Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 17, 2026

Whyia.world is run by the ABCs of Growing Up Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN 92-3949189). We write free picture books that help children grow. This policy explains what information we collect on whyia.world, why, and what you can do about it.

The short version: children can read every book without giving us anything. If a parent chooses to leave an email address, we use it only to save their progress and to tell them about new Whyia books. We never sell personal information.

Children’s privacy

Whyia books are made for children, so we take their privacy seriously and follow the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Children do not need an account and are never asked for their name, email, photo or any other personal information.
Reading progress, drawings, puzzles and found treasures are saved in the browser on your own device. They reach us only if a parent saves the room with an email, so the room can open on the family’s other devices.
Only a parent or caregiver may give us an email address. Our forms ask you to confirm that you are a parent or caregiver.
If we learn that a child under 13 sent us personal information, we delete it. If you think this happened, write to us at db@whyia.world.

What we collect

Information you give us. When you choose to save your progress, we collect:

your email address;
your confirmation that you are a parent or caregiver, and the consent text you agreed to;
where on the site you signed up (for example, the end of a book) and which book;
how you found Whyia before signing up: the first page you opened, the website, ad or link that brought you, and how many visits it took;
the type of device (for example, an iPhone or a Windows computer);
the date, and the country your connection comes from (country only, not your location).

Information saved on your device. Reading progress, colored pages, puzzles, sound settings, your saved email and a note of how you first came to Whyia stay in your browser’s local storage. You can clear them at any time by clearing your browser’s site data. If you save your room with an email, we keep a copy of the progress with your email so your room opens on your other devices; the note of how you came is sent once, with your signup.

Information collected automatically. Like most websites, we use tools that collect technical information such as pages visited, the type of device and browser, the referring website or ad, and approximate location based on IP address. See “Analytics and advertising tools” below.

Donations. “Become an Angel” donations are handled by Stripe on Stripe’s own pages. We do not see or store your card details. Stripe’s privacy policy applies to the payment.

How we use information

To save and restore your progress and drawings.
To email you about new Whyia books and news from the Foundation, about once a month. Every email has an unsubscribe link.
To understand which books and guides help families most, and to improve the site.
To measure whether our free ads (provided through the Google Ad Grants program) reach families who use the books.
To keep the site safe and prevent abuse.

We do not sell, rent or trade personal information, and we do not use it for anything unrelated to Whyia.

Analytics and advertising tools

We use Google Tag Manager to run these tools on whyia.world:

Google Analytics to understand how the site is used.
Google Ads conversion tracking to see whether our ads lead to sign ups.
Meta (Facebook) and Yandex measurement tags to see whether our posts and ads on those platforms reach families.

These tools may use cookies or similar technologies and are run by those companies under their own privacy policies. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and you can opt out of Google Analytics with the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.

Our own visit counter. To learn what helps families, our site also counts, without cookies and without anything that identifies a person, simple things that happen during a visit: that a visit started, that it lasted a minute, that a book was opened or read to the end, that a game, the cards or a guide was opened. Each of these only adds one to a daily total on our server. If the visit came from one of our Google ads, the total also notes which ad campaign and search words it came from. We don’t store IP addresses, device ids or any other details with these totals, and they can’t be linked to a child or a family.

Videos on the site are embedded from YouTube in privacy-enhanced mode and only load after you press play.

We share personal information only:

with service providers that run the site for us (Cloudflare for hosting and the database, and an email service to send our emails), who may use it only to provide that service;
if required by law, or to protect the safety of our users or the public.

How long we keep it

We keep your email for as long as you stay subscribed. If you unsubscribe, we stop emailing you right away. If you ask us to delete your information, we delete it within 30 days, except where the law requires us to keep a record.

Your choices and rights

Unsubscribe: use the link in any email, or write to us.
Access, correct or delete: write to db@whyia.world and we will respond within 30 days.
Residents of California and other U.S. states with privacy laws have these same rights. We do not sell or “share” personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising as those laws define it.

Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect information, including encrypted connections (HTTPS). No system is perfectly secure, so we collect as little as we can.

Links to other sites

The site links to other sites, such as Stripe and YouTube. Their privacy policies apply when you visit them.

Our advertising tool and the Google Ads API

We run our Google Ad Grant with an internal tool, ABCs of Growing Up Ads. It uses the Google Ads API to manage the foundation’s own Google Ads account: it reads our campaign settings and reports (impressions, clicks, search terms and conversions) and changes our own campaigns. It does not access anyone else’s Google account or personal data, and the reports it reads are totals, not information about individual people. We use these reports only to improve our ads, and we do not sell or share them. Our use of information received from Google APIs follows the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will post the new version here with a new date. If the changes are significant, we will tell subscribers by email.

Contact us

ABCs of Growing Up Foundation Email: db@whyia.world