Cookie Policy

Last updated: April 14, 2026

1. What Are Cookies

Cookies are small text files stored on your device when you visit a website. They help websites remember your preferences, keep you signed in, and understand how you interact with the service. v5.ink uses cookies and similar technologies (such as local storage) to operate and improve our service.

2. Cookies We Use

Essential Cookies

These cookies are required for v5.ink to function and cannot be disabled.

Authentication (Clerk) — Session cookies that keep you signed in to your v5.ink account. These include __session and __client_uat tokens managed by our identity provider, Clerk.
CSRF Protection — Tokens that prevent cross-site request forgery attacks on form submissions.

Functional Cookies

These cookies enable features like language preferences and UI settings.

Language Preference — Stores your selected language (English or Chinese) so you see v5.ink in your preferred language on return visits.

Analytics Cookies

These cookies help us understand how users interact with v5.ink so we can improve the service.

Cloudflare Analytics — Cloudflare may set cookies (e.g., __cf_bm) to distinguish human visitors from bots and to provide performance metrics. These cookies do not track you across other websites.

3. Third-Party Cookies

Some cookies are placed by third-party services that we integrate with:

Clerk (clerk.com) — Authentication and session management. Clerk sets cookies to securely manage your login state. See Clerk's Privacy Policy.
Stripe (stripe.com) — Payment processing. When you visit pricing or checkout pages, Stripe may set cookies to prevent fraud and process payments. See Stripe's Privacy Policy.
Tinybird (tinybird.co) — Analytics data pipeline. Tinybird processes click analytics on the server side and does not set cookies in your browser directly.
Cloudflare (cloudflare.com) — CDN and link redirect infrastructure. Cloudflare may set security and performance cookies. See Cloudflare's Privacy Policy.

4. Click Analytics and Tracking

When someone clicks a v5.ink short link, we collect analytics data (IP address, user agent, referrer, country, device type, and browser) on the server side to generate traffic reports and detect AI agent traffic. This server-side data collection does not use cookies and applies to all visitors who click v5.ink links, regardless of cookie preferences.

5. How to Manage Cookies

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Most browsers allow you to:

View and delete existing cookies
Block all cookies or only third-party cookies
Set preferences for specific websites

Please note that disabling essential cookies will prevent you from signing in to v5.ink. Here are links to cookie management instructions for major browsers:

6. Updates to This Policy

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or for legal, operational, or regulatory reasons. The “Last updated” date at the top indicates when this policy was last revised.

7. Contact

If you have questions about our use of cookies, contact us at privacy@v5.ink.