Privacy policy

You can play without giving us anything: press Play and you are in as a guest. If you sign in with Google or Apple we get your name and email address. Games run between your phones, and what happens in a game is not kept on our servers, except that drawings from the drawing games may be kept, without your name. The site shows ads from Google, which uses cookies, and Party Passes are billed by RevenueCat and Stripe, so we never see your card.

Join Me Games is an independent site, owned and run by Be Apped. For anything about your data, write to support@joinme.games or use the contact page.

When you sign in

Sign-in is handled by Firebase Authentication, a Google service. If you choose Google or Apple, we receive the name and email address on that account and a user id. Otherwise, when you open the site, Firebase creates an anonymous guest account with a random id and we give it a made-up display name. A guest account lasts 24 hours: after that it is deleted and a fresh one is made.

The name on your Google or Apple account is never shown to other players. Everyone plays under a display name: a guest’s is dealt at random, a signed-in account picks one from our word lists (or is given one until it does), and a Party Pass holder may type their own. We keep the display name and color you pick with your account, and a Party Pass name is held for you so nobody else can use it while your pass lasts.

When you play

Your display name, your chosen color and your moves are shared with the other people in your room. The devices in a room connect to each other, with the help of services that introduce them and, on networks that need it, pass their traffic along. As with any direct connection, devices in the same room can learn each other’s IP address. While a room is open, people on the same Wi-Fi may be shown it so they can join with a tap; that only lasts while you are connected. A room exists only while its players are connected, and the game itself is not kept on our servers.

When you take out a Party Pass

Purchases are made through RevenueCat, with Stripe taking the payment on the web. They receive what they need to bill you; we never see your card number. We keep what your Party Pass gives you and when it ends, the custom room code and PIN you choose, and any name you reserve, with your account.

In the drawing games

Drawings from Doodle Roar, Sketch Sprint and any other drawing game may be kept, with the words they were drawn from and without your name. They may be reviewed for violations of our terms and against our family-safety standards; we delete any that are not fit for everyone, and may let the games’ computer players draw with the rest.

On every visit

Google Analytics for Firebase records usage events such as which pages open and on what kind of device, with an approximate location derived from your IP address. We use it to see which games get played and where the site breaks.

The browser keeps a few things for you so the site works: your current room code, a Party Pass cache so an ad-free page never flashes an ad, the token for a reserved code you have unlocked, and per-game settings and progress such as your Sudoku level and an unfinished puzzle. None of this leaves your device through us. Clearing site data in your browser removes it.

We show ads through Google AdSense. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites. Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads based on your visits to this site and other sites on the Internet. You can opt out of personalised advertising in Google’s ads settings, or opt out of some third-party vendors’ cookies at aboutads.info. Where the law requires it, you will be asked for consent before personalised ads are shown. Google explains how it uses data from sites that use its services at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. A Party Pass turns ads off for you and everyone in your room.

Only the services that run the site, each for its own job. We do not sell your information and we do not share it for anyone else’s marketing.

• Google: sign-in, storage, hosting, Google Analytics and Google AdSense.
• RevenueCat and Stripe: Party Passes and payment.
• The hosting and connection services that help the devices in a room find and reach each other.

The games are for everyone, and a guest can play with no account at all. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has signed in with a Google or Apple account, tell us and we will delete the account.

• Play as a guest and give us nothing.
• Sign out from the account dialog at the top of the page.
• Ask us to delete your account and everything stored against it by writing to support@joinme.games from the address you signed in with.
• Opt out of personalised ads using the links above.

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. A change that affects what we collect will be announced on the home page first.