Privacy policy

• There is no sign-up to play, and playing asks nothing of you.
• You can add an email address and a password, so your rank follows you to another phone. That is the only personal detail we ever hold, and it is optional.
• Against the computer or the bots, in Two Dots and Path, or with people sharing one phone, the app plays completely offline and sends nothing while you play. Playing people over the network sends your moves to the other players as you make them.
• You can pick a name and a ball colour. Other players see both, and your name is on the leaderboard.
• If online ranking is switched on, the app makes itself an anonymous account and sends what earns XP — BlockNGoal games against the computer, Two Dots and Path levels you solve, Square matches against bots — so your rank can be checked and kept.
• We do not sell anything about you, and nothing here is used to advertise to you by us.
• Ads in the app are served by Google AdMob, which collects data of its own — see “Advertising” below.

All of this stays on your phone, in the app's own storage. We cannot read it.

• Your settings: sound, music, haptics, left-handed layout, and whether moves are shown.
• Your name and the colour of your ball.
• The BlockNGoal game you are in the middle of, so closing the app does not lose it.
• Your rank, and the record behind it in each game.
• Which Two Dots levels you have solved, with your stars and the least ink you used on each.
• Which Path levels you have solved, with your best time on each, and the line of a level you left part-way.
• Your Square record — matches, wins, points and knockouts — and how its lobby was last set.
• Which ball skins you have unlocked, how many ads you have watched toward the others, and the one you wear.
• Finished games, solved levels and matches waiting to be sent, when the phone has no connection.
• The token for your account — the guest one the game made, or the one you signed up with.

Uninstalling the app removes every bit of it. Clearing the app's storage does the same.

Only when online ranking is switched on. The first time the game has something to send, it asks the server for an anonymous account: no email, no password, no name of yours. The server gives it a number and a made-up name such as “Player 5706”, and the ball colour you picked on the phone.

You can replace the made-up name with one you choose, on the game's profile screen. The server keeps it on your account and checks nobody else has it; you can change it again at any time.

After each finished game against the computer, the game sends:

• the moves of that game, so the server can play it again and check the result is real;
• how hard the computer was set, which side you played, and how long the game ran;
• who won, and the XP it earned;
• when the game finished.

After you solve a level of Two Dots for the first time, or with more stars than before, the game sends:

• which level it was;
• every line you drew, as the points it passes through and the moment it was dropped, so the server can play the level again and check the two balls really meet;
• when you solved it.

After you solve a level of Path for the first time, the game sends:

• which level it was;
• the line you drew, as the squares it passes through, so the server can check it really is a solution;
• how long you took, and when you solved it.

After each finished match of Square against the bots, the game sends:

• the number the match was dealt from, how many seats it had and how hard the bots were;
• the move you planned each round — where to stand, which way to launch, and how hard — so the server can play the whole match again and see where you finished;
• when the match finished.

The server keeps those games, levels and matches, and what it worked out from them — who won, the stars, where you finished, the XP — with the rank built from them. Games and matches played by people sharing one phone are not sent at all. Like any web service, the server sees your device's IP address while it answers a request; it is not stored alongside your games.

The leaderboards show names, ball colours, ranks, XP and, for Quick Play, ratings. The friends board lists only the players you have played in a room. None of them ever shows an email address. A name is the one you chose, or the one the server made up if you never chose one.

In BlockNGoal, Quick Play and rooms are games against other players over the network — one other player, or two or three at a table of three or four. While you are in one — looking for a player, waiting in a room, or playing — your phone keeps a connection open to the server. Each move goes over it as you make it; the server checks the move and passes it to the other player straight away.

The other players see:

• your name, your ball colour, your rank and level;
• your moves, as you make them.

The server keeps each of these games with the players' accounts: the moves, who won, what it paid, how a Quick Play game of two moved each player's rating, and when each phone was last connected — the last so that a player who leaves, loses their connection for more than 30 seconds, or lets a turn's 45 seconds run out, loses the game (or, at a table of three or four, is out of it) rather than holding the others up. A room's six-digit code is kept only while it can be used, which is ten minutes.

Quick chat sends the other players one of a few set lines. The server passes the line on and does not keep it.

Square's quick matches and private rooms work the same way, with four to eight players at once. The other players see your name and your ball colour; they see nothing of your move until everyone has planned, and then they see where you stood, which way you launched and how hard. Emotes are one of a few set emoji, passed on and not kept. When a quick match ends, the server keeps where you finished, how many players you knocked off and the XP it paid, with your account. A private room's four-letter code lasts only while the room is open.

Signing up is how one rank follows you to a second phone, and nothing else. It fills an email address and a password in on the account the game already made, so everything you have earned carries over.

Signed up, the server holds two more things about you:

• Your email address, which is how your account is found when you sign in. It is never shown to other players, and never sold, shared or added to a mailing list.
• Your password, as a scrypt hash. The password itself is never stored and cannot be read back from the hash — not by us either.

We do not send email at all: no verification, no newsletters, no notifications. One consequence is worth knowing before you sign up: because there is no email from us, there is no password reset. Lose the password and the account cannot be recovered — write to us and we will delete it, and you can start again.

Signing in gives that phone a token, which is what identifies it afterwards. Signing out destroys that one token and leaves your other phones signed in.

BlockNGoal is free and paid for by ads, which are served by Google AdMob. To choose and measure ads, Google AdMob may collect your device's advertising ID, IP address, the approximate area that address suggests, and how you interact with the ads. That collection is theirs, not ours, and is governed by their own policy: how Google uses data from apps that use its services.

On Android you can reset or delete your advertising ID in Settings › Privacy › Ads, which stops ads being tailored to this device. Where the law requires consent before ads may be personalised, you are asked the first time you play, and you can change that answer from the game's Settings screen.

• No analytics or tracking of how you use the game.
• No location, contacts, photos, camera or microphone. The app asks Android for internet access — for ranking, playing a person and its ads — and, for the ads, the advertising ID.
• No selling or sharing of your data by us, for any purpose. What Google AdMob collects to show ads is its own, described under “Advertising”.
• No email from us — not even to verify an address you gave us.
• No profiles built about you by us. Google AdMob may use your advertising ID to choose ads, unless you reset it or say no to personalised ads.

The game suits any age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, children included, because the game never asks for any. The ads are family-friendly: limited to content rated for a general audience with parental guidance at most, never teen or mature.

The game's Settings screen has Delete my online record, which removes the account, every game, solved level and match stored against it, the rank built from them, and — if you signed up — your email address and password hash. It cannot be undone, and it happens straight away.

You can also write to blockngoal@gmail.com. Say the player number shown on the game's Rank screen and we will delete it.

To remove what is on the phone, uninstall the app or clear its storage.

Your account and its games, levels and matches stay until you delete them. A game, level or match refused by the server — one that does not play out the same way again — is kept with the reason, so we can tell an honest bug from someone tampering with the game.

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and anything that affects what is collected will be in the app before it starts happening.

BlockNGoal is published by Gaurav. Questions, or a deletion request: blockngoal@gmail.com.