Privacy

Short version: your scores stay on your device unless you choose to enter the leaderboards. We do not ask for your name or email to play. Ads, when they are on, come from Google, which asks first where the law says it must.

Who runs this site

Map Rodeo is run from South Australia. Questions or complaints: [email protected].

Stored on your device

City Ladder, Compass Rose, Capital Jumble and Crow Flies keep the puzzle you are part-way through, your results for the last 60 days and whether you bought "No ads on this device". They are kept in your browser's own storage for this site so the games work. Clearing this site's data in your browser removes it. Results are also sent when you enter the leaderboards.

If you enter the leaderboards (below), your device also keeps a random code, your nickname once the link we email is opened (never your email), and the result of that day's entry.

Atlas Pins has its own privacy notes inside the game (its Privacy button). It counts nothing unless you say yes when it asks.

Your internet address

As with any website, the company that hosts these pages receives your internet address and the page you asked for each time you visit, and may keep short records of that to run and protect the site. To count page views and visits, each page also sends our web host (Cloudflare) a short note that it was opened, using its free page counter, which uses no cookies and stores nothing on your device. Our own pages send nothing else to anyone until ads are switched on, apart from: Atlas Pins' counting reports, only if you said yes when it asked (its Privacy button lists them); the leaderboard entries you choose to send (below); and, while the leaderboards are on, the requests a game makes by itself at its end screen to fetch the leaderboards, which also send this device's leaderboard code, if it keeps one, to fetch your own places. Each of those requests reaches Cloudflare with your internet address, like any request.

The leaderboards, only if you join

Each game has leaderboards for today, this week, this month and this year, and the whole site has its own, which adds up your points across the games. They are offered only if you said you are 16 or older, and only after you finish a game's daily puzzle and choose "Put my name on". You give a nickname and an email. A nickname is fine; your full name is not needed. Your nickname and scores are public; your email is never shown. Email is required to check address ownership, manage your entry and contact you if you win. One address holds one nickname; this does not prove one person has only one entry. Nothing goes on the leaderboards until you open a link we email to that address. Until then our server keeps what you sent (the nickname, the email, the words you agreed to, a news yes if you ticked it, a scrambled form of your device's code, and that day's game) with a deadline 30 days after you sent it; the link works once, and if it is never opened all of that is deleted at the first daily clear-out after the deadline. The game gives every address the same answer, whether or not it is already on the leaderboards; only the email says which. To send at most one email to an address in 10 minutes, our server keeps a scrambled form of the address for at least 10 minutes; it is deleted by the next sign-up after that, from anyone, or else by the daily clear-out (it runs with the first leaderboard request of each day, UTC time), so on a quiet site it can stay longer than a day. The link email is sent through Resend, which receives the address to deliver it. Another device joins a nickname already on the same way, by a link emailed to its address. If you also tick "Email me the weekly winners", we keep that yes separately, with the exact words you were shown and the time, until you unsubscribe or leave; no weekly-winners mail is sent before we choose how to send it, and the first one asks you to confirm. Your device keeps a random code, your nickname once the link is opened (never your email), and the result of that day's entry. Our server keeps a scrambled form of the code (a one-way hash, never the code itself), your nickname and email, the words you agreed to and when, and for each game you enter: the day, your answers, the points it works out (for Atlas Pins also the kilometres off), how long each round took, and whether the game is on the leaderboards, the time it reached us (used to break ties) and which device sent it; also that you said you are 16 or older and when each device was added. The code joins your games up from day to day, so it is an online identifier, and we treat it and everything kept with it as personal information. Anyone can see your nickname, places, points and days played on the leaderboards; people who know you may recognise your nickname. Why: to run the leaderboards, to check that an address is yours, to check a line that looks wrong (we may take a line off by hand), and to tell a winner. EU/UK legal basis: your consent, given by joining; leaving withdraws it. The leaderboards have their own server and database, apart from Atlas Pins' counting: the code is never sent with a count, and no count is sent with an entry. To limit how many entries one place can send, our server counts what each internet address sends to the leaderboards (entries, sign-ups and opened links) in whole minutes. For each minute it keeps only the minute, the count and a scrambled form of the address mixed with the minute (a one-way hash: the same address looks different in each minute, though someone holding the database could test a guessed address). A count is deleted when the next of these arrives, from anywhere, two or more whole minutes later, or else by the daily clear-out, so on a quiet site a count can stay longer than a day. Each game entered is deleted by the daily clear-out from 1 February after its year ends; your nickname, email and news yes are deleted at the first daily clear-out after 13 months without a new game, if you have not left before. "Leave the leaderboards", on the leaderboards or in Atlas Pins' Privacy box, deletes your nickname, email, games, news yes, any unopened link asked for on that device and, once you are on, any asked for with your address, from the leaderboards' database at once, and the code and nickname on that device. We try to remove the device code and tell you if your browser refuses. Newly fetched lists may show your entry for up to two minutes; an already-open page may retain it until refreshed. Cloudflare keeps a history of the leaderboards' database and lets its customers restore it to an earlier moment, up to 30 days back, depending on plan; nobody opens or restores it, so deleted details can stay in that history for up to 30 days, depending on plan. This does not establish erasure of everything the provider retains. If you no longer have the device you played on, write to us from the email you joined with and we delete your entry.

Ads

When ads are shown, they come from Google AdSense. Google and other companies it works with use cookies and similar storage on your device to show ads, limit how often you see them and count them, which can include ads based on your earlier visits to this site or other sites. In the European Union, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, Google's own message asks for your choice before any of this happens.

How Google uses information from sites that show its ads: policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. You can turn off personalised ads at adssettings.google.com, or switch off other companies' personalised ads at aboutads.info/choices.

Buying "No ads on this device"

The payment happens on Stripe's own checkout page; our site never sees your card. Stripe sends us a record of the sale: the amount, the date, your email address, the name and country you gave, and the card's country. We use it only for your receipt, refunds, your questions and our tax records, and keep it as long as Australian tax law requires (five years). Stripe's own privacy notice: stripe.com/privacy.

After paying you come back to our thanks page, which switches ads off in this browser on this device. It is kept only there: on another device, another browser, or after clearing this site's data, ads show again. Write to us with your receipt and we will help.

Children

The games are made for teens and adults and are not aimed at children under 13. The leaderboards are offered only to players who say they are 16 or older; we cannot check the answer.

Your rights

You can ask what we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, and complain to us at the address above. If you are not satisfied, you can go to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au), or in the EU or UK to your own data-protection authority. Unless you join the leaderboards, your scores never reach us; what can reach us from playing is only what this page describes above: Atlas Pins' counting reports if you said yes there, the leaderboard records if you join, and the host's short records of internet addresses; for a purchase we hold the Stripe record above. If you joined, "Leave the leaderboards" on the device you played on (on the leaderboards or in Atlas Pins' Privacy box) deletes your nickname, email, games and news yes at once; without that device, write to us from the email you joined with.

Last changed [the day the leaderboards open].