Privacy Policy
Short version: there are no accounts and no tracking on this website. Playing on your own keeps everything on your device. Playing online sends the name you chose and the cards you play, and nothing else. The iOS app is paid for by advertising, and it asks you before anything about you is used to make those ads personal.
Last updated: 29 September 2026
Who is responsible
Spades Zone is run by Maurizio Mariani, who acts as data controller. You can reach him at privacy@spadeszone.net for anything on this page.
What is stored on your device
Everything below stays in your own browser or app and is not sent anywhere — except your display name and the seat token, which go to the game server when you play online: your preferences including your display name (sz_settings), an offline game in progress so it survives closing the app (sz_local_game), a token per room that lets you take your seat back after a disconnection (sz_token_ plus the room code), the last room you played in so it can be offered again (sz_last_room), your chosen language (sz_locale), your hint balance (sz_hints), and whether and when you were asked for a rating (sz_review). In the app there is also a count of the hands you have finished and when an advert was last shown, which is what keeps them paced (sz_ads, sz_offer, sz_reward_pending), and a note of whether you bought the ad-free version (sz_premium). On this website, whether you have dismissed the suggestion to install the app (sz_get_app).
Playing against the computer
The computer opponents and your computer partner run inside the app itself. A game against the computer involves no server at all, and no information about it leaves your device.
Playing with other people
When you join a room, the display name you chose and the moves you make are sent to the game server so the table can work. Your name and your plays are visible to the others at that table; the cards in your hand are never sent to them.
Connection data
The site and the game server are hosted on Cloudflare, which processes connection data such as IP addresses in order to deliver the service and protect it from abuse. That is the basis on which any hosting works, and it is a legitimate interest in keeping the service running and secure.
Advertising in the app
The iOS app shows full-screen adverts at natural breaks between hands, supplied by Google AdMob, and lets you watch a short video for extra hints if you choose to. This website carries none. To serve them, Google receives your device's advertising identifier together with technical data such as device type, approximate location and IP address, and may use it to build an advertising profile. Before any of that is used to make the adverts personal you are asked: through Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt, and in Europe and the United Kingdom through a consent form. Refuse and the adverts still appear, but stop being personalised. You can change your answer whenever you like from the Privacy options item in the menu, and also in Settings, under Privacy & Security, Tracking. What Google does with that data is governed by its own terms: see Google's partner policies at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
The in-app purchase
Removing the adverts is a one-time purchase handled entirely by Apple. The app only learns whether the purchase exists; it never sees your payment details or your Apple Account.
What is not done
No analytics, no profiling of how you play, no cookies beyond the language one, no sale of data. This website carries no advertising at all. In the app the only third party is Google AdMob, described above, and there is still no account for anything to be attached to.
Legal bases
Online play is processed to perform the service you asked for. Connection data is processed on the basis of a legitimate interest in security and availability. The language cookie is technically necessary and needs no consent. Personalised advertising in the app happens only with your consent, which you give or refuse in the form described above and can withdraw at any time.
How long anything is kept
What is stored on your device stays until you delete it. A room and the game inside it are deleted automatically thirty minutes after the last player leaves. Cloudflare's own logs follow Cloudflare's retention policy.
Where data goes
Cloudflare's network is global, so a connection may be served from outside the European Union. Those transfers rely on the safeguards Cloudflare provides for its customers, including the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.
Your rights
Data protection law gives you the right to access, correct, delete and object to the processing of your personal data, and to complain to your supervisory authority — in Italy, the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali. Being honest about the limits: with no account, there is no way to look you up, so for what is on your device the fastest route is to clear the site data in your browser or uninstall the app, which removes all of it at once.
Children
The game is not intended for children under 13. It asks for no personal information beyond an optional display name, which never leaves the device except when you play online, where the other players at your table see it. It should not be a real name for a young player.
The mobile app
The iOS app contains the same game and asks for no system permissions: no contacts, no location, no camera, no notifications. You are asked once whether the app may track you, which is the advertising question described above. The app needs internet access only for online play and for the adverts.
Changes
This policy may be updated if the game starts doing something different with data. The date at the top says when it last changed.
Contact
Privacy questions and requests: privacy@spadeszone.net.