Privacy policy

Puzzled is a real-time multiplayer puzzle site. This policy explains what we collect when you use it, why, and what you can do about it.

The data controller — the party responsible for your personal data — is Puzzled. If you have a question about anything here, the contact details are in the last section.

Your guest identity

You can play without an account. The first time you play, your browser is given a guest handle — a name like guest_hxbzkgev — which is stored in that browser and is how your games and times stay yours between visits. It is not linked to your real name, and we do not ask you for one.

Account information

If you register, we collect a username, an email address and a password. Registering upgrades the guest you already were rather than creating a second person, so the games you played beforehand stay with you. Passwords are stored only as a cryptographic hash — we cannot read yours, and nobody at Puzzled can tell you what it is.

How you play

We record the puzzles you attempt and solve, how long they took, the rooms you join and the games you play. This is what your stats page, the room leaderboards and your personal bests are built from.

What you write

Messages and reactions you send in a room are stored so the room can show them. They are visible to the other people in that room, including anyone watching it — please treat a room as a public place and do not post anything private there.

Technical information

Like any website, our servers receive your IP address, the type of browser and device you are using, and which pages you requested. We use this to keep the service running, to diagnose faults, and to detect abuse.

A cookie is a small file a site stores in your browser; local storage and session storage are two similar mechanisms. Puzzled uses the following. If we introduce advertising or analytics providers, their storage will be covered in the two sections after this one.

• Guest identity _puzzled_anon_id (cookie) — The identity you play under before you register (shown as a handle like guest_hxbzkgev), so your games and times stay yours across visits. Set the first time you play a room, solo, or the daily puzzle — never for reading a page. A year from the last time you played, or until you clear it.
• Session _puzzled_key (cookie) — The site's working state for this visit — which guest you are while you browse and, once you have an account and have logged in, that you are logged in. Ends when you close the browser.
• Stay logged in _puzzled_web_user_remember_me (cookie) — Keeps you logged in between visits. Set only if you chose “stay logged in” when logging in; the “only this time” option never sets it. 14 days, or until you log out.
• Appearance theme (cookie and local storage) — Remembers whether you chose the light or dark theme. The cookie lasts a year; local storage until you clear it.
• Daily puzzle progress _puzzled_daily (local storage) — Keeps your grid, pencil marks and time on the daily sudoku, so you can leave and pick up where you were. It never leaves your browser. The 31 most recent days you played; until you clear it.
• Cookie choices _puzzled_consent (cookie) — Remembers whether you accepted or declined analytics and advertising cookies, so we do not ask on every visit. Six months, or until you change it from Cookie settings in the footer.

If we introduce analytics or advertising cookies, we will set them only with your permission where the law requires it. You will be able to change that choice at any time from Cookie settings in the footer of every page.

You can also clear or block all of these in your browser's settings. Clearing them signs you out and, if you have not registered, retires the guest handle your history is attached to — that history is not recoverable afterwards, which is one of the reasons the site offers you an account.

Puzzled does not currently show advertising. Advertising may help keep the site free in future. Before advertising is enabled, we will update this policy with the provider and the data practices that actually apply.

• If we use third-party advertising, providers may use cookies to serve ads based on visits to this website and other websites.
• If we use Google AdSense, Google's advertising cookies may enable Google and its partners to serve ads based on your visit to this site and/or other sites on the internet.
• If Google advertising is enabled, you can opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google My Ad Center.
• If applicable, you can opt out of some third-party vendors' use of cookies for personalised advertising at aboutads.info/choices or optout.networkadvertising.org, or, in Europe, youronlinechoices.eu.
• If Google advertising is enabled, its advertising technology providers are listed in Google's ad technology providers page, each with a link to its own privacy policy.

If advertising is enabled, opting out of personalised ads would not necessarily remove advertising — you may still see contextual ads.

If advertising is enabled and you are in the United Kingdom, the European Economic Area or Switzerland, we will use the consent mechanism required for that service before setting any advertising or analytics cookie that requires consent. More about how Google handles data from sites that use its services is at How Google uses information from sites that use our services.

We do not currently run any analytics on Puzzled — nothing counts your visit beyond the ordinary server logs described above.

We expect to add an analytics tool so we can see, in aggregate, how the site is used: how many people visited, which pages, roughly where in the world. When we do, we will name it here first. If the tool uses cookies — Google Analytics does — we will ask for your consent before setting them where the law requires it; a cookieless tool such as Umami would not need to. Either way, analytics will not be used to identify you.

• To run the game — seating you in rooms, showing your progress against other players, keeping your times. Where you have an account, this is to perform our agreement with you; where you are a guest, it is our legitimate interest in providing the service you asked for.
• To keep it working and safe — diagnosing faults, preventing cheating, spam and abuse. Legitimate interests.
• To remember your choices — your theme, whether you stay logged in. Legitimate interests, or consent where the law requires it.
• If we introduce advertising — consent, where consent is required for that in your country; otherwise legitimate interests in funding a free service.
• If we introduce analytics — aggregate use of the site, to improve it. Legitimate interests, or consent where the tool needs it.

• With other players. Your display name, your progress in a room, and anything you type in a room's chat are shown to the other people in that room and to anyone watching it.
• With service providers who run parts of the service for us — today, hosting and email delivery; advertising and analytics providers only if we introduce them. They may only use the data to provide that service.
• Where the law requires it, or to protect the rights and safety of our users or of Puzzled.

We do not sell your personal information for money. If we introduce personalised advertising, it can count as "selling" or "sharing" under some United States privacy laws even where no money changes hands. We will update this policy and provide any required opt-out before it happens.

• Guests. A guest record lives in your browser for up to a year. Guest records with no games played are cleared after 60 days.
• Accounts. We keep your account and its play history until you ask us to delete it, after which it is removed or anonymised.
• Room chat. Kept with the room it belongs to.
• Server logs. Kept for 30 days for security and debugging, then deleted.

Depending on where you live, you have some or all of the following rights over your personal data:

• to ask what we hold about you, and get a copy;
• to have it corrected if it is wrong;
• to have it deleted;
• to ask us to restrict how we use it, or to object to a use;
• to receive it in a portable form;
• to withdraw consent at any time, where we relied on consent — withdrawing it does not undo what was done beforehand.

Write to privacy@puzzlegaming.live and we will respond within the time the law allows. If you are in the UK or the EEA and you think we have got it wrong, you may also complain to your national data protection authority.

If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what personal information we collect and how it is used, to have it deleted, to have it corrected, and to opt out of its "sale" or "sharing" — which, under California law, includes sharing for cross-context behavioural advertising such as personalised ads.

Puzzled does not currently sell or share personal information for targeted advertising. If that changes, we will provide the required opt-out before it happens. You can also write to privacy@puzzlegaming.live. We will not treat you differently for exercising these rights.

Puzzled is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. Some countries set a higher age for consenting to online services without a parent — where that applies to you, that higher age is the one that counts.

If you believe a child has given us personal information, write to privacy@puzzlegaming.live and we will delete it.

We and our service providers may process your information in countries other than your own, including outside the UK and the EEA. Where we do, we rely on appropriate safeguards — such as the European Commission's standard contractual clauses — to protect it.

The site is served over an encrypted connection and passwords are stored only as hashes. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, so we cannot promise absolute security — but if a breach affects you, we will tell you where the law requires it.

We update this policy when the site changes. The date at the top always says when it was last revised, and if a change materially affects you we will make it obvious in the app rather than relying on you to re-read this page.

Privacy questions and requests: privacy@puzzlegaming.live.

Everything else is on the contact page.