Privacy Policy

Who we are

SQUISH N POPS is made and published by Keerae (“we”). We are responsible for the information described here. The only personal information we ever hold ourselves is what people send us when they contact us: an email; the number someone calls or texts us from, and any voicemail or text message; or a letter, with its name and return address (see How long things are kept).

Who the game is for

SQUISH N POPS is aimed at players 13 and over. Younger players may still find it, so every version is built to protect them too:

• Web, game-portal and Steam versions and the free demo: we never ask anyone’s age and treat every player as a child, so every protection in this policy applies to everyone.
• iPhone and Android apps: the first time the app opens, it asks what year you were born. It asks for the year only, and keeps only which group that puts you in: under 13, 13 to 17, or 18 and over. The year itself is never stored or sent anywhere. Because only the year is asked, you are counted at the younger of the two ages you could be. The answer decides how the app’s ads are set up (see Ads); anyone who has not answered is treated as a child. Later, Settings → CHANGE AGE can move you to a younger group, never an older one: only ERASE MY DATA, then answering the question again, can do that (see Your choices about ads). An ad-free version of an app, where it is offered, does not ask, and does not ask the app store either.
• Your app store’s age range (iPhone and Android apps with ads): if you said you are 13 or over, then each time the app starts, where your phone and app store support it, the app also asks your app store for the age range it holds for you: Apple’s Declared Age Range on iPhone, Google Play’s Age Signals on Android. The store decides whether it has one to share. On iPhone, the app asks only where Apple says age features apply to you, and asks Apple only whether you are under 13, 13 to 17, or 18 and over; Apple may first ask you, or a parent, whether to share it. On Android, the app only reads the age range the Google Play app already shares with it, under Google Play’s own policy and your settings there, and never asks Google Play to show you a prompt. The app turns the range into the same three groups, so only a range that starts at 18 or over counts as 18 and over, and a range that spans two groups counts as the younger one. The app then uses the younger of that group and the one from your answer, so the range can make the ads more careful, never less. If the store does not answer in time, a player who said 18 or over gets the 13 to 17 settings that time: no consent form, no tracking question and no personalised ads. The range is kept only in the app’s memory while it is open. It is never stored, never sent to us, and never sent to Google’s ad service or anyone else; Google’s ad service receives only the ad settings for the group (see Ads). If the store shares nothing, the app goes by your answer alone. If you said you are under 13, the app never asks the store: nothing it could say would make your ads more careful.

What stays on your device

To remember where you got to, the game saves a small file on your own device, in the storage your browser or the app gives it. It holds:

• the highest level you have unlocked and your best score;
• your settings: control type (tilt, touch or keyboard), tilt sensitivity and dead zone, the difficulty you last picked (easy, medium or hard), and whether sound, music and vibration are on.

It holds nothing else: no name, no identifier, nothing typed. It is never sent to us or to anyone else. It is stored under the name bubble-pop-save-v1. In the iPhone and Android apps, the age group from the question above is kept beside it as bubble-pop-save-v1-audience, and the app keeps a second copy of all of these in the app’s own storage on the device, under the same names, so your progress survives if the phone clears the app’s web storage. If the two copies ever hold different age groups, the app keeps the younger one. If the save file is ever damaged, the game keeps one copy of it, bubble-pop-save-v1-unreadable, so the progress could still be recovered. After you erase your data, the game keeps one small note, bubble-pop-save-v1-erased, that only counts how many times data was erased, so that another open copy of the game cannot put back what you deleted. The free demo uses the same names beginning squish-n-pops-demo-v1 instead.

If your iPhone or iPad backs up its apps (for example to iCloud), that backup may include this file. We never see backups. You can turn off app backups, or delete a backup, in your device’s settings. The Android app is excluded from Google’s backups and from phone-to-phone transfers, so its progress stays on the phone it was made on.

We do not use cookies, and the game has no analytics or crash reporting of its own. In the iPhone and Android apps, Google’s ad software keeps some files of its own on the device and tells Google how its ads are working; see Ads.

Tilt and other device features

With tilt controls (the usual way to play on a phone), the game reads your device’s motion sensor to steer. In a web browser on iPhone and iPad it asks your permission first; the iPhone app, and Android, read it without asking, and only once you have chosen tilt and while you play. The readings are used on the spot and stay on your device; the one exception is two-player mode, where your steering (a single left-to-right number, not the sensor readings) is sent to the other player’s device so they can see you move.

The game also checks, on the device only, your screen size, what kind of device it is (a phone, a tablet or a computer), whether it is a touch screen, and whether you have asked your device to reduce motion. It can make the device vibrate, which you can turn off in Settings, and the apps keep the screen from dimming while a level is being played. The game does not use your location, camera, microphone or contacts.

Two-player co-op (2P WI-FI)

Some versions let two devices on the same Wi-Fi play together. Nothing connects until someone taps HOST or JOIN. The two devices talk through a small relay program running on a computer on that same network, and it only pairs devices on that network, so nobody anywhere else can join a game by guessing its code.

What is sent

• A four-digit room code, made up for that game and forgotten when it ends.
• Numbers about the game: where the players and bubbles are, scores, lives, level, the difficulty the host picked, and which buttons are pressed.

No names, no messages, nothing you type, and nothing else from the save file: not your levels, your best score or your other settings. There is no chat of any kind.

What the relay sees

Like every network connection, the relay sees each device’s IP address on your network, and the browser also tells it the device’s browser type, its language setting and the website the game came from; the relay does not keep them, and uses the website only to refuse pages from outside your network. It uses the address only to run the connection: to pass the game along between the two devices, to check they are on the same network, and to stop anyone trying code after code. It holds the address in memory while you are connected. When a device starts a game, tries a wrong room code, or asks for more games than the relay allows, it remembers the address with a count for about a minute, then forgets it. The relay program writes nothing to disk and keeps no logs, and the two players never see each other’s address.

The Steam version, the iPhone and Android apps and the free demo have no two-player mode.

Ads

An ad from the game only ever plays when you choose one, by picking a button marked ▶ WATCH AN AD (for example, to carry on from the level you reached). The game never shows an ad by itself, and no key or controller button starts one.

• Steam version and free demo: no ads at all.
• Web and game-portal versions: the game shows a placeholder, a short countdown drawn by the game itself. It comes from no ad company and collects nothing. If a portal’s own ad system is added, this policy will name it, say what it receives, and say whether it can show ads the game did not ask for.
• iPhone and Android apps: the ads come from Google AdMob, an ad service run by Google. How they are set up depends on the age question and, where your app store shares one, your age range: each player gets the settings for the younger of the two groups (see Who the game is for). Where an ad-free version of an app is offered, it has no ads and no ad software at all.

Under 13, or no answer

Every ad request tells Google to treat it as directed to children, to show no personalised or interest-based ads, and to show only content suitable for everyone (rated G). Google says that for requests marked this way it turns off personalised ads and remarketing, does not pass the request on to other ad companies, and does not send the device’s advertising identifier. The app never asks such a player for consent or for permission to track. On iPhone, tracking may still be allowed for the app from an earlier launch, or from earlier in this one, while the app went by an answer of 18 or over (see 13 to 17 below). Apple keeps that permission until it is turned off in the iPhone’s Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking, and every request is still marked as directed to children.

13 to 17

Every ad request is marked as coming from someone under the age of consent and asks for no personalised ads; ads are limited to content suitable with parental guidance (rated PG). Google says that for requests marked this way it turns off personalised ads and remarketing, does not pass the request on to other ad companies, and does not send the device’s advertising identifier. The app never asks such a player for consent or for permission to track. On iPhone, the app has no permission to track such a player, unless tracking was allowed for the app on an earlier launch, or earlier in this one, while the app went by an answer of 18 or over. That can happen to a player who said 18 or over and whose app store now puts them at 13 to 17, or does not answer in time; to one who moved to 13 to 17 with Settings → CHANGE AGE; or to one who answered again after ERASE MY DATA. The app cannot take that permission back. Apple keeps it until it is turned off in the iPhone’s Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking, and every request still asks for no personalised ads.

18 and over

These are the settings for a player who said 18 or over, unless their app store says they are under 18, or does not answer in time (see Who the game is for). Ads are limited to content rated PG. The app asks Google for its ordinary ads, which Google may personalise: Google and the ad companies it works with may choose them using information about how you use apps and, where they receive it, the device’s advertising identifier (personalised ads).

• In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland (and wherever else Google’s consent tool asks), the app shows Google’s consent form before any ad is requested, and Google personalises ads only if you agree.
• Everywhere else, ads may be personalised by default. In the US states whose privacy laws give you the right, you can opt out with Settings → AD PRIVACY (see Your choices about ads).
• On iPhone, the app then asks Apple’s question about tracking. If you allow it, Google can receive the device’s advertising identifier. If you do not, Google does not receive it. That alone does not stop personalised ads: Google still receives everything else listed under What Google receives below, and see the next point.
• Where Google’s ad software has no advertising identifier (on iPhone when tracking is not allowed, on Android when you have deleted it), Google says it uses an identifier of its own instead, which it calls a publisher first-party ID. Google says it can use it to personalise ads with information from apps we publish, that it cannot be used to link what you do here with other companies’ apps, and that the controls in its ads let you turn off personalisation based on it.

When the phone apps contact Google

When the app starts, once it knows which group’s settings to use (from the age question and, where shared, the app store’s age range): it asks Google whether consent is needed where you are (18 and over only), starts Google’s ad software, and fetches one ad so it is ready if you want it. After each ad you have seen, whether you watched it or closed it, it fetches the next one. After Settings → CHANGE AGE or ERASE MY DATA, the app drops the ad it had ready, and the next ad you choose is requested with the new settings. Ads are only ever shown when you choose one.

On Android, the app’s request for your age range (see Who the game is for) is answered by the Google Play app, under Google Play’s own policy, and never shows you a prompt. It is not part of Google’s ad service, which never receives the range itself.

What Google receives

• the device’s IP address, which can show roughly where it is;
• technical information such as the kind of device, its system version, the app and its version, and language settings;
• how each ad went: whether it loaded and was shown, watched to the end, closed or tapped, and how Google’s ad software performed on the device (for example, how long things took and whether it crashed);
• identifiers: an identifier for the app on this device, Google’s own identifier for this app where its ad software uses one, and, as described above, the device’s advertising identifier where it is available;
• for players 18 and over, and for a player the app set up that way on an earlier launch, or earlier in this one, their answers to the consent form and to Apple’s tracking question, and whether they opted out with AD PRIVACY.

Google’s ad service never receives your year of birth or your app store’s age range: only the ad settings for your group, described above.

Google uses this to deliver and count the ads, keep its service working and protect against fraud and abuse, and, for players 18 and over, to personalise ads as described above. It handles this information under its own privacy policy: policies.google.com/privacy. The phone apps share information with no company but Google (for players 18 and over, Google may pass some of it on to the ad companies it works with, as described above), and Google protects that information at least as well as this policy describes. Google explains how it uses information from apps that use its services at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. Google’s ad software may keep some files of its own on the device for these purposes.

If you tap an ad, it may open the advertiser’s web page or an app store page, outside the game.

If the game shows you an ad that seems wrong for you, or for a child, email help@keerae.com with what it showed and roughly when, so we can look into it. How long things are kept says how long we keep emails.

Your choices about ads

• Change your answers to Google’s consent form at any time in the app: Settings → AD PRIVACY. The button is there wherever Google’s rules call for it, whenever the app is using the settings for 18 and over.
• In the US states whose privacy laws give you the right, Settings → AD PRIVACY also opens Google’s form to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of your personal information, as those laws use the words. Google then shows you only ads that are not based on what you have done before (non-personalised ads).
• On iPhone, turn tracking off (or on) for this app in the iPhone’s Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking. With tracking off, Google does not receive the advertising identifier.
• On Android, you can delete or reset the phone’s advertising identifier in the phone’s settings (usually Settings → Privacy → Ads).
• Google says the controls in its ads let you turn off personalisation based on its own identifier for this app.
• Settings → CHANGE AGE (iPhone and Android apps with ads) moves your age group younger: from 18 and over to 13 to 17 or under 13, or from 13 to 17 to under 13. It keeps your progress, and the next ad uses the new group’s settings (see Ads), with no consent form and no tracking question. Your earlier answers to Google’s consent form stay on the device (ERASE MY DATA removes them), and the new group’s ad requests still ask for no personalised ads. It cannot move a group older: only ERASE MY DATA, then answering the question again, can. The button is not shown to a player under 13, or one who has not answered, since there is no younger group. It does not change Apple’s tracking permission, which only the iPhone’s Settings can (see 13 to 17 in Ads).
• Where your app store lets you choose whether apps get your age range, you can stop it sharing one with the game: on iPhone, in Settings under your name (Personal Information → Age Range for Apps); on Android, in the Google Play Store app. The app then goes by your answer alone.
• ERASE MY DATA also forgets your age group and your consent answers; the app asks again the next time it starts. The app store’s age range is never saved, so there is nothing of it to erase.

Stores, portals and websites

You may get the game from an app store (Apple App Store, Google Play), from Steam, or play it on a website or game portal. Each of those companies runs its own store, website or app and may collect information, and show its own ads around the game, under its own privacy policy, which we do not control.

Whoever delivers the game’s files to your browser receives the usual information any website does, such as your IP address and browser type. On a portal or store, that is the portal or store. We do not offer the game itself on a website of our own; if we ever do, this policy will name the hosting provider and say how long it keeps its connection logs.

Our web pages are published at games.keerae.com: a front page, this policy and a support page. Cloudflare hosts them for us and, like any web host, receives your IP address and browser details when you open any address there. It processes these on our behalf to deliver the pages and keep them secure, and uses some for its own network security as its privacy policy explains (cloudflare.com/privacypolicy). We add no analytics, cookies or scripts to those pages. Opening this policy from the game’s PRIVACY button does not load it from games.keerae.com: every copy of the game carries its own.

Where the game is available today:

• itch.io (the free demo). Its privacy policy: itch.io/docs/legal/privacy-policy

What we never do

• No accounts or sign-ins. The game never asks for your name, your email, a photo or your voice. (Emails, calls, texts and letters you choose to send us are covered in How long things are kept.)
• No chat, and no way for players to send each other words or pictures.
• No location, contacts, camera or microphone.
• No analytics or crash reporting of our own, and the game itself does not track anyone across other apps and websites. (In the phone apps, Google’s ad software reports on how its own ads work, and may personalise ads for players 18 and over; see Ads.)
• No personalised advertising for anyone under 18, by their answer or by their app store. We never sell anyone’s information for money, and we never pass on the age range an app store shares with the app. Some US state laws count letting Google’s ads use information to personalise ads for players 18 and over as our “selling” or “sharing” it; players in those states can opt out with Settings → AD PRIVACY.
• No links that take you out of the game. In the phone apps, tapping an ad can open the advertiser’s page, which is outside the game.

How long things are kept

This table is our written data retention policy. It covers information from children as well as from everyone else, and says what is kept, why, where, and for how long.

Deleting your data

Everything the game keeps is on your device, so you can delete it yourself at any time:

• In the game: from the main menu, open SETTINGS and tap ERASE MY DATA. This removes your progress, your settings and any backup copy (in the phone apps, both copies, your age group and your answers to Google’s consent form too), and the game starts fresh.
• Or clear your browser’s stored data for the website you play on, or uninstall the app. If you added the game to the home screen of an iPhone or iPad, delete its icon; its stored data goes with it.
• On the Steam version, your progress is kept on your computer in a folder named SQUISH N POPS (Windows: C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming; Mac: ~/Library/Application Support; Linux and Steam Deck: ~/.config). Uninstalling the game through Steam leaves that folder in place: use ERASE MY DATA before you uninstall, or delete the folder.
• If your iPhone or iPad backs up its apps, the backup may still hold a copy. To remove it, turn off app backups or delete the backup in your device’s settings (you can switch off backup for just this game). The Android app is never backed up.
• Information Google has received through the phone apps’ ads is held by Google under its own policy; see policies.google.com/privacy for how to ask Google about it, or ask us, and we will take it up with Google.

We hold no copy of what the game keeps, so there is nothing of it for us to delete. If you have emailed, called, texted or written to us, we hold what you sent: ask us (see Changes and contact) and we will delete it, or it is deleted anyway within 12 months of your last contact.

Children and parents (COPPA)

We do not collect personal information from children, other than a device’s IP address and, in the phone apps, identifiers for the app on the device, when they are needed to support the internal operations of the game: running a two-player connection, keeping it secure, delivering the game’s files, serving our web pages at games.keerae.com, and delivering and counting an ad without personalising it. The one other exception is an email, call, text or letter a child chooses to send us (below). We make sure information used this way is never used to contact anyone, build a profile or show interest-based ads: the relay holds an address only in memory and only as long as the table in How long things are kept says, and in the phone apps every ad request for a player under 13, or one who has not answered the age question, is marked as directed to children, so Google turns off personalised ads and remarketing for it (see Ads). Where an app store shares a child’s age range with the app, the app uses it only to make that child’s ad settings stricter, holds it only while the app is open, and never passes it on. The age question asks for a year only, suggests no answer, and keeps only the group, and a parent can make a child’s ad settings stricter at any time with Settings → CHANGE AGE (in the phone apps with ads). App stores, Steam and game portals are separate companies that handle information under their own privacy policies, which we do not control (see Stores, portals and websites).

If a child we know is under 13 emails, calls, texts or writes to us, we use what they send (the email; the number they called or texted from, and any voicemail or text; or the letter and its return address) only to reply to that message, once. We never use it to contact the child again or for anything else, never pass it on, and delete it promptly after replying.

Parents and guardians may ask us at any time what information we have about their child, ask us to delete it, and tell us not to collect any more. Apart from emails, calls, texts and letters people send us, kept only as long as How long things are kept says, we hold nothing about anyone, so the answer will almost always be that we have nothing; please email, call or write to us (see Changes and contact) and we will check and reply. We answer every parent’s question about how a child’s information is collected and used, whether by us or, in the phone apps with ads, by Google through its ad service (see Ads): ask us, and we will take up anything about Google with Google. If we ever wanted to collect anything more, we would ask a parent first.

Your rights in the EU and UK

Saving your progress on your device is strictly necessary for the game to do what you ask, so it needs no consent. Using an IP address to run a co-op connection securely, and to deliver the game’s files and our web pages, is based on our legitimate interest in providing the game, those features and those pages safely. In the phone apps, personalised ads, and the storing and reading of information on the device that Google’s ads need for anything other than spotting fraud and invalid clicks, are based on consent, asked with Google’s consent form from players 18 and over; you can change your answer at any time in Settings → AD PRIVACY. Players under 18, whether by their answer or by their app store, are never asked, and Google shows them only ads that are not personalised (where no answer to the form is on the device, what Google calls limited ads, which do not use personal data to personalise ads). Google says that with limited ads its ad software may still store information on the device and read it, but only to spot fraud and invalid clicks, and that it does not ask for consent for that. Answering an email, call, text or letter you send us, and keeping it for up to 12 months in case you contact us again, is based on our legitimate interest in supporting the game (Article 6(1)(f)). Using an age range your app store shares, on your device, to choose more careful ad settings is based on our legitimate interest in protecting children and, where a law requires it, on that legal obligation (GDPR Article 6(1)(f) and (c)). We do not make automated decisions or profiles about anyone.

You have the right to ask for a copy of your information, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict or object to how it is used, and to receive it in a portable form. If you are unhappy with how we use your information, you can complain to us first, by email, phone or post (see Changes and contact), and we will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days. You can also complain to your data protection authority; in the UK that is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk).

Apart from emails, calls, texts and letters people send us, we keep no information about players on any computer of ours, and we send none out of the EU or UK ourselves; the co-op relay runs on a computer on your own network. Emails you send us are held by Microsoft, our email provider (Microsoft 365), which may hold them outside the EU or UK; for those transfers Microsoft relies on the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (with its UK Extension), the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, and standard contractual clauses (privacy.microsoft.com). Calls, texts and letters reach us in the United States. Cloudflare, which hosts our web pages, may process a request for them outside the EU or UK under its data processing terms; for those transfers it relies on the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (with its UK Extension), the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, and standard contractual clauses (cloudflare.com/privacypolicy). In the phone apps, the information described in Ads goes from the device to Google, which may handle it in the United States and other countries. For those transfers Google says it relies on adequacy decisions, the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (with its UK Extension), the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, and standard contractual clauses (policies.google.com/privacy/frameworks).

Security

Two-player connections are encrypted (secure WebSocket) whenever the game is played over HTTPS or as an app. The relay limits how much and how fast a device can send, drops devices that stop answering, stops answering when too many wrong codes have been tried, accepts only pages served from your own network (or from the game’s own website, if the relay has been given its address), and only pairs devices on the same network. Apart from emails, calls, texts and letters people send us (Microsoft, our email provider, holds the emails for us), we store no information about players, so there is almost none of it for anyone to steal from us.

Changes and contact

If we change this policy, we will update it here and change the date at the top. If a change would mean collecting any new information from children, we will not do it without a parent’s permission.

Questions, or requests about a child’s information: email Keerae at help@keerae.com, call +1 917-494-5985, or write to Keerae, PO Box 3178, Newton, NJ 07860, United States.