Brainly: Difference between revisions

{{StubNotice}}{{InfoboxCompany

| Name = {{PAGENAME}}

| Founded =2009

| Industry =Education technology

| Official Website =Brainly.com

| Logo =QuestionMark.svg

}}Brainly<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainly</ref> (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.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=TOS;DR rating for Brainly |url=https://tosdr.org/en/service/1007 |access-date=Apr 30, 2025 |website=Terms of Service; Didn't Read}}</ref>

==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.

* Market control: Limited competition; has had some history purchasing competitor websites, such as OpenStudy,<ref>{{Cite news |date=Jun 14, 2016 |title=Brainly Acquires US Social Learning Platform, OpenStudy |url=https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-06-14-brainly-acquires-us-social-learning-platform-openstudy |access-date=Apr 30, 2025 |work=EdSurge}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Marketwired |date=Jun 14, 2016 |title=Social Learning Platform OpenStudy Joins the Brainly Community |url=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/social-learning-platform-openstudy-joins-130000652.html |access-date=Apr 30, 2025 |work=Yahoo Finance}}</ref> and soon after deleting them.

{{Placeholder box|If the company page is short enough and/or the incident is not deserving of its own page, add incidents below in sub-sections (including the points outlined in [[Consumer_Action_Taskforce:Sample/Incident/Help|the incident help page]]) without linking/creating an incident page.

If the company has various incidents listed and/or this page is getting too long, create subsections linking to each incident while linking to the main article and including a short summary. To link to the page use the "Hatnote" or "Main" templates.

If the company has numerous incidents then format them in a table (see [[Amazon]] for an example). }}

According to the Terms of Service (TOS) of Brainly,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Brainly TOS |url=https://brainly.com/pages/terms_of_use |access-date=Apr 30, 2025 |website=Brainly}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> 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.

===Transition to AI generated content over user-generated content (''2023/24'')===

In early 2024, Brainly experienced a transition towards favoring AI generated content for the platform,<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last=Ravaglia |first=Ray |date=Jan 23, 2024 |title=Brainly Evolving From Questions And Answers To AI Learning Companion |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/rayravaglia/2024/01/23/brainly-evolving-from-questions-and-answers-to-ai-learning-companion/ |access-date=Apr 30, 2025 |work=Forbes}}</ref> however earlier in mid-to-late 2023, they integrated an excessive amount of generative AI tools within the site,<ref>https://thejournal.com/articles/2023/09/14/brainly-adds-ai-powered-tools-to-its-platform.aspx?admgarea=pro.development</ref><!-- Temp a basic ref, not in the mood to grab all info from article to make it a proper source atm --> 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.<ref name=":1" />

=== Concerning SEO measures<!-- I would like to note that their SEO measures have gone so far as to also hamper finding data both positive and negative about the company. Searching review platforms and the BBB has been far easier to find any info on the company, which concerns me.  --> ===

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}}<!-- Will try to find reddit posts mentioning this problem, however as using Odysseyware within my Middle school years, and Edgenuity for High School, I can safely state that a large amount of the questions from these platforms will bring users to this site over ones that are significantly better for students to be reading.

=== Frequently charging accounts for premium despite users requesting cancellation ===

Stub, to be worked on, check discuss tab for details

=== Difficulty to delete accounts ===

Stub, to be worked on, check discuss tab for details

=== Access limits ===

Stub, to be worked on, check discuss tab for details

=== Advertising Overload <!-- I own a legacy account, which does not experience the overload, which can be used to compare the perspective of a page between a user who has either no account, a recent account, or a legacy account. Please contact JamesTDG on the Wiki discord if you wish to access this account for the purposes of research. --> ===

==See also <!-- Considering making pages dedicated to its competition that also have had shady activities: CourseHero Chegg -->==

{{reflist}}