This policy explains what Interstellar Sudoku, our sudoku game for iOS and Android, does with information about you and your device: what stays on the device, what leaves it, who receives it, and what you can switch off.
| Purpose | What is sent, and to whom | Does it depend on your consent? | Your controls |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ads | Device and advertising identifiers, your IP address, and which ads you saw or tapped, to Google AdMob. | Yes. Where a consent form is shown, your answer decides whether the ads are personalized. | Privacy options in the app’s Settings, and your device’s tracking and advertising settings. |
| Usage measurement | Records of what happens in the game, to Google Analytics for Firebase. No advertising identifier, and no user ID. | No. It runs either way. Without consent it carries no identifier at all. | A switch under Privacy in the app’s Settings turns it off. |
| Crash reports | A trace of the fault, the device model and system version, and identifiers for this installation, to Firebase Crashlytics. | No. Reports are sent either way. | None in this version of the app. |
1. Who we are
Interstellar Sudoku is made and published by LIGOCKITECH CONSULTORIA EM TECNOLOGIA SOFTWARES E DADOS LTDA, a company in Florianópolis, Brazil. In this policy, “LigockiTech”, “we” and “us” mean that company.
Av. Prefeito Osmar Cunha 416, Sala 1108Florianópolis, SC, 88015-100
Brazil
For a question about this policy or about your data, write to privacy@ligockitech.com. For anything else about the app, write to contact@ligockitech.com.
2. What stays on your device
The game runs on your device. Puzzles are generated there, and what you do in the game is stored there, in the app’s own storage:
- puzzles in progress, and the results of the ones you have finished;
- your journey, statistics, streak, level and badges, and your balances of hints and lives;
- your settings, such as language, theme and sound.
The app has no accounts, and we have no server that this data is sent to. We do not receive it.
If you back up your device with Apple or Google, the backup may include the app’s data. That copy is held under your own account with them, and we have no access to it.
3. Usage measurement
We measure how the game is played so that we can tune it: where players stop, which puzzles are too hard, which features go unused. To do that, the app records events and sends them to Google Analytics for Firebase, a Google service. We use them to understand how the game is played and to improve it.
An event says that something happened in the game, with a few details. For example: an attempt was started, solved or failed, on which stop and at which difficulty, how long it took, and how many hints and mistakes it involved; a daily challenge was played; a badge was earned; an ad was shown; whether consent was given on the consent form. With each event, Firebase also records general technical information: the app version, the device model and operating system version, the language, and an approximate location (country, region and city), which Google works out from the IP address of the connection.
Events never contain your name, your email address, your contacts, your precise location or anything you write. The app does not send your advertising identifier with them, and it never assigns you a user ID.
Usage measurement runs whether or not you give consent. Your answer on the consent form changes how it runs, not whether it runs.
- If you consent, or if you are somewhere the app is not required to ask, Firebase creates a random identifier for this installation of the app and keeps it on your device. It lets events from the same installation be counted together, for example to see whether players come back the next day. It is not your advertising identifier, and we do not combine it with anything that says who you are.
- If you do not consent, events are sent with no device or user identifier, and analytics stores nothing on your device. Such events can only be added up.
You can switch usage measurement off completely in the app’s Settings, under Privacy. While it is off, the app sends no usage events at all.
4. Ads
The app shows ads, and Google AdMob supplies them. To choose, show and measure ads, and to detect fraud, Google’s advertising software in the app collects information from your device:
- its IP address, which also indicates your approximate location;
- identifiers for the device and the app, which can include your device’s advertising identifier;
- which ads you were shown, and whether you tapped them;
- diagnostic information, such as how long the app takes to start.
What Google may do with this depends on your choices.
The consent form
Where the law requires it, including in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, the app asks for your choice the first time you open it, and it requests no ad before you have answered. If you consent, Google and its advertising partners may store and read information on your device and use it to show you ads based on your interests. If you do not, the ads you see are not personalized: they are not based on a profile of you or on your past activity, though they may still depend on general information such as your approximate location. You can change your answer at any time through Privacy options in the app’s Settings.
Elsewhere, the app shows no consent form, and ads may be personalized unless your device’s settings prevent it.
Apple’s tracking prompt
On an iPhone or iPad, iOS may also ask whether you allow the app to track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites. Unless you allow it, the app cannot read your device’s advertising identifier. You can change this in the iOS Settings app, under Privacy & Security, then Tracking.
Your device’s advertising settings
On Android, you can reset or delete your advertising ID in the system settings, under Privacy, then Ads. Once it is deleted, apps receive a row of zeros in its place.
Google explains how it uses information from apps that show its ads in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.
5. Crash reports
If the app crashes, or meets an error it can recover from, it sends a report to Firebase Crashlytics, a Google service, so that we can find and fix the fault. A report contains:
- a trace of what the app’s code was doing when the fault happened;
- the app version, the device model, the operating system version, and the state of the device at that moment, such as its orientation and free memory;
- the time of the fault;
- identifiers that Firebase creates for this installation of the app, so that we can tell whether a fault affects one device or many.
A crash report describes the app and the device, not you. It carries no name, email address or account, because the app has none.
Crash reports are sent whether or not you give consent on the consent form, and the usage measurement switch does not turn them off.
6. Who receives data
The only services in the app that send data anywhere are the three Google services named above: AdMob for ads, Google Analytics for Firebase for usage measurement, and Firebase Crashlytics for crash reports. Google may process this data in any country where it or its providers operate, including the United States.
To show ads, Google works with other advertising companies, and they can receive data too when their ads are shown. Where the consent form is shown, it lists them.
We see this data only through Google’s own tools: totals and charts of how the game is used, individual crash reports, and ad earnings. We pass none of it on to anyone else.
Google handles the data under its Privacy Policy and under the data protection terms that apply to AdMob and Firebase. We do not use any provider that protects your data less than this policy describes.
7. Security, retention and deletion
Security
Everything the app sends to Google travels over an encrypted connection. The data on your device sits in the app’s private storage, which other apps cannot read, and it is protected by the security of your device.
How long data is kept
| Data | Where it is | Kept for |
|---|---|---|
| Puzzles, progress and settings | On your device | Until you reset your progress, clear the app’s data or uninstall the app |
| Usage events | Google Analytics for Firebase | 14 months. Totals that identify no one are kept longer |
| Crash reports | Firebase Crashlytics | 90 days |
| Advertising data | As long as Google’s own policies provide |
How to delete it
- On your device. Reset progress, in the app’s Settings, deletes your puzzle history, your journey, your level and your badges. Uninstalling the app deletes everything it stored on the device.
- Usage events and crash reports. Nothing in them tells us who you are, so we have no way to find the ones that came from your device and delete them one by one. You can stop more from being sent: usage events with the switch in Settings, and both by uninstalling the app. What was already sent expires as the table above describes. Clearing the app’s data, or reinstalling the app, replaces the installation identifiers with new ones.
- Advertising data. Google holds it, under its own policies. You can withdraw consent through Privacy options, and delete your advertising identifier in your device’s settings. The Google page linked in section 4 explains the further controls Google offers.
If you have a question about your data that this page does not answer, write to privacy@ligockitech.com.
8. This website
This website is hosted on GitHub Pages. It sets no cookies, and it loads no trackers, fonts or scripts from other companies. GitHub, as the host, logs the IP addresses of visitors for security purposes.
9. Changes to this policy
When the app changes what it does with data, we will change this policy with it. Every version is listed here with the date it took effect.
- Version 1, . First version.