Privacy Policy for The Word Finder

1. Who we are

The Word Finder is published by MPL Ventures LLC, 330 N Wabash Ave, Floor 23, Chicago, IL 60611-7619, United States.

For anything relating to this policy or to your personal information, contact us at [email protected].

Under the UK and EU General Data Protection Regulation, MPL Ventures LLC is the data controller for the processing described below.

2. The short version

You do not need an account to use The Word Finder. There is no sign-in on the website or in the apps, and we never ask for your name, your address or your phone number.

What we do have is advertising, and advertising is where most of the data goes. Advertising companies receive information about your device and how you use our site and apps so they can choose which ads to show you. In Europe, the UK and Switzerland we ask your permission first, and you can change your answer at any time.

If you would rather not see advertising at all, the apps offer a paid subscription that removes it.

Beyond advertising, we collect very little: some anonymous statistics about how the site is used, our own server logs, your email address if you sign up to the newsletter, and your email address if you choose to give it when sending feedback.

The detail is below, and the detail governs.

3. What we do not collect

We do not collect:

• Your name, phone number or postal address
• Your precise location, meaning GPS-level location. Advertising uses approximate location worked out from your internet connection, which is described in Section 5
• Your contacts, calendar or photos
• Any payment details. Subscriptions are paid through Apple or Google, and neither passes us your card details
• Any account or password, because there are none

We do not sell personal information in the ordinary sense of the word. United States state privacy laws use a wider definition of "sell" and "share" that can cover advertising, and Section 13 explains what to do if you would rather we did not.

4. Information collected automatically

Analytics. We use Google Analytics on thewordfinder.com to understand how people use the site: which pages are visited, how long people stay, which country they are in, and what kind of device they use. This tells us which tools people find useful. It is not used to identify you.

Our own server logs. Our servers keep a routine access log. Each entry records the time of the request, the address requested, the type of device and browser that made it, and the size of the response. IP addresses are truncated as the log is written, so an entry cannot be traced back to a particular device or person. Logs are kept for 14 days and then deleted automatically.

Our servers run on machines we rent from DigitalOcean in New York, United States.

What the apps send us. When you use a solver in the app, the letters or clue you enter go to our server so it can work out the answers. Those requests appear in the same access log, with the same truncated IP addresses and the same 14-day deletion.

5. Advertising

The website and both apps carry advertising. This is how The Word Finder is paid for and it is the largest part of what this policy covers.

Who is involved. Our advertising is served through Google Ad Manager and is managed on our behalf by Publisher Collective. Google Ad Manager works with a large number of advertising companies, and it is those companies, rather than us, who choose which ad you see.

What they receive. For advertising to work, information about your device and your visit is shared with those companies. This includes an advertising identifier, your approximate location worked out from your internet connection, and information about which pages or screens you looked at. It does not include your name, because we do not have it.

Your choices in Europe, the UK and Switzerland. Before any personalised advertising is shown, you are asked whether you agree. You can say no, and the apps and site will keep working. You will still see ads, but they will be chosen without using information about you.

You can change your answer at any time:

• In the apps: open Settings and choose the privacy or consent option.
• On the website: use the consent link in the footer.

Your choices in the United States. Some state privacy laws treat advertising of this kind as "selling" or "sharing" personal information and give you the right to opt out. The link in our website footer marked "Do not share my Personal Information" does this.

On iPhone and iPad. Apple requires apps to ask separately for permission to track you across other companies' apps and websites. You will see Apple's own prompt when you first open the app. If you decline, we and our advertising partners will not use Apple's advertising identifier. You can change your answer in your iPhone settings under Privacy and Security, then Tracking.

On Android. You can reset or delete your advertising ID in your device settings under Privacy, then Ads.

If you would rather not see ads at all, the apps offer a paid subscription that removes them. See Section 9.

6. The newsletter

If you sign up for our newsletter, we ask for your email address and nothing else. We use it to send you the newsletter and for nothing else. We do not sell or share it.

Our newsletter is sent using Brevo, who act as our processor and store the list on our behalf.

Our legal basis is your consent, given when you sign up. Every newsletter has an unsubscribe link at the bottom, and unsubscribing removes you from the list. You can also email [email protected] and we will remove you.

7. Sending us feedback

There is a feedback link in our apps. Tapping it opens your browser and takes you to a Google Form, which sits outside the app.

The form asks which of our apps you are writing about, whether you are on Apple or Android, and what you would like to tell us. There is also a field for your email address. That field is optional. You only need it if you want a reply, and the form says so.

If you give us your email address, we use it to reply to you and for nothing else. We do not sell it, we do not share it, we do not add you to any mailing list, and we do not use it for marketing. Our legal basis is your consent, given when you choose to fill the field in.

Responses go to a spreadsheet in our Google Workspace account, where Google acts as our processor. Five people at MPL Ventures LLC can see it. Nobody else has access.

We delete email addresses from that spreadsheet after 12 months. We keep the feedback itself, along with the device type and which app it was about, for longer, because it helps us improve the apps. Once the email address is gone, what remains cannot be connected to you.

If you would like your feedback removed sooner, email [email protected] and we will delete it.

8. If you email us

If you write to [email protected], or use the contact form on our website, we keep your message and your email address for as long as we need to answer you and for up to 24 months afterwards, so we can follow up on related questions. After that they are deleted. We do not add you to any mailing list.

9. Subscriptions

The apps offer a paid subscription, monthly or annual, that removes advertising. It does not unlock any other features.

We never see your payment details. Payment is handled entirely by Apple on iPhone and iPad, and by Google Play on Android. They take the payment, they hold the card details, and they tell our app only whether a subscription is active. We do not receive your name, your card number or your billing address.

If you subscribe, your device stops requesting ads, and the advertising sharing described in Section 5 stops with it.

To manage or cancel, use your Apple ID settings or your Google Play account settings. We cannot cancel a subscription for you.

10. Cookies and similar technologies

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies. Some are necessary for the site to work at all. Others support the analytics described in Section 4 and the advertising described in Section 5.

Where the law requires your consent for non-essential cookies, we ask before setting them, through the same consent tool described in Section 5. You can change your choices at any time using the consent link in the footer.

You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Doing so may stop parts of the site working properly.

11. Who else is involved

We have named these throughout, and this is the complete list in one place.

Apple and Google also collect their own information about app downloads and, if you have opted in on your device, app usage and crash reports. They show us summary reports built from that. We cannot see what any individual person did. You can turn this off in your device settings under Privacy and Security.

We do not work with data brokers.

12. Children

The Word Finder is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. Our declared target audience on Google Play is 16 and over.

If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact [email protected] and we will look into it.

13. Your rights

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you have the right to access your personal data, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to processing, to data portability, and to withdraw consent where processing relies on it. You also have the right to complain to your national supervisory authority. In the UK that is the Information Commissioner's Office.

To withdraw consent for advertising, use the consent controls described in Section 5. To unsubscribe from the newsletter, use the link in any newsletter.

If you are in California, you have the right to know what personal information is collected, to delete it, to correct it, and to opt out of the sale or sharing of it. Because our advertising involves sharing information with advertising companies, this right is a real one rather than a formality. Use the "Do not share my Personal Information" link in our website footer, or the consent controls in the apps. We will not treat you differently for exercising any of these rights.

Residents of other US states with comprehensive privacy laws, including Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas and Oregon, have comparable rights and can exercise them the same way.

To make any other request, email [email protected]. We will respond within one month. Because there is no account, we often cannot verify that particular data relates to you, and where that is the case we will explain why rather than simply refusing.

14. Where information is processed

MPL Ventures LLC is based in the United States and our servers run in DigitalOcean's New York datacentre. When you use the site or the apps, your device sends its requests there directly, wherever in the world you are.

Our advertising partners, Google and Brevo all operate internationally and process data in a number of countries, as set out in their own policies.

15. How long we keep things

Our advertising partners set their own retention periods, described in their policies.

16. Security

Traffic between your device and our servers is encrypted using HTTPS. We hold no accounts, no passwords and no payment details, so the most sensitive categories of data simply do not exist on our systems.

17. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when what we do changes. The date at the top always reflects the current version.

Where a change is material, we will publish the updated policy and update our App Store and Google Play declarations before any new version of the apps is released. Where the law requires consent, we will ask for it rather than relying on you having read this page.

18. Contact

[email protected]