Privacy Policy

This policy explains what TheGameExtras (“we”) collects when you use thegameextras.com, why, and what control you have over it. It is written to satisfy the UK GDPR, EU GDPR and CCPA, and to be readable without a lawyer.

What we collect

• Nothing, if you just read. Browsing game pages does not require an account and we do not set an identifying cookie for it.
• Search terms. We store the text you type into site search, without any identifier attached to it. We use this to find out which pages people want that we have not built.
• Contact and cheat submissions. The name, email address and message you type into those forms, plus a one-way hash of your IP address used only for rate limiting. The raw IP is never stored.
• Things you make in the browser. Your best Sequence Rush score, drawings in the pixel art editor and game saves in the µCity player are kept in your browser's storage. None of it is sent to us.
• A theme preference. If you switch between dark and light, that choice is stored in your browser's local storage. It never leaves your device.
• Analytics. If enabled, Google Analytics records aggregate page views and referrers. We have IP anonymisation on. We may also use Umami, which counts page views and tool use without cookies and without storing IP addresses, and which respects your browser's Do Not Track setting. Events we record describe what a tool did — "a command was copied", "a search found nothing" — never the text you typed.
• Reader votes. When you say whether a cheat worked, we store your answer with a one-way hash of your IP address, so one visitor counts once.

Newsletter

If you sign up, we store your email address, where on the site you signed up, a one-way hash of your IP address (to stop abuse of the form), the exact wording you agreed to, and the dates you signed up, confirmed and, if you do, unsubscribed. You are not on the list until you click the link in our confirmation email; an unconfirmed address is never mailed again and its link stops working after seven days.

Every email has a one-click unsubscribe link. We use your address only to send our own newsletter. It is never sold, and never shared for anyone else's marketing. To send newsletters we may use a mail service that processes addresses on our behalf; it is bound to use them only for that. Ask us through the contact form and we will delete your record entirely.

Comments

Some pages let you show comments. They are stored in GitHub Discussions and displayed through giscus. Nothing is loaded from GitHub or giscus until you press "Show comments". Posting requires signing in to GitHub, and what you post is public and governed by GitHub's privacy statement. We can hide or remove comments; to remove your own, delete it on GitHub or ask us.

What we do not collect

We do not ask for payment details, do not sell or rent personal data to anyone, and do not run fingerprinting scripts ourselves. If advertising is enabled, Google may personalise ads as described below.

Cookies

We set one first-party session cookie for administrators, and briefly for a visitor who submits a form (a newsletter sign-up, a cheat vote or a contact message), where it holds only the anti-forgery token. There is no tracking cookie for ordinary visitors. Third-party services embedded on the site may set their own:

• YouTube — trailers are embedded through youtube-nocookie.com, and the video only loads after you click play, so no YouTube cookie is set unless you choose to watch.
• Google Analytics — measurement cookies, if analytics is enabled.
• Google AdSense — advertising cookies, if ads are enabled. You can opt out of personalised advertising at Google Ad Settings.

Legal basis

We rely on legitimate interest for aggregate analytics and abuse prevention, and on your consent for anything you actively submit through a form. Where consent is the basis, you can withdraw it at any time by contacting us.

How long we keep things

• Contact messages: 24 months, then deleted.
• Cheat submissions: kept while the resulting cheat is published, so contributors stay credited.
• Search logs: 12 months, and they carry no identifier at any point.
• Newsletter: while you are subscribed. After you unsubscribe we keep the address and the date only as a record that you asked not to be mailed, unless you ask us to delete it.
• Analytics: per Google's retention setting, currently 14 months.

Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of anything we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email us through the contact form and we will respond within 30 days. If you are in the EU or UK and are unhappy with our response, you can complain to your national data protection authority.

Children

This site is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has submitted personal information to us, contact us and we will remove it.

Data transfers and security

Our servers and our analytics provider may process data outside your country. Traffic is served over HTTPS, form submissions are rate-limited and CSRF-protected, and stored messages are accessible only to site administrators.

Changes

If this policy changes materially, the updated date at the bottom of this page changes with it. Continued use of the site after a change means you accept the revised policy.