Cookie Policy
Last updated: 17 August 2026
This Cookie Policy explains how Brightside Technologies SA, doing business as Brightside AI ("Brightside," "we," "us," "our"), uses cookies and similar technologies on https://brside.com and the other web pages that link to this policy (the "Site").
It sits alongside our Privacy Policy, which explains more fully what personal information we handle and what rights you have over it. Where this policy uses the term "personal information", it has the same meaning as in the Privacy Policy.
This policy covers our website. It does not cover the Brightside platform that our customers' employees log into - that processing is carried out on behalf of the employer, and is described in the Privacy Policy and the Employee Terms of Use.
1. What these technologies are
A cookie is a small text file placed on your device when you visit a website. Cookies let a site recognise your device on a later visit, remember your preferences, and understand how the site is used.
We also use technologies that work similarly but are not cookies:
- Local storage - data stored in your browser that, unlike a cookie, is not sent with every request.
- Pixels and tags (sometimes called web beacons or clear GIFs) - tiny images or snippets of code embedded in a page or an email that record that it was loaded.
- Software development kits and tag managers - code that loads and manages other technologies on our behalf.
In this policy, "cookies" means all of the above unless we say otherwise.
2. Why we use them
We group the technologies we use into four categories.
Strictly necessary. Required for the Site to work and for its security - for example remembering your cookie choices, balancing load, and protecting against abuse. These cannot be switched off through our banner, because the Site cannot function without them.
Preferences and functionality. Remember choices you make, such as your language, so the Site behaves consistently between visits.
Analytics and performance. Tell us how the Site is used - which pages are visited, how people arrive, where they encounter difficulty - so we can improve it. This category includes session recording, described separately in Section 4 because it is more intrusive than ordinary analytics.
Advertising and marketing. Measure the performance of our advertising campaigns, attribute enquiries to the campaign that produced them, and allow advertising platforms to show our ads to people who have visited the Site. These are set by third-party advertising networks and can be used to build a profile of your interests across different websites.
3. The technologies we use
The table below lists what we currently use. It is accurate as at the date at the top of this policy. Durations are set by the provider and may change; where a provider changes its own behaviour, the actual lifetime may differ from what is stated here.
Strictly necessary
| Name | Provider | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| bs_consent | Brightside | Stores your cookie preferences so we do not ask again on every page | Cookie — 180 days where you accept analytics or advertising; 365 days where you reject everything, so that your refusal is remembered for longer |
Analytics and performance
| Name | Provider | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| _ga, _ga_6PVXND7SS5 | Google Analytics 4 | Distinguishes visitors and sessions; measures how the Site is used | Up to 2 years |
| AMP_8548004200, AMP_MKTG_8548004200, AMP_remote_config_, AMP_unsent_ | Amplitude | Product and website analytics; measures which features and pages are used, and the marketing source of a visit | Up to 1 year (cookies); local storage until cleared |
| Amplitude Session Replay (AMP_SR_START_*) | Amplitude | Records a replay of your session on the Site - see Section 4 | See Section 4; local storage until cleared |
| Google Tag Manager | Loads and manages the tags listed in this table. Does not itself store analytics data | - |
Advertising and marketing
| Name | Provider | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| _gcl_au, _gcl_ls, and _gcl_aw where you arrive from a Google ad | Google Ads | Preserves the identifier of the ad click that brought you to the Site, so that an enquiry or sign-up can be attributed to the Google advertising campaign that produced it. Where you accept analytics but decline advertising, the tag still runs and sends Google the address of the page you are viewing together with your IP address, but stores and reads nothing on your device - see below | Up to 90 days (cookies); local storage until cleared |
| _uetsid | Microsoft Advertising (Bing UET) | Identifies your current session for advertising measurement | 1 day (also mirrored in local storage as _uetsid / _uetsid_exp) |
| _uetvid | Microsoft Advertising (Bing UET) | Identifies your device across visits for advertising measurement and remarketing | Approximately 13 months (also mirrored in local storage as _uetvid / _uetvid_exp) |
| _rdt_uuid | Reddit Ads | Measures Reddit advertising performance and enables remarketing | Up to 90 days |
| Meta Pixel | Meta Platforms | Measures Facebook and Instagram advertising performance and enables remarketing. Meta receives the address of the page you are viewing together with your IP address | Sets no first-party cookie on this Site |
| LinkedIn Insight Tag | LinkedIn Ireland | Measures LinkedIn advertising performance, records conversions, and allows LinkedIn to show our ads to people who have visited the Site. Sends LinkedIn the address of the page you are viewing. | Cookies are set by LinkedIn in its own domain - see LinkedIn's cookie table, linked below |
| G2 click-through tracking | G2.com | Runs on every page of the Site and tells G2 the address of the page you are viewing, so that visits which arrive from our listing on G2 can be attributed to it. It runs whether or not you reached us from G2. | Sets no cookie and stores nothing on your device - a single request per page viewed |
| lastExternalReferrer, lastExternalReferrerTime | Set by our advertising tags | Records the site you arrived from and when, so an enquiry can be attributed to the campaign that produced it | Local storage until cleared |
Advertising providers process the data they collect through these technologies as independent controllers, with one exception. For the Meta Pixel, Brightside and Meta Platforms Ireland Limited are joint controllers under Art. 26 GDPR for the collection of the data described above and its transmission to Meta. We have entered into Meta's Controller Addendum, which allocates the responsibilities between us: we provide the information in this policy, and Meta is responsible for the data it holds after transmission, including requests under Arts. 15-20 GDPR, which you can direct to Meta using the contacts in its privacy notice. That notice also sets out the legal bases Meta relies on. The providers' own notices explain what they do with the data:
- Google - policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites
- Microsoft - privacy.microsoft.com/privacystatement
- Meta - facebook.com/privacy/policy
- Reddit - reddit.com/policies/privacy-policy
- LinkedIn - linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy and its cookie table
- G2 - g2.com/static/privacy
- Amplitude - amplitude.com/privacy
The G2 technology is listed here even though it stores nothing on your device, because it still transmits information about your visit - the address of each page you view and your IP address - to a third party. Storing nothing places it outside the rules on cookies, but the transmission is still processing of personal information, so we disclose it and treat it as requiring your consent alongside the rest of this category.
Google Ads where you decline advertising. For the same reason, we disclose one thing the table above cannot show in a single row. If you accept analytics but decline advertising, the Google Ads tag still loads. It then places no _gcl_au and no other advertising identifier, and reads nothing already stored on your device, but it does send Google a single page-view signal - the address of the page you are viewing and your IP address - marked so that Google may not use it to personalise advertising or build an advertising profile of you. Nothing is stored, so this falls outside the rules on cookies, but information about your visit still reaches Google, and we would rather state it than let the category heading imply otherwise. Declining analytics as well stops the tag loading at all.
4. Session recording
One of the tools above - Amplitude Session Replay - does more than count page views. It records a reconstruction of your visit: the pages you saw, how you moved and scrolled, and where you clicked.
We use this to find parts of the Site that confuse people or fail on particular devices.
Session replay is configured to mask all text and everything you type into form fields, at the point of capture. No content you enter on the Site is recorded, and we do not record passwords or payment details. It still captures more than ordinary analytics, which is why we treat it as requiring your consent and describe it separately here.
Session replay belongs to the analytics category. If you do not want your session recorded, decline analytics in the cookie banner, or use the provider opt-outs in Section 6.
5. How we ask for your consent
Except for strictly necessary technologies, we place cookies only where you have consented.
When you first visit the Site you are shown a cookie banner. You can accept all categories, reject the non-essential ones, or choose per category. Your choice is stored in your browser and applied on later visits.
You can change your mind at any time by reopening the cookie settings from the banner or the link in the Site footer, or by clearing the cookies and local storage for brside.com in your browser, which makes the banner appear again.
Global Privacy Control. If your browser or an extension sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we treat it as a refusal of analytics and advertising technologies and do not load them, whatever the banner would otherwise have offered you. You do not need to interact with the banner for this to take effect. There is no common industry standard for the older "Do Not Track" signal, and we do not rely on it.
Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that already took place while consent was in force.
6. Other ways to control cookies
Your browser. Most browsers let you see what cookies are set, delete them, and block them - either altogether or by site. The relevant setting is usually under Privacy or Security. Blocking all cookies will stop parts of the Site from working. General guidance is at allaboutcookies.org.
Provider opt-outs.
- Google Analytics - the browser opt-out add-on
- Google Ads - the personalisation controls at myadcenter.google.com; declining the advertising category in the cookie banner stops the tags loading at all
- Amplitude, including session replay - declining the analytics category in the cookie banner stops it; see also amplitude.com/privacy
- Microsoft Advertising - see Microsoft's privacy statement
- LinkedIn - if you have a LinkedIn account, the advertising controls in your account settings; LinkedIn also offers an opt-out for people without an account through its cookie policy
- Advertising networks generally - Your Online Choices (Europe), the Network Advertising Initiative, and the Digital Advertising Alliance
Email pixels. Marketing emails we send may contain a pixel that tells us whether the message was opened. Setting your email client to block remote images, or to display plain text only, stops this.
7. Changes to this policy
We update this policy when the technologies we use change. The date at the top shows when it was last revised. Where a change materially affects how we use cookies, we will ask for your consent again through the banner.
8. Questions
Brightside Technologies SA (doing business as Brightside AI) Route des Flumeaux 46, 1008 Prilly, Vaud, Switzerland support@brside.com
If you are in the EEA or the UK, you may also contact our Article 27 representative, DataRep - see Section 12 of our Privacy Policy.