Star-Spangled Tycoon · Effective date: September 27, 2026
Star-Spangled Tycoon ("the Game") is an idle game you play on your own, with optional leaderboards. We designed it to collect as little information as possible. This policy explains what data is involved and why.
The Game has no accounts or logins of its own. We do not ask for your name, email address, contacts, photos, location or any other personal information. Leaderboards use a generated display name (see section 7b), never your real name.
Your save file (cash, businesses, settings, achievements) is stored on your device. If iCloud is enabled on your device, a copy is also stored in your private iCloud account using Apple's iCloud Key-Value Storage so progress can move between your devices. We cannot access this data.
In-app purchases are processed entirely by Apple. We never see your payment details. The Game receives only a transaction confirmation from Apple so it can deliver your item.
If you choose to watch an optional rewarded video (for example, to double a boost), the ad is served by Google AdMob. Google may collect device information, including the advertising identifier (IDFA) only if you allow tracking when iOS asks, as well as coarse location derived from your IP address, to serve and measure ads. In regions where consent is required (such as the EEA, UK and Switzerland), you will be asked for consent first and can change your choice at any time in Settings → Ad privacy choices. Owners of the Founding Fathers Pack never see ads. See Google's policy: policies.google.com/technologies/ads.
Our website and the browser version of the Game (played at /play/ on our website) show ads served by Google AdSense. Google and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to serve ads based on your visits to this and other websites, to limit how often you see an ad, and to measure results. You can turn off personalized ads at adssettings.google.com. Learn how Google uses this information at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. Visitors from the EEA, the UK and Switzerland are asked for consent through Google's consent message before any personalized ads are shown.
In the browser version, your game progress is saved in your browser's local storage on your own device; we cannot access it. Purchases are not available in the browser version. Optional bonus rewards in the browser version come from a short ad served by Google or, when none is available, a message from us about the Game. The website loads fonts from Google Fonts, which sees your IP address like any web request.
To prevent offline earnings from being exploited by changing the device clock, the Game reads the current time from a public Apple web server (www.apple.com). This request contains no personal or game data. As with any internet request, Apple's server sees your IP address.
The Game may record anonymous gameplay events (for example "tutorial finished" or "world unlocked") tied to a random install identifier that is not linked to you, your device identifiers or any account. These statistics are used only to balance and improve the Game and are never sold or used for advertising.
If you turn on reminders, the Game schedules notifications locally on your device. No push-notification tokens are sent to us.
To learn which parts of the Game players enjoy and where they get stuck, the Game sends anonymous gameplay events (for example "mission completed" or "tutorial step 3") to TelemetryDeck, a privacy-focused analytics service based in the EU. Events include the app version, your device language and a random install identifier that is hashed (SHA-256) before it leaves your device. They contain no name, email, advertising identifier, location or other personal information, and are not used for advertising or tracking. You can turn this off at any time in Settings → Share anonymous usage stats.
Event and Showdown leaderboards. To rank you against other players in groups of up to 100, the Game sends our leaderboard server a random player identifier created by the Game, a display name generated from a fixed list of words (for example "Governor Otis of New Ohio"; you can pick a new one in Settings), which leaderboard it is for, and your score on it. Other players in your group can see your display name and score. The server does not store your IP address, device identifiers or any account information, and deletes leaderboard entries after 30 days. To limit abuse (for example one connection submitting thousands of fake players or votes), the server keeps a per-day counter keyed on a keyed one-way hash of your IP address combined with the date, used only for abuse limits; the address itself is never stored, and the counter is kept for one to two days and then deleted. When you are offline, or if the server is unavailable, the Game shows computer-controlled rivals instead (marked 🤖), and nothing is sent.
Campaign votes and invite codes. If you vote in Campaign HQ, the Game sends our server the same random player identifier and your choice of candidate, so there is one vote per player. Only vote totals are ever shown. If you use invite codes, the server stores your code, your random player identifier, and which code a new player entered, so it can count friends and pay rewards once. The browser demo sends a separate random identifier when you vote. None of this is linked to your identity.
Game Center. If you are signed in to Apple's Game Center, the Game reports your scores on a few leaderboards and some achievements to Apple. This is handled by Apple under Apple's privacy policy; we do not receive your Game Center identity.
The Game is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
| Data | Where it goes | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Game progress | Your device, your iCloud | Saving and syncing your game |
| Purchase confirmations | Apple → your device | Delivering purchased items |
| Advertising data (optional ads only) | Google AdMob | Serving and measuring rewarded ads |
| Cookies and advertising data (website and browser version) | Google AdSense | Serving and measuring website and browser-game ads |
| Browser-version game progress | Your browser's local storage | Saving your game |
| Anonymous gameplay events (optional) | TelemetryDeck | Improving and balancing the game |
| Random player ID, generated name, leaderboard scores | Our leaderboard server (Cloudflare), other players in your group | Event and Showdown leaderboards |
| Random player ID, campaign vote, invite code and redemptions | Our server (Cloudflare) | Campaign vote totals and invite rewards |
| Game Center scores and achievements (if signed in) | Apple Game Center | Game Center leaderboards and achievements |
You can decline tracking when iOS asks, change ad consent in Settings, turn reminders and anonymous usage stats off, and erase all progress in Settings → Reset everything. Deleting the app removes local data; iCloud data can be removed in iOS Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Manage Storage.
We may update this policy; the effective date above will change when we do. Questions? Contact us at PaydownDeveloping@gmail.com.