Brainly

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Brainly

Basic information
Founded	2009
Type	Private
Industry	Education
Official website	https://brainly.com/

Brainly (originally Zadane.pl) is a Polish company and platform founded in 2009 by Michał Borkowski dedicated towards students assisting each other for homework online. In recent years, the platform has come under controversy from its users for various issues, from not honoring canceled plans, to facilitating the usage of AI instead of the platform's community.

According to TOS;DR, their Terms of Service is rated at a D.

Consumer-impact summary

• User Freedom: Accessing content requires creating a free account, and some community-generated answers are additionally paywalled behind a subscription tier. Account deletion has also been reported to also be tedious.
• User privacy: Unknown; user-generated content is difficult to request removal.
• Business model: Funded via advertising overload for free users, additionally has "premium-tier" content.
• Market control: Limited competition; has had some history purchasing competitor websites, such as OpenStudy, and soon after deleting them.

Incidents

This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Brainly category.

Concerning TOS

According to the Terms of Service (TOS) of Brainly, any content a user generates for the platform may be sub-licensed out to third parties, and all content generated for the platform has its license preserved even if the consumer's account is deleted, either through an unannounced removal, or the consumer requesting their account to be deleted. Additionally, users are bound under arbitration when it comes to legal disputes against Brainly.

Users within the EU are treated more fairly in their TOS, however it is inaccessible to users living outside of the EU for reference.

Emphasis on AI generated content over user-generated content (2023/24)

Editor's note: Needs fixes!

In early 2024, Brainly experienced a transition towards favoring AI generated content for the platform, however earlier in mid-to-late 2023, they integrated an excessive amount of generative AI tools within the site, from AI-powered tutors, to encouraging answers to be generated on question pages by AI. A significant portion of the content originally published to the platform has also been used for the purposes of assisting these AI tools.

Concerning SEO measures

Editor's note: may delete this section, please discuss in discuss tab!

Brainly has a problematically large amount of web domains that they own, and combined with searching online for assistance with homework questions showing a considerably higher quota of results pointing to the platform, it is difficult for consumers on any of the 3 most popular search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) to evade the platform in search results. This is statistically even higher when questions from online learning platforms such as Edgenuity or Odysseyware are inputted into web searches.^{[citation needed]}

Auto-renewal deceptive billing

Reported by consumers on several platforms, including the Better Business Bureau (BBB), Trustpilot, and Complaints Board, Brainly has repeatedly charged users for premium content after they cancelled their subscription. Notably seen on the BBB, a user had an account charged by Brainly, notably with no refunds despite the account being fraudulently being created with their credentials. Another user cited difficulties to stop charges to their account as well.

Users attempting to use customer service have also reported being locked into speaking with an AI assistant to handle their billing problems.

Difficulty to delete one's own published content

On the platform, content published by users is impossible to delete, regardless of whether it was a question or an answer, and this content cannot be modified once published either. Additionally, attempting to remove one's account does not effectively delete this content, as-is mentioned in the TOS.

Some reviews have also mentioned difficulties with the platform allowing users to delete their accounts. This problem is additionally inflated due to the only accessible way to contact site staff being the AI assistant.

Access limits

Content that was initially offered to users for free, especially user-generated content, has had its accessibility become questionable. Some content initially published for free has seen it transitioned into content only accessible to premium or "legacy" accounts. Additionally, there are harsh limits imposed on "free" users who wish to look up answers, as the platform currently limits accessing content to 1 question per day.

Advertising Overload

Main article: Advertising overload

A screenshot of the notification tab, where Brainly is advertising its extension, and Adobe Creative Cloud

Since the start of the 2020s, Brainly has introduced progressively more pervasive advertisements on their platform, from some simple static advertisements initially, to massively obstructive ads that have made using the platform nearly impossible. Some ads are even visible in the notification tab, which forces advertisement notifications to be focused at the top, meaning users are forced to be advertised just to check their notifications.

Below are some general examples of the platform's advertising overload problems.

• 
  A screenshot of a question page as of May 5, 2025
• 
  A screenshot showing an obstructive advertisement
• 
  A screenshot showing content blocked behind a premium ad for 'Brainly Plus'

See also

Companies

• CourseHero
• Chegg