Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

We collect the following information when you use Geomasters:

• Account Information: When you sign in with Google, we receive your email address and public profile information (name, avatar).
• Game Data: We store your quiz scores, category votes (likes/dislikes), daily and weekly challenge attempts, live game results, and leaderboard entries.
• Usage Data: We collect analytics about how the site is used — pages visited, quizzes played, approximate location derived from your IP address, and device and browser type.
• Cookies and local storage: Used to keep you signed in, remember your preferences, and — subject to your choices — to measure traffic and serve advertising. See sections 3 to 5.
• Android test sign-ups: If you ask us for the Android app, we store the email address you give us and the date you gave it. Nothing else about you is recorded with it, and you do not need an account to ask.

You can play as a guest without an account. In that case we hold no account information about you.

2. How We Use Your Information

• To provide and maintain the service (authentication, saving scores, leaderboards, live games).
• To display advertising, which is what keeps Geomasters free to play.
• To understand how the site is used and improve it.
• To communicate important notices, such as changes to this policy.

The email address you give us to ask for the Android app is used for one thing and nothing else: sending you the Google Play test link. It is not added to a mailing list, not used for marketing or newsletters, not used for advertising or analytics, not linked to your game account, and never shared or sold to anyone. Ask us at privacy@geomasters.app and we will delete it.

3. Cookies and Similar Technologies

Geomasters uses three kinds of storage in your browser:

• Strictly necessary: keeping you signed in and holding your place in a live game. These are always set, because the site cannot work without them.
• Preferences: remembering settings such as sound on or off.
• Analytics and advertising: set by Google, as described in sections 4 and 5, and subject to your consent where the law requires it.

4. Advertising

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to Geomasters or to other websites.
• Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to this site and/or other sites on the internet.
• You can opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings.
• You can opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for personalised advertising at aboutads.info/choices.
• More detail on how Google uses data when you use our partners' sites or apps is at policies.google.com/technologies/ads.

Turning off personalised advertising does not remove ads. It means the ads you see are no longer selected using your browsing history.

In the Android app

• The app shows ads through Google AdMob. There are no cookies in the app; instead Google uses your device's advertising ID, a resettable identifier that belongs to the device rather than to you.
• You can reset that identifier, or switch off ad personalisation entirely, in Android's Settings → Privacy → Ads. Geomasters keeps working either way.
• Where the law requires it, the app asks for your consent before showing personalised ads, using Google's own consent form. Your answer is remembered and can be changed later.
• We do not collect the advertising ID ourselves, and we do not link it to your Geomasters account. It goes to Google for ad selection and measurement, as described at policies.google.com/technologies/ads.

5. Analytics

We use Google Analytics to understand how the site is used. It sets cookies that record pages viewed, session length, approximate location from your IP address, and device type. We do not use it to identify you personally. You can prevent Google Analytics from collecting your activity across all sites with the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.

6. Your Choices and Consent

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, advertising and analytics storage is switched off by default and stays off until you consent through the consent message shown on your first visit. You can reopen that message at any time with the Privacy choices link in the page footer, to change or withdraw what you agreed to. Outside those regions, analytics and advertising cookies are set by default and you can opt out using the links in sections 4 and 5.

7. Sharing Your Information

We do not sell your personal information. We may share anonymous aggregate statistics with third parties. Your username, avatar and scores are publicly visible on leaderboards and in live games.

8. Data Retention

We retain your account data for as long as your account is active. You may ask us to delete your account at any time; we will remove your personal information within 30 days. Leaderboard entries are anonymised rather than removed, so historical rankings stay intact.

9. Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export or delete your personal data, and to object to or restrict how we use it. To exercise any of these, contact us at privacy@geomasters.app. If you are in the EEA or UK you also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

10. Third-Party Services

We use Supabase for our database and authentication, Google AdSense for advertising, Google Analytics for usage measurement, and CARTO and OpenStreetMap for map tiles. Each has its own privacy policy governing the data it handles.

11. Children

Geomasters is suitable for all ages but is not directed at 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.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. The latest version will always be available at this URL, with the date it was last changed shown at the top.