Privacy Policy

GlowCubes (com.yasarnarci.glowcubes) · Developer: Yaşar Narcı · Last updated: 20 September 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how the game GlowCubes ("the App", "we") handles information when you play it on Android phones and tablets, on iPhone and iPad (App Store), or on Windows PCs through Google Play Games on PC. GlowCubes is designed to collect as little data as possible: there is no account to create, and we never ask for your name, e-mail address or phone number. The online features described in section 3 work with an anonymous identity that is not linked to your Google account.

1. Data Stored on Your Device

Your game progress (scores, level progress, statistics, settings, unlocked skins, chosen nickname and avatar) is stored locally on your device. It is deleted when you uninstall the App or clear its data, unless you keep it via the Android "keep app data" option or the cloud save described in section 4 (on iOS there is no cloud save in this version, so uninstalling the App deletes your progress). Usage counters the App keeps for its own tuning (for example how many runs you played) stay on the device and are not sent to us.

2. Advertising (Google AdMob)

The App shows advertisements served by Google AdMob, a service of Google LLC. To serve and measure ads, Google may collect and process data on our behalf, including:

• Device identifiers — on Android the Advertising ID; on iOS the Advertising Identifier (IDFA) only if you allow tracking in the App Tracking Transparency prompt shown before the first ad, otherwise ads are served without it
• IP address and coarse (approximate) location derived from it
• Device information (model, OS version, language)
• Ad interaction data (impressions, clicks, diagnostics)

This data is processed under Google's policies. Please see the Google Privacy Policy and How Google uses data when you use our partners' sites or apps.

Consent (EEA / UK / Switzerland): If you are in a region where consent is required, the App shows a consent dialog (Google User Messaging Platform) before ads are requested. You can change or withdraw your choice at any time from Settings → Privacy Options inside the App.

Opting out: On Android you can reset or delete your Advertising ID and opt out of ad personalisation under Device Settings → Google → Ads. On iOS you can withdraw tracking permission under Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking, and limit ad personalisation under Settings → Privacy & Security → Apple Advertising.

Remove Ads purchase: If you buy the "Remove Ads" item, no advertisements are requested and the AdMob SDK does not collect ad data for you from that point on.

3. Online Play: World League, Friends, Friend Leagues and Duels

GlowCubes has online features that let you compare scores with other players: the weekly World League (everyone plays in tiers from Bronze to Diamond), a Friends list, private Friend Leagues and one-to-one Duels. These features use Google Firebase (Firebase Realtime Database and Firebase Authentication, operated by Google LLC; the database is hosted in the EU, Belgium region). They are active whenever your device is online; you can play the whole game offline, in which case nothing in this section is sent.

3.1 Anonymous identity

The first time the App connects, Firebase Authentication creates an anonymous user ID — a random string with no e-mail, password or name behind it. The App also generates a random Player Code (GP-XXXXXX) that you can share with friends. Neither is linked to your Google account, your device ID or your Advertising ID. If you sign in to Google Play Games (section 4), the anonymous credentials are included in your cloud save so that your Player Code, friends and league standing survive a reinstall or a new phone; they are still not linked to your Google identity on our side.

3.2 What is stored on Firebase

• Nickname — the display name you type yourself when you first play (you can change it in Settings). We recommend not using your real name. Nicknames are limited to 12 characters: letters, digits, spaces and _ - .
• Avatar — the pixel-robot avatar you choose in the App, stored as a short code (for example e3m1b7g2). Avatars are generated inside the App; no photo is used.
• Player Code, anonymous user ID and activity time — so friends can find you and see whether you are currently online.
• Friend links and friend requests — the Player Codes of players you have added, and pending requests you sent or received (with the sender's nickname and avatar).
• Invitations — when a friend invites you to a Duel or a Friend League, a short message (the friend's Player Code, nickname, avatar and the match or league code) is stored in your inbox until you read it.
• World League records — your weekly points, your tier and the season (ISO week) they belong to, together with your nickname, avatar and Player Code.
• Friend League records — your weekly points and perfect-clear count for each league you join (League Code GL-XXXXXX), with nickname and avatar.
• Duel records — the match code (GC-XXXXXX), your final score, and an anonymous move log (which piece you placed where, as a compact string) that lets the App verify the score. While a Duel is in progress your current score and board are updated every few seconds so that a rival who finished first can watch your board live.

No e-mail address, phone number, contact list, precise location, photo or device identifier is sent to Firebase.

3.3 Who can see it

Your nickname, avatar, Player Code and World League points are visible to other players in the same World League tier (the top 100 of each tier is shown in the App). Your friends can see your nickname, avatar, online status and head-to-head results. Friend League points are visible to anyone who knows the League Code, and Duel scores, boards and move logs to anyone who knows the match code. League and match codes are random and are shared only by you or the players you invite. Nothing is shown to anyone outside the App.

3.4 Keeping the leaderboards honest

To stop tampered copies of the App from writing fake scores, requests to Firebase are protected with Firebase App Check backed by the Google Play Integrity API on Android and by Apple's DeviceCheck service on iOS. Play Integrity lets Google confirm that the request comes from the genuine App installed from Google Play on a genuine Android device (or a supported PC / Chromebook environment); DeviceCheck lets Apple confirm that the request comes from a genuine Apple device. This involves Google Play services, or Apple, processing device and app integrity signals under the Google Privacy Policy or the Apple Privacy Policy; the App only receives a short-lived token and does not see those signals. The App also performs local checks (for example whether it is running in an emulator). If a run cannot be trusted it is simply not counted for leagues and leaderboards — no data about it is uploaded and no penalty is applied.

3.5 Invite links and Install Referrer

The "Share" buttons in the App create links of the form yasarnarci.com/l/GL-… (league), /d/GC-… (duel) or /f/GP-… (friend). The link contains only that code. When someone opens such a link on a device where GlowCubes is installed, the App opens directly on the invitation. If GlowCubes is not installed yet, the page sends the person to Google Play or the App Store; on Android, after installation the App reads the code once through the Google Play Install Referrer so the invitation can still be shown (the Install Referrer is not used for anything else; iOS has no equivalent, so the link must be opened again after installing). The website pages themselves set no cookies and run no analytics.

3.6 Retention

Friend League data is kept for at most 12 months after the week ends, World League season data for at most 12 months after the season ends, and Duel data (score, board and move log) for at most 12 months after the match. Read invitations are deleted as soon as the App has shown them. Your player record, friend links and pending requests stay until you delete them (remove a friend or leave a league in the Friends tab) or ask us to delete your data as described in section 11.

3.7 Gameplay analytics

To understand where new players get stuck, how long runs last and which levels are too hard, the App records a small number of gameplay events and stores them in the same Firebase database, under your anonymous user ID (section 3.1). An event is a short name with a few numbers: for example run_start / run_end with the game mode, duration, score, lines cleared and why the run ended; level_start / level_complete / level_fail with the level number; tutorial steps; whether a "no more moves" screen was shown; and, once per launch, a random session ID, the App version, platform (Android / iOS), the App language and the number of days since installation. Events are sent in small batches while you play.

Gameplay analytics never contain your nickname, Player Code, league or duel codes, friends, any text you typed, your Advertising ID, device identifiers or precise location, and they are not shared with any third party or used for advertising. No third-party analytics SDK is included in the App: the data goes only to our own Firebase database, is used only to improve the game, and is deleted after at most 12 months. It is keyed only by your anonymous user ID; when that ID is deleted (section 11) the records can no longer be linked to you and expire under the same 12-month rule.

4. Google Play Games Services (optional)

Google Play Games Services are available on Android and Google Play Games on PC only; on iOS the App has no sign-in, leaderboard or cloud save in this version. You can sign in with Google Play Games from Settings; the App does not ask new players to sign in on first launch. If you sign in, the following are processed by Google Play Games Services under the Google Privacy Policy:

• Leaderboards and achievements — your Play Games gamer tag, avatar and scores.
• Cloud save — a small backup of your progress (best scores, level progress, statistics, nickname, avatar, owned items, Player Code and the anonymous credentials from section 3) stored through the Play Games "Saved Games" service, so your progress survives reinstalling or changing phones.

Saved Games are kept in a private application-data folder of your own Google Drive. This is why Google may show that GlowCubes has access to "app data in Google Drive": that permission covers only the hidden folder created for GlowCubes. The App cannot see, read or change any of your other Drive files. You can remove the App's access, or delete the saved data, at any time from your Google Account → Security → Third-party apps, or Google Drive → Settings → Manage apps.

5. In-App Purchases

The App offers one optional purchase ("Remove Ads") through Google Play Billing on Android and through Apple's App Store (StoreKit) on iOS. Payment is handled entirely by Google Play or Apple; we never see your payment details. The App stores only whether the item is owned, and checks your Google Play purchase record to restore it on a new device; on iOS, "Restore Purchases" in Settings asks Apple for your purchase record. Unity's In-App Purchasing service (Unity Technologies) processes the purchase transaction on our behalf under the Unity Privacy Policy.

6. Notifications

The App may schedule reminder notifications (for example, a paused run, a league closing soon or your World League rank). These are created locally on your device (Android and iOS alike); no push service is used and no notification data is sent to us or to any server. You can decline the notification permission or disable notifications in your device settings at any time.

7. Google Play Games on PC

When you play GlowCubes on a Windows PC through Google Play Games on PC, the same App runs in Google's environment and this policy applies unchanged. Your Play Games account, cloud save and the online features in section 3 work the same way as on a phone.

8. Children

GlowCubes is intended for a general audience and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. The only user-provided content is the nickname, which is limited to short plain text. Ad serving follows Google Play Families and AdMob policies.

9. Data Sharing and Retention

We do not sell data and we do not use it for advertising or profiling. We do not share data with anyone other than the service providers named above — Google (AdMob, Firebase, Play Games Services, Play Integrity, Play Billing), Apple (App Store payments, DeviceCheck) and Unity Technologies (In-App Purchasing) — each acting under its own privacy policy and retention rules. Online play data and gameplay analytics are retained as described in sections 3.6 and 3.7. Data stored locally on your device never reaches us. We do not use third-party crash reporting or analytics SDKs; the only analytics are the anonymous gameplay events described in section 3.7, stored in our own database.

10. Your Rights

Depending on your region (GDPR in the EU/UK, KVKK in Türkiye, CCPA in California and similar laws), you may have rights to access, correct or delete personal data and to object to processing. Our legal basis for the online features is the performance of the game service you ask for (comparing scores with the players you choose to play with); for advertising it is your consent where required, and otherwise our legitimate interest in funding a free game. For advertising data, please use the Google links above and your device's ad settings. For online play data, use the deletion process below. For anything else, contact us and we will help.

11. Data Deletion Requests

12. Changes

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected on this page with a new "Last updated" date.

13. Contact

Questions or requests: [email protected]