Privacy Policy
Holy Ore is a free daily word game, made as a non-commercial hobby project. It makes no money: there are no ads, no purchases and no sponsors, and we never sell or rent anyone's data. We collect as little as we can to run the game, and this page lists all of it.
If you play as a guest
- A random player ID. The first time you play, your browser makes up a random code and saves it on your device. It isn't linked to your name, email or device. It lets us count each player's answer once per prompt per day.
- Your answers and scores. When you dig, we store the prompt, the answer it matched, the day and your player ID. Daily scores are stored the same way so we can show how you ranked against other players that day.
If you create an account
Accounts are optional. Everything works as a guest.
- Your email address, and your name and profile picture if you sign in with Google. We use these only to sign you in and to keep your progress together. We never email you marketing.
- Your miner name and avatar, which you choose yourself. Your miner name may be shown to other players, for example on rankings, so don't use your real full name if you'd rather not.
- Your progress: your account is linked to a player ID, so your answers, scores, unlocks and achievements follow you across devices.
- A sign-in cookie. While you're signed in, your browser keeps a secure sign-in cookie for this site. It can't be read by the page's scripts and is used only to keep you signed in. We don't use cookies for tracking or advertising.
Sign-in is handled by Neon Auth. If you choose "Continue with Google", Google also handles that sign-in under its own privacy policy, and its sign-in screen may mention Neon, our sign-in provider.
Things everyone shares with us
- A scrambled version of your IP address, used only to stop abuse (for example, someone flooding the game with requests). We run your IP through a one-way hash with a secret key and keep the result for about two hours. We never store your raw IP address.
- Answers we don't recognize. If you type an answer that isn't on our list, we send that answer and the prompt to Anthropic's Claude model to check whether it's real. We send nothing else about you. We keep the verdict so the same answer doesn't need checking twice.
What stays on your device
Your guest stats, streak, unlocks, avatar choice, sound setting and player ID are kept in your browser's local storage. Clearing this site's data in your browser deletes them and gives you a new guest ID. If you're signed in, your account keeps a copy.
How we use it
- To score rarity: each answer's score depends on how many players gave it. The reveal screen shows answer counts across all players, never who gave them.
- To show your daily ranking and keep your progress.
- To keep the game working and stop abuse.
That's all. There's no business behind this game, so your data isn't used for anything else.
Services we rely on
- Vercel hosts the site. Like any web host, it handles your IP address and browser details to deliver pages and may keep short-term server logs.
- Neon runs our database and our sign-in system (Neon Auth).
- Anthropic checks answers we don't recognize, as described above.
- Google handles "Continue with Google" sign-ins, and Google Fonts serves some of the site's fonts, so your browser connects to Google's servers to download them.
Each of these providers handles data under its own privacy terms. We don't share your data with anyone else.
How long we keep it
Answer and score records are kept so rarity stays accurate over time. Account details are kept until you ask us to delete your account. Abuse-prevention records are deleted after about two hours.
Children
Holy Ore isn't directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from them. Accounts are for players 13 and older.
Your choices
- Guests: send us the player ID below and we'll delete every record tied to it.
- Account holders: ask us to delete your account, and we'll delete your account details, miner name, avatar and the records linked to your account.
Your player ID on this device: none yet. Play a round to create one
Changes
If we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top of this page.
Contact
Questions or deletion requests: colincimino@gmail.com.