This policy is published by Applet Studio LLC, doing business as Bento and Bento Proposals, PO Box 30756, Columbia, Missouri 65205, United States (privacy@gobento.co). It covers two sites: this website, gobento.co, and the Bento app at app.gobento.co, including the proposal pages a Bento user shares with their clients. Our Privacy Policy explains what we do with personal data more broadly.
1. What cookies and similar technologies are
A cookie is a small text file a website stores in your browser so it can recognise you on the next page or the next visit. Similar technologies do the same job in other ways: local storage and session storage keep small amounts of data in your browser (session storage disappears when the tab closes), and pixels or scripts load from a provider’s server and may set that provider’s cookies. We use the word “cookies” for all of them below.
Cookies are first-party when we set them and third-party when another company’s script sets them. They are strictly necessary when the site cannot do what you asked without them (signing you in, remembering your cookie choice, protecting a form from bots) and optional when they serve another purpose, such as analytics.
2. How we ask for your choice
- Strictly necessary cookies need no consent and cannot be switched off in our settings; you can block them in your browser, but parts of the sites will stop working.
- Analytics cookies (Microsoft Clarity and Google Analytics) are optional. If you are visiting from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, we show a banner before any analytics loads and run them only if you click Accept; Decline is the same size and one click away, and closing the banner counts as Decline. Elsewhere, analytics run unless your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, which we treat as Decline everywhere, or you decline in Cookie settings.
- Changing your mind. Open Cookie settings in the footer of any page on gobento.co, or Settings in the app, at any time. Declining after accepting deletes the analytics cookies we can delete and tells Microsoft and Google that consent was withdrawn. Your choice is kept for 12 months, after which we ask again (in the regions where we ask).
- Proposal pages that a Bento user shares with clients (app.gobento.co/p/…) carry no analytics and no banner. Only the cookies needed to view the page and pay are used there.
Your choice is stored in a first-party cookie (gobento.co) or in local storage (app). We do not keep a server-side record of individual choices.
3. Cookies on gobento.co (this website)
| Name | Set by | Type | Lasts | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
gb_consent |
Bento | Strictly necessary | 12 months | Remembers whether you accepted or declined analytics, and which version of this policy you saw |
cf_clearance, __cf_bm |
Cloudflare | Strictly necessary | up to 30 minutes / up to 1 year | Set by Cloudflare’s bot protection and by Turnstile on our forms, to tell people from automated traffic |
keystatic-* |
Bento (Keystatic) | Strictly necessary | session | Sign-in for the two staff members who edit the blog at /keystatic. Never set for visitors |
bento-fortune-noticed (session storage) |
Bento | Strictly necessary | until the tab closes | Remembers that you have already seen a small decorative element so it is not shown twice. No personal data |
_clck |
Microsoft Clarity | Analytics (optional) | 12 months | Stores a Clarity user id and preferences, so your visits can be linked across sessions |
_clsk |
Microsoft Clarity | Analytics (optional) | 1 day | Links page views within one session into a single recording |
CLID |
Microsoft Clarity | Analytics (optional) | 1 year | Identifies the first time Clarity saw this browser |
ANONCHK, MR, SM |
Microsoft (clarity.ms, bing.com) | Analytics (optional) | 10 minutes / 7 days / session | Clarity housekeeping: whether MUID is transferred to ANID, refresh of MUID, synchronisation across Microsoft domains |
MUID |
Microsoft | Analytics (optional) | 13 months | A Microsoft-wide identifier used across Microsoft sites and services; Microsoft may use it for its own purposes, including advertising, as described in Microsoft’s privacy statement |
_ga |
Google Analytics | Analytics (optional) | 2 years | Distinguishes one visitor from another with a random id |
_ga_[container id] |
Google Analytics | Analytics (optional) | 2 years | Keeps the state of the current session for that visitor |
Google Analytics is configured with Google Signals and advertising features off and with no data shared with Google for its own advertising. IP addresses are not logged or stored by Google Analytics 4.
4. Cookies on app.gobento.co (the Bento app)
4.1 For Bento users (admin, login and signup pages)
| Name | Set by | Type | Lasts | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
bento_session |
Bento | Strictly necessary | 30 days | Keeps you signed in. It is signed and HTTP-only, and records which account you are working in |
bento:consent:analytics (local storage) |
Bento | Strictly necessary | until changed | Your analytics choice in the app |
bento-proposals.proposalsView, bento-proposals.proposalsSort (local storage) |
Bento | Strictly necessary | until changed | How you last sorted or viewed the proposals list |
bento:proposals:status, clients:filters, clients:filtersOpen (session storage) |
Bento | Strictly necessary | until the tab closes | Keeps your list filters while you move between pages |
| Microsoft Clarity cookies (as in section 3) | Microsoft | Analytics (optional) | as above | Session recordings of the admin pages to find usability problems. Only when you have accepted, and only when our analytics project is switched on |
| Google Analytics cookies (as in section 3) | Analytics (optional) | as above | Page analytics for the admin pages, under the same consent |
Clarity recordings may be tagged with your internal user id (not your email), your account’s name and plan, so that we can follow up on a usability problem. They never include the proposal pages your clients see.
4.2 For clients viewing or paying for a proposal (app.gobento.co/p/… and custom domains)
| Name | Set by | Type | Lasts | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
bento_ck_[proposal id] |
Bento | Strictly necessary | 24 hours | Once you begin checkout, returns you to the same copy of the proposal if you reload or come back, so you are not charged twice |
consent-stash:[proposal] (session storage) |
Bento | Strictly necessary | until the tab closes | Carries your typed signature and the consent box through the payment step |
__stripe_mid, __stripe_sid, m |
Stripe | Strictly necessary (fraud prevention) | 1 year / 30 minutes / 2 years | Set by Stripe’s payment form to detect fraud and let the payment go through. Stripe’s own cookie policy applies |
| PayPal cookies | PayPal | Strictly necessary (where PayPal is offered) | various | Set by PayPal’s buttons and checkout when a Bento user offers PayPal. PayPal’s cookie statement applies |
| YouTube / Vimeo cookies | YouTube (Google) / Vimeo | Third-party embed, chosen by the Bento user | various | Only if the Bento user embedded a video and you play it. YouTube embeds use the privacy-enhanced domain where possible |
We set no analytics and no advertising cookies on proposal pages.
5. Who the third parties are and what they do with the data
- Cloudflare, Inc. (US) delivers both sites and protects them. Its cookies serve security only.
- Stripe, Inc. (US) and PayPal, Inc. (US) process payments. Their cookies serve fraud prevention and the payment itself.
- Google LLC (US) provides Google Analytics to us as a processor under Google’s data processing terms. We do not enable advertising features.
- Microsoft Corporation (US) provides Microsoft Clarity. Under Clarity’s terms Microsoft is an independent controller of the data its cookies collect and may use it for its own purposes, including improving its products and advertising on Microsoft properties. See Microsoft’s privacy statement.
- YouTube and Vimeo set cookies only through embeds a Bento user chose to add, under their own policies.
6. Controlling cookies in your browser
Every browser lets you see, delete and block cookies, including site by site. Blocking strictly necessary cookies will stop you from signing in to the app or completing a payment. Instructions: Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge. To turn on Global Privacy Control, see globalprivacycontrol.org.
7. Changes
We update this page when we add, remove or change a cookie, with a new date and version at the top. Material changes to how we ask for consent will be shown in the banner.
Questions: privacy@gobento.co.