Privacy Policy

01 Who we are

TetraText is made and operated by Express Development Group LLC. In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Express Development Group LLC, and “the Game” means the TetraText app on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

This policy covers both the Game and this website at tetratext.expressdevel.com. If you want to reach us about anything in it, see section 11.

02 What the Game collects

Account and sign-in

The Game signs you in so your progress can be saved. There are two ways this happens:

• By device. We use an identifier generated by your device to create an anonymous player account. We do not need your name or email for this.
• By email. If you choose to register, we store your email address and password so you can sign in on another device. Passwords are handled by our accounts provider and are not visible to us.

You also choose a display name. That name is shown publicly next to your score on leaderboards, so please do not use your real name if you would rather not be identified.

Your play

We store the things the Game needs in order to work and to rank you: your scores, experience and level, games played, time played, coins, power-up inventory, purchases, daily-reward streaks and in-game mail.

Purchases

When you buy coins or power-ups, the transaction is processed by Apple or Google, not by us. We receive a receipt confirming the purchase so we can grant the item. We never receive your card number or billing address. To tie a receipt to the right account without exposing your identity to the store, we send a one-way hash derived from your account rather than the account itself.

Advertising

The Game shows banner, interstitial and rewarded video ads. Our advertising partners receive your device’s advertising identifier and technical information about your device and the ad shown, and use it to select ads and measure whether they worked.

Diagnostics

When you sign in, and when the Game hits an error, it sends a report to a private channel our team monitors. That report contains your player ID, the app version, and your device type, model, operating system, processor, memory and graphics hardware. It does not contain your email address or your password.

Gameplay analytics

We record how the Game is played so we can improve it: when a run starts and ends (grid size, difficulty, score, words and level reached), power-ups used, levels gained, tutorial completion, daily rewards claimed, rewarded videos watched, ad impressions and purchases. These events are tied to your player ID and to basic device information (model, operating system, language and approximate country). They do not contain your email address.

Campaign measurement

When you install the Game after seeing one of our ads, a measurement partner tells us which campaign brought you in. We then report events such as finishing the tutorial, levelling up, purchases and ad revenue, so the ad networks can judge their campaigns. This uses your advertising identifier (on iOS, only if you allow tracking), your player ID, your IP address and device information.

03 Who we share it with

We do not sell your personal information. We do share it with the services that make the Game work:

We tell Singular to limit data sharing for every player, so it does not pass your data to ad networks for their own purposes beyond measuring our campaigns.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect our rights, our players or the safety of others.

04 Advertising and your choices

In the EU, UK and Switzerland, the Game (from version 2.0.6) shows a consent message from Google the first time you open it. Until you answer, we do not start analytics or campaign measurement, and ads are not personalised. You can change your answer at any time: open Settings in the Game and choose Privacy choices. If you decline, you can still play; the ads you see will not be personalised.

Ads pay for the Game, so we cannot switch them off entirely. You do have real control over how they are targeted:

• On iOS, go to Settings › Privacy and Security › Tracking to withdraw permission, and Settings › Privacy and Security › Apple Advertising to turn off personalised ads.
• On Android, go to Settings › Privacy › Ads to delete or reset your advertising ID, or to opt out of ad personalisation.

We instruct our advertising partners that TetraText is not directed to children, and we apply the “do not sell or share my personal information” restriction to every player, not only those in California. Turning off personalisation means you will still see ads, but they will be less relevant.

05 This website

Separately from the Game, this website uses Google Analytics to understand traffic and Google AdSense to show ads. Both set cookies and receive your IP address, approximate location and browsing activity on this site.

Our web host records ordinary server logs, including IP addresses, for security and troubleshooting. The Game also downloads its word lists and themes from this domain, so those requests appear in the same logs.

Comments are turned off on this site, and we do not run a newsletter from it.

06 How long we keep it

We keep your account and progress for as long as your account exists, because that is the point of it — your high scores would be worthless if we deleted them. Leaderboard entries stay until they are displaced or the account is deleted.

Diagnostic reports are kept only as long as they are useful for fixing the problem they describe. Purchase records are kept as long as tax and accounting rules require.

07 Deleting your account

You can delete your account without contacting anyone. Open the Game, go to the Profile screen from the main menu, and choose Delete Account. You will be asked to confirm with your sign-in details.

Deleting your account removes your player record and its progress, inventory and stats from our servers. Some things survive it: records we must keep for tax or fraud-prevention reasons, and information already held independently by Apple, Google or our advertising partners, which you should ask them to remove using their own tools.

Uninstalling the app on its own does not delete your account.

08 Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access the personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, to object to or restrict how we use it, and to receive a copy in a portable format.

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you also have the right to complain to your data protection authority. If you are in California, you have the right not to be discriminated against for exercising your privacy rights.

The fastest way to exercise the deletion right is the in-game button described above. For anything else, contact us and we will respond as quickly as we can.

Legal bases (EU, UK and Switzerland). We process your account, progress and purchases because we need them to provide the Game to you (contract); gameplay analytics, campaign measurement and personalised ads only with your consent, which you can withdraw under Settings › Privacy choices; and diagnostics and fraud prevention because we have a legitimate interest in keeping the Game working and fair.

International transfers. Our providers process data in the United States and other countries. Where the law requires it, these transfers are covered by the provider’s standard contractual clauses or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

09 Children

TetraText is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

10 Security

Traffic between the Game and our servers is encrypted in transit, and account credentials are handled by our accounts provider rather than stored by us directly. No system is perfectly secure, so we cannot promise that nothing will ever go wrong — but if a breach affects you, we will tell you and the relevant authorities where the law requires it.

11 Contact and changes

For anything to do with privacy — including a request to see, correct or delete the data we hold about you — email [email protected]. We answer as quickly as we can, and within one month where the law sets that deadline.

You can also reach the team on our Discord community, where we read and answer messages directly.

We update this policy when what we do changes. When we do, we will change the effective date at the top of this page, and we will say so in the Game or on this site if the change is significant. Continuing to play after a change means you accept the updated policy.