Privacy policy

This policy covers the Fluent by Accident web app at fluentbyaccident.com and its browser extension. Both are run by COLDABRY LLC, 1209 Mountain Road Pl NE #4337, Albuquerque, NM 87110, USA (“we”). We collect as little as the service needs to work, and we do not sell your data.

Summary

• You need a free account to use the extension. The words and sentences you save are copied to your account, so they become flashcards you can study on any device.
• Text you ask to translate is sent to a translation service, only to translate it.
• We never sell data or show ads. We only see a film or page title when you save a word from it.
• You can download or delete everything on your account page.

What we collect

• Account details: your email address and a securely hashed password, or the identity your sign-in provider shares with us.
• Your learning data: the words and sentences you save, in the web app or with the extension, with:
  • their translation and the two languages;
  • the sentence around them;
  • the film or page title and address (for Netflix, a link to the film at that moment);
  • when you saved them and which list they are in.
  Also your flashcards, review history, streaks and settings.
• Imported word lists: files you import (Anki decks, spreadsheets, Kindle word lists, CSV) are read in your browser, and only the words and their translations are sent to us; pictures, sound and review history in the file are not uploaded. When you paste a Google Sheets link, our server downloads that sheet from Google once to read its words and does not keep the file.
• Connected browsers:for each browser where the extension is signed in, a label such as "Chrome on macOS", when it was connected and when it was last used. You can sign any of them out on your account page.
• Billing details if you upgrade to Pro. Card payments are handled by Stripe and crypto payments by NOWPayments; we never see or store your full card number or wallet keys.
• Diagnostic reports from the extension, described below.

What the extension stores

The extension works only while it is signed in to your Fluent by Accident account. When you sign in, the website hands it a sign-in token, which it keeps in the browser and sends with every request to our web app. It asks the web app for your email address and plan when you sign in and every few hours after that. Words you save are sent to your account, and cards you make in the web app or on another device are copied into the extension so you can study them there.

The extension keeps these in your browser:

• Your settings (languages, subtitle style, on or off), in Chrome sync storage, which Chrome syncs between your computers if you use Chrome sync.
• Your saved words, phrases and sentences with their details and review progress, the sign-in token, your email address and plan, and copies of the cards in your account, in Chrome local storage.
• Translations of subtitle lines for a title, so the same film is not translated twice.
• A log of the extension's last 300 steps (never subtitle text), to fix problems.
• A random installation ID, to limit how often our server can be called from one installation.

Deleting a saved item in the extension's panel does not delete the flashcard already in your account; you manage those in the web app. Signing out removes the token, your account details and the copies of your cards from the browser. Uninstalling the extension deletes everything it kept in the browser. What is in your account stays until you delete it there.

What the extension reads

On the streaming sites it supports, the extension downloads the subtitle files of the title you are playing from the streaming service, the same files its own player uses, so it can show two lines and translate them. They are not sent anywhere else and never stored on our servers.

On other websites it does nothing unless you:

• right-click selected text and choose "Translate with Fluent by Accident", which gives it access to that tab only, for that action; or
• turn on "Translate text I select on websites", which asks Chrome for access to all websites. It then reads only the text you select or Alt+click.

It does not record your browsing history.

Translation and AI

When a film has no subtitles in your language, or when you click a word or translate text on a web page, the text is translated:

• first by Chrome's built-in translator on your computer when it is available, so nothing leaves your computer;
• otherwise by our own translation server (open-source LibreTranslate, run by us), which receives the text and the language pair and does not store them.

AI features (Pro only).For AI film translation, the subtitle lines being translated, a few lines around them and the language pair are sent to our server and passed to Anthropic's Claude API. AI example sentences and hints on your cards send the saved word and its context the same way. We do not store this text (Anthropic's privacy policy).

Diagnostic reports

When loading subtitles fails, or when you press "Send to us" in the extension's panel, it sends a report to our server: its recent steps (event names and technical details, never subtitle text), the extension and Chrome versions, the browser language and the installation ID. Reports are kept in our server logs for up to 30 days and used only to fix problems.

Referrals, affiliates and discount codes

• Referral links:when you open someone's invite link, the website remembers their referral code in a cookie (pp_ref) for 60 days, so they get credit if you sign up.
• Discount codes: a discount code from a link or the pricing page is kept in a cookie (pp_coupon) for 30 days, so it is applied at checkout.
• Link clicks: we count clicks on referral links with a hash of the IP address that changes every day. We never store the IP address itself.
• Who referred whom: we record which account invited which new account, and whether it led to a payment. The person who invited you sees a masked version of your email address (such as jo***@g***.com), never the full address.
• Payout details for affiliates: the PayPal or Wise email address, the account holder name, or the USDT wallet address you give us, used only to send your payouts.

Services that process data for us

• Hosting and database for your account and cards.
• Stripe and NOWPayments, for payments.
• PayPal and Wise, to send payouts to affiliates who choose them.
• Anthropic, for the AI features in Pro.

How long we keep it

We keep your data while your account exists. When you delete your account, your profile, decks, cards, review history, study time and connected devices are deleted straight away. Payment records, ours and Stripe's, may be kept longer where the law requires it.

Deleting your data

Signing out of the extension or uninstalling it only clears the browser; your account keeps your cards. To delete them, delete your account yourself on your account page, under Delete account. You confirm by typing your email address. If you have an active Pro subscription, it is cancelled at the same moment, without a refund for the time left. Deletion cannot be undone, so download your data first if you want a copy.

Your rights and your data

You can download your data at any time from your account page, under Your data: a JSON file with your profile, decks, cards, review history and study time, or a CSV of your cards for a spreadsheet. The extension's panel also exports your saved words to CSV or Anki. You can ask us to access, correct or delete your data, or to explain how it is used, under the GDPR or other laws, by writing to rk@coldabry.com.

Contact

Questions about this policy: rk@coldabry.com. COLDABRY LLC, 1209 Mountain Road Pl NE #4337, Albuquerque, NM 87110, USA. Postal address in the EU: ul. Bitwy Białostockiej 43/47, 15-102 Białystok, Poland.

Changes

We will update this page when the web app or the extension changes what it does with data, and change the date at the top.