Wordbeard Privacy Policy
The short version.
- You never give us your name, email or phone number to play. The game makes an anonymous account for your phone.
- We keep what the game needs to work: your progress, your runs for the leaderboards, your coins and Rations, your captain name and friends list. We also receive crash reports and, unless you turn it off, gameplay statistics.
- We do not sell your data, there is no advertising in the game, and there is nothing to buy in the game.
- You can delete your account in the app (Settings → Delete account) or by email.
- Wordbeard is for players aged 13 and over.
1. Who we are
Wordbeard is a word-ladder puzzle game. It is made and published on Google Play by 1r2b LLC (“we”, “us”). We decide how the data described here is used.
Questions, requests and complaints: ronen@1r2b.com. If your message is about your account, include your Captain ID. It is shown at the bottom of the game’s Settings screen, and you can tap it to copy it.
2. What we collect
The game talks to our server (wordbeard.1r2b.com) over HTTPS. Older versions of the game use the old address,
wordbeard.blixa.org, which reaches the same server while they are in use. This is what the game sends and what we keep.
| Data | What it is | Can you turn it off? |
|---|---|---|
| Anonymous account | A random account ID (your Captain ID), created on first launch. The public half of a key that your phone generates and keeps in the Android Keystore, plus a fingerprint of that key. Sign-in session records: when a session started and was last refreshed, and a one-way hash of the session token, never the token itself. | No. The game needs it to save your progress and run its online features. |
| Google account link | If you choose Link Google account in Settings, Google sends us a sign-in token. The token includes your Google account’s email address, name and profile photo link. We check the token, keep only Google’s account identifier (a number Google assigns to your account), and discard the rest without storing or logging it. | Yes. Linking is optional. |
| Cloud save | Your progress: experience points, the words (islands) you have charted, your voyage records and your Daily and Weekly results. Your sound, accessibility and other settings are not included. | No. The game uploads it whenever you are online. |
| Runs | For Daily and Weekly puzzles and for campaign voyages that earn rewards: each word you played, each sail-back and each hint used, with the active seconds at which you played them; the run’s total time; your phone’s time-zone offset from UTC when the run ended; the app version; and the result our server worked out. For Daily and Weekly runs we also store whether Google Play confirmed the run came from a genuine copy of the app (see Google Play Integrity). We also keep a list of the islands our server has seen you chart, which feeds the all-time leaderboards. | No. These drive the leaderboards, cheat checks and rewards. |
| Game economy | Records of the in-game Doubloons (coins) and Rations you earn and spend, the rewards in your mailbox, and the emblems and records you have earned. None of these involve real money. | No. |
| Profile and friends | Your captain name, which the game generates and you can change. Chosen names go through a filter that blocks offensive words. Also a random public ID, your friend code, the friends you added with a code or invite link, your leaderboard counts, and whether you chose Hide me from global boards. | You choose the name and whether to add friends. The profile itself is created when you use online features. |
| Gameplay statistics | Events such as opening the app, starting and finishing a voyage, using a navigation aid, earning an award or a level, earning or spending Doubloons and Rations, opening a reward chest, tapping Share or sending an invite, and opening the game from a link. Each carries a random play-session ID, the app and content version, and your account ID. App start events also carry how long the app took to start and your phone’s memory, rounded to whole gigabytes. | Yes. Settings → Share gameplay statistics. |
| Crash reports and diagnostics | When the app crashes or logs an error, a report goes to our crash-reporting provider. It contains the error and a recent trail of screens and game events, including voyage IDs. It also contains your phone model and maker, Android version, processor, memory, storage and battery state, screen size, language and time zone, and the app version. It records whether each app session ended normally. Each report carries a random ID for this installation of the app, but not your account ID, name or email. Reports from our server contain only the error and the server route. | No. Crash reports are always sent. Settings says so. |
| Network data | Like any website or online service, our hosting provider sees your IP address and basic request details (such as the address requested, the time, and the app or browser) when your phone connects. These are kept in the hosting provider’s short-lived logs and used for security and troubleshooting. We do not store IP addresses in our database or link them to your account. | No. |
3. What stays on your phone
These are stored only on your phone and are never sent to us: your answer to the age question (stored as an age range, never your birth year), your choice about gameplay statistics, your sound, accessibility and display settings, an unfinished voyage, and some Captain’s Log details. The game keeps its save file out of Android’s backup and out of phone-to-phone transfer, so a reinstall or a new phone starts fresh. If you linked a Google account, open Settings on the new install, tap Link Google account and choose Switch captain: your Captain XP, Captain’s Log, voyage records, Daily and Weekly results and Doubloons come back from our server. Everything listed above as stored only on your phone does not come back. A backup Android made while an older version of the game was installed may still hold a save file until Android replaces it with a newer backup.
4. What we do not collect
We do not ask for or collect your name, email address, phone number, postal address, contacts, photos, files, microphone or camera, or your location (precise or approximate). We do not use the Android advertising ID. The game never asks you to grant an Android permission. It uses network access only.
5. Why we use it
- To run the game: to sign you in, save and sync your progress, keep your Doubloon and Ration balances, run the Daily and Weekly puzzles and leaderboards, give out rewards, and run friends lists.
- To keep it fair: our server replays submitted runs and asks Google Play whether a run came from a genuine copy of the app, so that leaderboards and rewards are not won by cheating.
- To fix and improve it: crash reports show us what broke. Gameplay statistics, if you leave them on, show us which puzzles are too hard or too easy.
- To keep the service safe: we use network data to protect against abuse and to troubleshoot.
We do not use your data for advertising, profiling or automated decisions about you. Where privacy law asks for a legal basis: we provide the game you asked for (contract), we keep it working, secure and fair (legitimate interests), and, for gameplay statistics, we rely on legitimate interests and you can opt out at any time.
6. Where it is processed
We use these service providers. They process data on our behalf or, for Google’s services, under Google’s own terms. Our servers and database are in the United States. If you play from elsewhere, your data is transferred to and processed in the United States.
| Provider | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Vercel Inc. | Hosting our server and these web pages, and delivering puzzle content to the app. Short-lived request logs. | United States |
| Turso (ChiselStrike Inc.) | The database that holds the account and game data in section 2. | United States (AWS us-east-1) |
| Sentry (Functional Software Inc.) | Crash reports and diagnostics from the app and our server. | United States |
| Google LLC: Google Play Integrity | When you submit a Daily, Weekly or reward-earning campaign run, the app asks Google Play for a token that shows whether it is a genuine copy installed from Google Play on a genuine device. Our server asks Google to check the token and stores only the result (for example “ok” or a short failure reason). Google Play collects device and app information to do this. See Google’s Play Integrity data safety notes. | |
| Google LLC: Sign in with Google | Only if you link a Google account. Google handles the sign-in screen and sends us a token with your email, name and photo link. We keep only the account identifier. |
How Google uses data in its own services is covered by the Google Privacy Policy.
7. Who can see it
- We do not sell or rent your data, and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers.
- Other players can see your captain name, your public ID, your leaderboard results and your all-time board counts. Friends you added see you in their friends list. Hide me from global boards shows you to other players as “Anonymous Captain” on the global boards, but friends still see your name. The game’s server answers leaderboard requests from any signed-in player, so treat your captain name and results as public.
- Service providers listed in section 6 process data only to provide their service to us.
- The law: we will disclose data if a valid legal request requires it, or to protect players or the service from fraud or abuse.
8. How long we keep it
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Account, cloud save, runs, economy records, profile and friends | While your account exists. After you delete your account, the rest is permanently deleted 30 days later (see section 9). |
| Gameplay statistics (raw events) | 90 days. After that, only anonymous daily totals remain, such as how many players finished a puzzle. These totals cannot be linked to you. |
| Sign-in sessions | A session ends after 60 days without use, or when you delete your account. We delete its record 30 days after it ends. |
| Crash reports | Up to 90 days at our crash-reporting provider, then deleted automatically. |
| Hosting request logs (with IP addresses) | A short period set by our hosting provider, usually hours to a few days. |
| Accounts that are no longer used | If you uninstall the game without deleting your account, the account stays on our server until it is deleted. Uninstalling removes the key that signs your phone in. So unless you linked a Google account, or you send us your Captain ID, we cannot connect a new install to the old captain. |
9. Deleting your account
In the app
- Open Settings and tap Delete account. You need to be online.
- Confirm. Your captain is signed out and removed from the all-time leaderboards right away. The game’s progress on your phone is wiped, except your sound, accessibility and picker settings and your age answer. The game then starts fresh as a new captain.
Without the app
Follow the steps on our account deletion page. In short: email ronen@1r2b.com with your Captain ID.
What happens to the data
- At once: your Google link and device key are removed, your sessions are ended, and you leave the all-time leaderboards. Nobody can sign in to the account any more.
- After 30 days: the account data in section 2 is permanently deleted. This covers your cloud save, runs, economy records, profile, friends (including your place in other players’ friends lists) and gameplay statistics.
- What remains: your past Daily and Weekly placings stay on those puzzles’ leaderboards with no link to you. From the day you delete, they show as “Anonymous Captain”, and at 30 days we remove the list of moves, the timing, your time-zone offset, the app version and the integrity result. Only the move count and the date stay. Anonymous daily totals stay too. Crash reports are deleted on the provider’s own schedule (section 8).
10. Your choices and rights
- Turn gameplay statistics off or on at any time: Settings → Share gameplay statistics.
- Change your captain name, or hide from the global boards, in the game.
- Ask us for a copy of your data, or to delete your account (section 9). Email ronen@1r2b.com with your Captain ID. We reply within 30 days. Because we do not know your name or email, the Captain ID is how we find your account and confirm it is yours.
- Depending on where you live (for example in the EU, UK or some US states), you may have further rights, such as the right to object to some processing or to complain to your data protection authority. We do not sell or “share” personal information as California law defines those terms.
11. Children
Wordbeard is for players aged 13 and over. On first launch the game asks for your year of birth, and your month if needed, before any online feature starts. Players under 13 see a screen saying the game is for ages 13 and up, and cannot play. For them the game makes no account and sends no progress, runs or gameplay statistics. It stores only the age range on the phone, so the screen stays in place.
The crash reporter starts as soon as the app opens. That lets it catch a crash on the age screen itself. So a crash report, or a record that an app session started and ended, can be sent before or during the age screen. It contains only the technical details in section 2 and the random installation ID, never the age answer.
If you think a child under 13 has given us data, email ronen@1r2b.com and we will delete it.
12. Security
- All traffic between the app and our server is encrypted with HTTPS.
- Your phone proves who it is with a key that never leaves the Android Keystore. Session tokens are stored on the phone in encrypted form and on our server only as one-way hashes.
- Our server reports crashes without request bodies, cookies, headers or user details. Crash reporting from the app is set to send no screenshots and no personal information by default.
No system is perfectly secure. If we learn of a breach that affects your data, we will notify you and the authorities as the law requires.
13. Ads and purchases
The game currently shows no ads and sells nothing for real money. Doubloons and Rations are earned in play and have no cash value. If we add ads or in-app purchases, we will update this policy before that release. We will say which providers are involved, what data they receive (for example the advertising ID or purchase records), and how to make your choices.
14. Changes to this policy
We will post any change on this page and update the effective date. If a change affects how we use data we already hold, we will say so in the game before it takes effect.
Wordbeard · ronen@1r2b.com · Terms of Service · Delete your account