Privacy Policy

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Last updated: 25 September 2026

Herd Game (“we”, “us”) operates herdgamesonline.com and the Herd Games Android app. This policy explains what we collect, why, who we share it with, and the choices you have. It is written to be read rather than skimmed, because most of the answer is short: you do not need an account to play anything here. An account is optional, and exists only so that your history follows you to a new phone or browser. If you make one we hold your email address — section 2a.

1. The short version

  • No signup, no account and no password is required to play any game, on the site or in the app.
  • You can make an account if you want one. It is optional, it is free, and the only thing we ask for is an email address and a password. It exists so your scores follow you between devices. Section 2a, and you can delete it at any time from the account deletion page.
  • Your high scores and streaks are saved on your own device, not on our servers.
  • We record anonymous “a game was finished” events so we know which games people enjoy.
  • We use analytics and advertising partners, described in section 5. Our advertising partner sets cookies; our analytics partner uses local storage rather than cookies.
  • The Android app shows no advertising and runs no Google Analytics. It does use PostHog for product analytics, including session replay when you create or join a multiplayer room — section 6.
  • If you create or join a multiplayer room, we record that visit — the pages, clicks and scrolling — so we can see where people get stuck starting a game. Text you type is masked. We do not record general browsing. Section 5.
  • You can clear everything we store on your device at any time by clearing your browser data, or by clearing the app’s storage.
  • If your company uses Herd Games at work, its private space runs no analytics, no advertising and no third-party trackers, and your company’s admins can see your participation. Section 2b.

2. Information you give us directly

  • A display name. To join a multiplayer room you type a name. It is shown to the other players in that room and is not required to be your real name. When a game finishes, the name you played under is kept with its result (section 11).
  • Answers you type during a game. In games like Say Anything or Scattergories, what you write is shown to the other players in your room, which is the point of the game. Games that show a recap afterwards (Scattergories, for example) keep each round’s answers with the result. Please do not type anything private.
  • Your email address, only if you choose to give it. If you join a waiting list or email us, we keep your address to reply to you or to contact you about that specific thing. We do not sell it, and we do not add you to unrelated mailing lists.

2a. If you create an account

Accounts are optional. Every game on this site works without one, and always will. An account exists for one reason: so the games you have played follow you to a new phone, a new browser or a cleared cache, instead of being stranded on one device.

  • What we store. Your email address, an optional display name, and your password — hashed with bcrypt, never in a form we or anyone else can read back. We also store the anonymous device identifiers (section 3) belonging to the browsers you have signed in from, which is what lets your history follow you, and the settings you choose (sounds, reduce motion, larger text, and whether your name is hidden on recaps other people can open).
  • What we send you. A welcome email when you sign up, a reset link if you ask for one, and if you change your email, a link to the new address to confirm it and a note to the old one saying it changed. Nothing else. We do not run a marketing list and you are not subscribed to anything by signing up. (A work account in a company space gets the emails listed in section 2b.)
  • Deleting it. Go to herdgamesonline.com/delete-account, or the same link at the bottom of Settings on your account, in the app too. It asks for your password (a work account, which has none, is sent a confirmation link instead) and then deletes the account immediately — email address, name, password and the links to your play history. There is no waiting period and we cannot undo it.
  • What deletion does not remove. Scores are stored against the anonymous device identifier in section 3 and the name you played under, never your email. Those rows remain, and once the account is gone nothing links them to it. A score you put on a shared team leaderboard also stays, because that board belongs to the team rather than to your account. In a company space the name you played under is your own, so it stays on the company’s results as your colleagues saw it; ask us and we will remove it. If a company admin had removed you from their space, we keep a one-way mark of your address so that removal stays in force; it cannot be turned back into your address.
  • A copy of your data. Settings, on your account, has a Download my data button: one file with your account, your plan, the rooms and daily games you have played, and the companies you belong to.
  • If you would rather email us. Write to support@herdgamesonline.com from the address on the account and we will delete it for you.

2b. If you use Herd Games at work (a company space)

A company space is a private area your company pays for so its people can play together. It works differently from the public site in three ways: you sign in with your work email, your company can see your participation, and nothing inside it is tracked by anybody but us.

  • What we store. Your work email address, your name, your role (member or admin), when you were last in the space, the browser identifiers your account has signed in from (section 3), and the results of the games you play there: the name you played under, your score, and, for games that show a recap, what you answered each round. For the company: its name, the email domains it has claimed, invitations, removals and requests to join, its settings (colour, logo address, time zone, pace), any questions its admins write, and which of its games is running where. There is no password: you sign in with a single-use link sent to your work email.
  • Who can see it. Everybody in the company sees its game results, and its standings unless an admin has turned them off. Admins also see each member’s participation (which games they played and when) and when each was last in the space, and receive a monthly report of it by email. Nobody outside the company can see any of it; results from a company space are never given a public share page.
  • What we send you. Sign-in links you ask for, an invitation if an admin invites you, and, at most once a week, a rematch email when a colleague has pulled ahead of you (“Sam went ahead of you, 3–2”), and, in a game your company plays over the day, an email when it is your turn (in working hours, at most once a day for each game) and when the results are in. The rematch and game emails each have a one-click unsubscribe, and an admin can turn them off for the whole company; sign-in links and invitations are only ever sent because somebody asked for them. Admins also get requests to join and the monthly report. If a company’s only admin deletes their account, the member who was there most recently becomes admin and is told by email. Adding a domain sends a confirmation to the address an admin names at that domain, and deleting a work account is confirmed by an emailed link.
  • No trackers. Google Analytics, PostHog and our advertising partner do not load in a company space, or on the sign-in pages that lead to it.
  • Who processes it for us. MongoDB Atlas (database) and Railway (application), both in the United States; Vercel (website hosting); ZeptoMail by Zoho (email, sent from Zoho’s India data centre); and Polar (payments, as our merchant of record: card details never reach us). Our security page has the detail a company’s IT team usually asks for.
  • Your company decides. Your employer chooses to use the space, who is invited, and what it does with the participation it sees. For that, your company is responsible for how it uses your data; questions about it are best asked there first, and you can always ask us.
  • How long it is kept. While your company is a customer, and after its subscription ends, so a company that comes back finds its history. Your company can ask us to delete the whole space at any time (done within 30 days). You can delete your own account at any time: that removes your email address, name and company memberships at once, including from the records of things you did for the company (who invited or removed a colleague, who asked to join). The name you played under stays on the company’s results of games you were in, as your colleagues saw it; ask us and we will remove it.

3. Information collected automatically

  • An anonymous device identifier. A random string (for example a_k3f9x2) is generated in your browser and stored on your device. It exists so a daily puzzle knows you have already played today and so we can count players rather than page loads. On its own it is not linked to your name or email. If you create an account, that account records the identifiers of the browsers you sign in from — that link is the whole point of an account, and it is what lets your history follow you to a new phone. Deleting the account deletes the link (section 2a).
  • Game completion events. When you finish a game we send the game’s name, your score, whether you won, and that anonymous identifier to our server. Our server also records the IP address the request came from, and the time.
  • Error reports. If something breaks, your browser sends us the error message and a technical stack trace so we can fix it. These do not contain your personal details.
  • Standard technical data. IP address, browser type and version, device type, operating system, language, referring page and the pages you view — the usual information any web server and analytics tool receives.
  • A notification token, in the app only, and only if you ask for notifications. Turning notifications on creates an anonymous token issued by Google that lets us deliver a message to that installation. It is not linked to your name, your email or your account — it identifies the app on that phone and nothing else — and it stops working if you turn notifications off or uninstall the app. Because it is not connected to an account, deleting your account does not switch it off; the app's own settings, or your phone's, do.

4. Information stored on your device (not sent to us)

Your best scores, streaks and daily progress are kept in your browser’s local storage — for example your best typing speed, your Minesweeper time or your daily streak. This data never leaves your device, we cannot read it, and it is the reason your scores are lost if you clear your browser data or switch to another device or browser.

5. Advertising, analytics and other third parties

Advertising applies to the website only. The Android app serves no advertising and does not run Google Analytics. It does run PostHog, described below. See section 6.

We work with the following third parties. Each has its own privacy policy, linked below.

  • Journey by Mediavine (advertising and audience measurement). We use Mediavine’s Grow software, and Mediavine manages advertising on this site. Mediavine and its advertising partners may use cookies and similar technologies to collect data about your browsing in order to measure audiences and to select and deliver advertising, including personalised advertising where you have consented or where it is otherwise permitted. See the Mediavine Privacy Policy.
  • Google Analytics. We use Google Analytics 4 to understand which pages and games people use, in aggregate. See Google’s Privacy Policy and Google’s opt-out browser add-on.
  • PostHog (product analytics and session replay). We use PostHog to understand how games are actually used — which are played, whether people come back, and where they get stuck. It stores a random identifier in your browser’s local storage; it sets no cookies, and that identifier is not linked to your name or email. (If you have an account, section 2a explains the one place a link does exist and how to remove it.)
    Session replay: if you create or join a multiplayer room, PostHog records a reconstruction of that visit — the pages, clicks and scrolling — so we can see where people get stuck trying to start a game. We turn recording on only for that flow, not for general browsing. Text you type into input boxes is masked and is not captured. Recordings are deleted automatically after a short retention period. This runs in the Android app as well as on the website. See the PostHog Privacy Policy.
  • Hosting and infrastructure providers, who process requests to the site and necessarily see IP addresses in order to deliver it.

We do not use Google AdSense. It was previously used on this site and was removed in July 2026. We do not sell your personal information for money.

6. The Herd Games Android app

The app is the same games, packaged for Android and distributed through Google Play. Everything above about display names, answers you type, anonymous completion events and error reports applies in the app too. Accounts work in the app exactly as they do on the website, so section 2a applies there as well — if you sign up in the app we hold your email address, and you can delete the account from the same screen. Otherwise the differences are reductions:

  • No advertising. The app contains no ad code at all. Our advertising partner’s software runs only on herdgamesonline.com and is switched off everywhere else.
  • No Google Analytics. For the same reason, Google Analytics does not run in the app.
  • PostHog does run in the app. This is the one item in this section that is not a reduction, so it is stated plainly rather than left to be inferred. The app uses PostHog for the same purpose as the website — understanding which games are played and where people get stuck — including session replay when you create or join a multiplayer room. Text you type is masked. See section 5.
  • Notifications. A daily reminder can be scheduled locally by your own phone, in which case nothing leaves the device and we are not told when it fires. We can also send a notification from our servers to the anonymous token described in section 3 — for example when a new daily puzzle is up. Turning notifications off, or denying the permission, stops both completely.
  • Permissions. The app asks only for notification permission, and only at the moment you switch reminders on. You can refuse, and every game still works. It does not request contacts, location, camera, microphone, photos or files.
  • Your streaks and personal bests stay on the device, in the app’s own storage. Clearing the app’s data or uninstalling it removes them. Completed games are also recorded on our servers against the anonymous identifier in section 3, and in a multiplayer room the display name and score you played under are saved so the room can show a result afterwards. With an account, that history is what follows you between devices.

Google Play also collects its own data about installs and crashes under Google’s Privacy Policy, which we do not control.

7. Cookies and similar technologies

Cookies are small files stored by your browser. We and the partners above use them, and comparable technologies such as local storage, to remember your progress, to measure how the site is used, and to deliver and measure advertising. You can refuse or delete cookies in your browser settings; games will still work, though your streaks and scores will not be remembered. Where required by law, we ask for your consent before non-essential cookies are set, and you can change or withdraw that consent at any time using the privacy controls provided on the site by our advertising partner.

8. Your rights in the EEA and UK (GDPR)

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to our use of your personal data, the right to data portability, and the right to withdraw consent at any time. Where we rely on consent — principally for non-essential cookies and personalised advertising — you may withdraw it without affecting anything done beforehand. Our lawful bases are your consent, and our legitimate interest in running, securing and improving a free website. You also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

9. Your rights in California and other US states (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what personal information is collected and how it is used, to request deletion, to correct inaccurate information, and to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. We do not sell personal information for money. However, the use of advertising cookies described in section 5 may be treated as “sharing” under California law.

To exercise the right to opt out — “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” — use the privacy settings link provided on this site by our advertising partner, or email us at hello@herdgamesonline.com with the subject “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information”. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights. Residents of other US states with similar laws have comparable rights and may use the same contact.

10. Children’s privacy

The site and the app are intended for a general audience and are not directed at children under 13. The app is rated and distributed accordingly on Google Play, and is not part of the Google Play Families programme. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, email us and we will delete it.

11. How long we keep things

Live multiplayer game rooms are deleted shortly after the game ends. The result of a finished game (the display names used in it and the scores) is kept, so players can see their game history and leaderboards; it is linked to a random browser identifier, not to a name or email, unless you sign in to an account that adopts that identifier. Anonymous completion events and error reports are kept while they remain useful for understanding and fixing the site. Email addresses you have given us are kept until you ask us to remove them. A company space and its history follow the rule in section 2b: kept while the company is a customer and after its subscription ends, and deleted within 30 days when the company asks. Scores held on your own device stay there until you clear your browser data.

12. Security

The site and the app communicate with our servers over HTTPS, and we take reasonable measures to protect the limited data we hold. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. Because we deliberately collect very little, there is very little to lose.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. Material changes will be reflected here with a new “last updated” date above. Continued use of the site or the app after a change means you accept the updated policy.

14. Contact

Questions, requests or complaints about privacy — including any request to access or delete your data — can be sent to hello@herdgamesonline.com. We aim to reply within a few days. See also our Terms of Service and About page.

Questions or stuck? support@herdgamesonline.com