat this signal the same way and turn advertising off. We don’t follow you across other sites, and no other company tracks you through ours.
Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us to:
- tell you what we have about you and give you a copy. Your account page has “download my data”;
- correct it;
- delete it. Your account page has “delete my account”, or you can write to us. We keep the order records that tax laws require;
- opt out of sale and sharing, in your privacy choices;
- stop news and offers, from any of those emails or your account page.
Write to privacy@braincultures.com. We answer within 45 days. To make sure a request comes from you, we may ask you to write from the email address on your account or orders, or to give a detail of an order. Someone you authorize can make a request for you with your signed permission. We won’t treat you differently, in prices or service, for using these rights. If we can’t do something you ask, we tell you why, and you can appeal by replying. If you still disagree, you can contact your state’s attorney general.
California
If you live in California, the California Consumer Privacy Act gives you the rights above: to know, delete and correct, to opt out of the sale and sharing of your personal information, and not to be discriminated against for using them. In the last 12 months:
- What we collected: identifiers (name, email address, postal address, phone number, IP address, account and cookie IDs, ad click IDs); customer records (those, plus your card’s brand and last four digits); commercial information (what you bought and put in carts); internet activity (pages viewed on our site and how a visit arrived); approximate location (city and state from the IP address, never precise geolocation); and your account sign-in (email and password, a kind of “sensitive” information we use only to sign you in).
- Where it came from: you, your browser, Stripe, Google or Apple (if you sign in with them), and our fulfillment partners and carriers (where a package is).
- Why: the purposes in “How we use it” above.
- Who we disclosed it to: the service providers in “Who helps us” (identifiers, customer records and commercial information, for business purposes).
- Sale and sharing: we don’t sell personal information for money. With your OK only, we share identifiers, commercial information and internet activity with the advertising platforms in “Advertising”. We don’t sell or share the information of anyone we know to be under 16.
- Sensitive information is used only to provide the service you asked for, so there is nothing to limit.
- Financial incentives: we don’t offer any in exchange for personal information. If we ever offer, say, a code for joining our emails, we’ll explain it where it’s offered.
- “Shine the Light”: we don’t give personal information to other companies for their own direct marketing, except to the advertising platforms as described, with your OK. You can ask us about it at the address above.
Visitors outside the United States
We sell to the United States, and our servers are in the United States. If you visit from the European Economic Area, the UK or Switzerland, SYNAP LLC is the controller of your information. We rely on our contract with you for orders and accounts, on legal obligations for records, on legitimate interests for security and fraud prevention, and on your consent for statistics, advertising and news emails. Statistics and advertising stay off there until you say yes. You can also ask us to restrict or stop some uses, take your data elsewhere, or withdraw your consent at any time, and you may complain to your data protection authority.
How long we keep it
- Orders and their payment records: seven years, as tax and accounting laws require.
- Your account: until you delete it. Sign-ins end after 30 days unused (180 at most); a sign-in’s IP address is erased after 90 days; records of failed sign-ins (for security) are kept 90 days.
- Emails: records of the emails we sent, 400 days. Emails you send us, as long as we need them to help you and to keep business records.
- Social media: comments and messages to our accounts, two years at most. Ask us, and we remove what you wrote to us from our records and stop keeping what you write later. What is on the platform stays there, where you can delete it.
- Statistics: only the totals stay. The daily visitor codes are deleted every day, and
brain_srclasts 90 days. - Advertising: click IDs in your browser, 90 days. Your IP address and browser in our records, a week at most. Purchase reports, 180 days.
- Your privacy choices: two years, as the record of what you chose.
- News and offers: while you are subscribed. After you unsubscribe, your address stays on our do-not-email list.
Security
The site runs on encrypted connections (HTTPS) only. Passwords are hashed, payment details stay with Stripe, and only the people who run the shop can see order information. If a breach ever affects your information, we will tell you as the law requires.
Children
The shop isn’t meant for children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect their information. If you think a child has given us information, write to us and we will delete it.
Changes
If we change this policy, we update the date above. If a change matters to how we use your information, we tell account holders by email. Each privacy choice is recorded with the date of the policy it was made under.
Contact
SYNAP LLC, braincultures, . Privacy: privacy@braincultures.com. Everything else: support@braincultures.com.