Privacy

This notice covers PotHead: Escape the Cloud (“PotHead”), the game for iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Android, and this website, potheadgame.com. Both are made by Edibu LLC, the developer named on the App Store and Google Play listings.

The short version

• PotHead has no accounts of its own, and it never asks you for your name, email address, or any other personal information.
• From version 1.1, the game has optional leaderboards on Apple’s Game Center (iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV) and Google Play Games (Android). If you’re signed in to one, your best times and scores go to Apple or Google under your account there. Your account details don’t come to us.
• On iPhone, iPad, and Android, the game shows a few ads between runs, through Google AdMob. The ads are not personalized for anyone, they’re limited to ads rated for general audiences, and the game never asks to track you across other apps.
• On Apple TV there are no ads.
• The game sends us anonymous play stats: how runs go, which levels are played, and errors, with no names, accounts, or identifiers. You can turn them off in Settings, Share play stats.
• We don’t sell your information, and we don’t receive the data the ad service or the leaderboard services collect.
• This website sets no cookies, stores nothing in your browser, and counts visits without identifying visitors.

The game

What the game keeps on your device

The game saves your best score and time for each level, which levels you’ve unlocked, your settings, and when you last saw an ad (so it can keep ads spaced out). For the play stats below, it also counts a few things, such as your tries on each level and the day you first played. All of it stays on your device, and deleting the app deletes it. If you use the leaderboards, the game also shows your rank from Game Center or Play Games while it’s open, without saving it.

Anonymous play stats

To learn which levels are too hard, where the game slows down or breaks, and whether ads or the “Remove ads” purchase get in the way, the game sends us anonymous play stats on every platform, Apple TV included:

• how runs go: the level, how a run ended and why, its score, how long it lasted, how many tries it took, and how smoothly the game ran;
• progress milestones, such as finishing a level for the first time or coming back a day later;
• when ad breaks and the “Remove ads” purchase come up, and how they end;
• which menus and settings are used, and whether the story is watched or skipped;
• errors in the game, with the part of the game they happened in;
• the app’s version, the kind of device and its model, its operating system version, and its language.

The stats carry no identifiers: no name, account, email address, advertising or device identifier, or location. We can’t tell who sent them or connect them to a person, and we never use them for advertising or sell them. They go to our own service on Cloudflare, which doesn’t store IP addresses (Cloudflare processes them only to deliver the stats, as it does for this website). We keep the individual events for about three months and daily totals after that.

The stats are on unless you turn them off in Settings, Share play stats. Turning them off stops them at once and deletes the counts the game kept for them.

Leaderboards on Game Center and Google Play Games

From version 1.1, each level has a leaderboard: the fastest times for most levels, and the best scores for the rest. The leaderboards don’t run on our servers. They’re part of your device’s own game service, and they use your own account there:

• Game Center, from Apple, on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV;
• Google Play Games, from Google, on Android.

They’re optional. The game plays the same without them, and it still keeps your own records on your device.

Signing in. When the game starts, it asks Game Center or Play Games whether you’re signed in. If you already are on your device (on Android, if you’ve chosen an account for signing in to games automatically), Apple or Google shows a short welcome banner, and your scores start going to the leaderboards. If you aren’t, Apple or Google may show its own sign-in screen, or offer to create a Play Games profile. You can close it and keep playing; the game then shows no leaderboards.

What’s sent, and to whom. While you’re signed in, the game sends your scores to Apple or Google: your time when you escape a level, or your score in a level that ranks by score. Each time you sign in, it also sends the bests already saved on your device. Apple or Google adds each score to the level’s leaderboard under your account, and the game asks for your rank to show on its Progress page. The game sends them nothing else for the leaderboards.

Who can see them. On Game Center, your nickname, avatar, and scores are visible to other Game Center players. On Play Games, who can see your gamer name and your activity in games follows your Play Games profile’s visibility setting.

What we receive. Nothing that identifies you. The game never sends us your Game Center or Play Games nickname, player ID, or rank, and the anonymous play stats are the same with or without the leaderboards. We can see the public leaderboards, as any player can.

Apple and Google keep the leaderboards, and they collect information about your use of their services, such as the games you play and your activity in them, under their own privacy policies. According to Google’s own disclosures, the Play Games software in the Android app also sends Google usage and diagnostic information, to keep it stable and improve it. You can read Apple’s privacy policy and its Game Center privacy page, and Google’s privacy policy and its Play Games privacy page.

Choosing not to, or stopping later:

• Game Center: close its sign-in screen, or sign out of Game Center in Settings, Game Center on iPhone and iPad, or in Settings, Profiles and Accounts on Apple TV.
• Play Games: close its sign-in or profile screen, or sign out of all games under Play Games in your device’s Google settings (Google’s steps).
• Signing out stops new scores from being sent. To remove scores already sent: on Play Games, you can delete this game’s Play Games data, or your whole Play Games profile, from your Play Games profile settings (Google’s steps). Apple keeps Game Center information while you keep your Apple Account; Apple’s Data and Privacy page has your choices for the data Apple keeps.

Ads on iPhone, iPad, and Android

Short ad breaks appear between runs: never during flight, never in your first session, and at most a few in a session. A watched video can also start Level 1 higher up, if you choose to. The ads come from Google AdMob, a service of Google LLC.

To show an ad and count it, Google’s ad software collects some information from your device and sends it to Google. According to Google’s own disclosures, that’s:

• your IP address, from which an approximate location (such as your country or city) is worked out;
• device and advertising identifiers allowed on your device (on Android, the advertising ID and app set ID). On iPhone and iPad, the game never asks for permission to track you, so Apple’s advertising identifier isn’t available to it;
• how you interact with ads (views and taps), and basic information about the app and device, such as its model, operating system, and language;
• diagnostic information, such as crashes in the ad software and how well ads load.

We set PotHead’s ad requests to be non-personalized: Google doesn’t use your information to choose ads based on your interests. Google uses this information to serve and measure the ads, to keep the ads working, and to prevent fraud. We don’t receive it, and we don’t combine it with anything else. You can read how Google uses information from apps that show its ads at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites, and Google’s privacy policy at policies.google.com/privacy.

Your choices in Europe

If you’re in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, the game asks for your consent through Google’s consent form before it shows ads, and you can decline. If you decline, Google shows only limited, non-personalized ads. To change your choice later, open Settings, Privacy options in the game.

Removing ads

A one-time “Remove ads” purchase, where offered, turns off every ad. Apple and Google handle purchases under their own privacy policies. We don’t receive your payment details; the store tells the game only that the purchase was made, so the game can turn ads off.

Reporting an ad

If you see an ad that seems wrong for this game, open Settings, Report an ad. It starts an email to us with an ID for that ad, so we can find and block it. Nothing is sent unless you send the email.

Notifications

The game doesn’t send notifications today. If we add them, for example to say a new level is out, they’ll be off unless you allow them, and we’ll update this notice before they ship.

Downloads

Apple and Google handle downloads under their own privacy policies.

Children

PotHead is rated 9+ on the App Store, and it isn’t made for children under 13. We don’t collect personal information from anyone. The game’s ads are non-personalized for every player and limited to ads rated for general audiences, and categories such as dating, gambling, alcohol, and weight loss are blocked. Game Center and Play Games have their own rules and parental controls for a child’s account. If you’re a parent and have a question, email us at the address below.

This website

• Hosting. Cloudflare serves this website. To deliver and protect it, Cloudflare processes request data such as IP addresses, under Cloudflare’s privacy policy.
• Visits. We use Cloudflare Web Analytics to count page views and visits, see which sites send visitors here, and measure how fast pages load. It sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser, and Cloudflare says it doesn’t track visitors by IP address, user agent, or fingerprinting. Cloudflare doesn’t measure visits from the European Union or the United Kingdom for this website.
• No cookies, no forms. This website sets no cookies, has no forms or sign-ups, and runs no ads or other third-party scripts.
• Links. Links to the App Store, Google Play, or other websites lead to pages covered by those companies’ own privacy policies.

Your rights

Because we don’t receive or keep personal information about you, there’s usually nothing for us to access, correct, or delete. The play stats can’t be traced back to you, so we can’t find yours to delete them; turning off Share play stats stops them. For the information Google’s ad service collects, see Google’s privacy policy and, in Europe, the game’s Privacy options. You can also reset or turn off your device’s advertising identifier in its settings. Leaderboard scores and your Game Center or Play Games profile are kept by Apple or Google, not us: use the choices above, or their privacy pages. Email us with any request and we’ll help.

Changes

If PotHead or this website starts handling information differently, we’ll update this notice and its date before the change ships.

Contact

Questions about privacy: support@potheadgame.com. Edibu LLC makes PotHead: Escape the Cloud.