Privacy
Last updated 17 Oct 2026
Controller
PuzzleWithFriends, address see legal notice.
What we store
Usage statistics: Occupied time, player and guest counts, solo/multiplayer mode, puzzle and completion time are recorded per server room and hour. The statistics contain no names, account or guest IDs, IP addresses or input events. Room identifiers allow one round to be grouped together; records are deleted after 365 days. No additional cookies or external analytics services are used.
Without an account: a random guest ID in a cookie (so you stay the same player after a reconnect) and your game save in your browser storage.
With an account: the link to Google or Discord and the email address from there (for important notices), your player name, avatar setting, language, game saves, solved puzzles with time and placed pieces, XP, friends and blocks, settings and signed-in devices (browser and IP address of the session; our team sees them in support cases, abuse and account help, to sign out devices and detect abuse). We do not take names or pictures from Google or Discord. We never store passwords.
Timelapse: for every round on our server we store when which pieces were placed, turned and joined, so you can watch the solved round as a timelapse. Other players appear only as a colour, without names. Only those who played the round can watch it. Own images get none.
In rooms: chat messages (the last 50 per room in memory) and your online status for friends unless you turned it off. As evidence for reported messages we also keep the last 100 chat messages per room with their sender (account or guest ID, name) and who was in the room on the server for 24 hours; nobody sees this, only a report takes an excerpt from it.
When you buy: what you bought or claimed, your gold transactions and payments (amount, time, country, payment method, subscription). Stripe handles the payment itself; we never see card details.
As an artist: artist name, shop address, short bio, verified account, your works with proof and review signals (e.g. image matching, metadata) and when you accepted which terms. With “Earn money”, also your payout profile (name, address, IBAN, tax status, residence), stored encrypted, and your statements.
For reports: name, email address and details of the person reporting, the case and our decision. If you report a chat message, we store it with up to ten messages before it (text, time, name and, where there is one, the account of the senders), the room, the reason, your note and your player name; as a guest without an email address.
For support requests and account help: your email address, player name, topic, message and a screenshot if you send one (stored without metadata).
On the waitlists: email address, language and where you came from (ref link).
If you come through one of our links (such as the QR code on a business card), your browser keeps its short name for this visit (session storage, no cookie). If you create an account or buy something during that visit, the short name is stored with the account or the payment. This shows us which links and campaigns work.
Why and on what basis
So you can play, buy and take part as an artist (contract, Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).
For bookkeeping, taxes and statements (legal obligation, Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR).
For security, against abuse and fraud, and to handle reports (legitimate interest, Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Against bots on forms we use a computing puzzle in your browser, without a third-party service and without a cookie.
To see which of our links and campaigns work (legitimate interest, Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR): we count visits without a cookie and only store daily totals.
Newsletter and waitlists only with your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), which you can withdraw via the link in every email.
Ads
Without Puzzle Plus we show ads from Google AdSense on the home page next to the menu cards. The provider is Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland.
Before ads load, a consent dialog from Google asks you (certified under the Transparency & Consent Framework). Only with your consent does Google store cookies or read identifiers on your device and process data such as IP address, device, browser and the page visited, to deliver and measure ads and, if you agree, to personalise them (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, § 25(1) TDDDG). Without consent Google shows at most ads without cookies and without personalisation.
You can change or withdraw your consent at any time via “Privacy settings” at the bottom of the page. With Puzzle Plus we don’t load the ad service at all.
Google also processes data in the USA; Google is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. More: policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
Service providers
Hosting in Germany. Sign-in via Google or Discord (only if you choose them).
Payments: Stripe Payments Europe, Ltd. (Ireland). Stripe also processes your payment data under its own responsibility, e.g. against fraud; Stripe’s privacy policy applies to that.
Purchases outside Germany: Sold through Link, LLC (USA), a Stripe affiliate, sells as a reseller in the payment (Stripe Managed Payments) and processes your name, billing address, purchase and payment data for this under its own responsibility (taxes, receipts, refunds, support). Transfers to the USA are covered by the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses.
Emails: Resend (servers in the EU). Transfers to the USA are covered by the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses. We keep a sending log (address, subject, time, delivery errors) for 30 days, and the content of an email only until it is delivered.
Error reports: when something goes wrong, the server and your browser send a technical error message (error text, code location, page without parameters) to our error service with servers in the EU, without account, name or IP address (legitimate interest, Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We delete these reports after 90 days.
Tax advisers and authorities receive billing data where the law requires it (e.g. tax office, artists’ social fund).
Rights holders
If an artist uploads a work they lack the rights to, we give the rights holder, on a justified request, the details they need to contact the artist (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
Retention
Guest rooms expire after 24 hours. Account data is kept until you delete your account; it is gone for good 14 days later.
Transactions, payments and statements are kept as long as tax and commercial law require (up to 10 years), also after you delete your account, but then blocked.
Unconfirmed waitlist entries are deleted after 30 days.
Support and account help requests are deleted one year after they are closed, account help requests that were never finished after 90 days.
Reports (with the name and address of the person who reported, for chat messages with the excerpt of the chat) are deleted one year after the decision. The chat evidence in a room is deleted after 24 hours.
Notices in the bell (such as review results or Plus Gold) are deleted after 30 days.
Timelapses of solved rounds are kept per account for the last 20 rounds and for every best time; all others are deleted after 90 days. If none of the players has an account any more, it is deleted right away.
An account whose sign-up was never finished after the first login is deleted after 7 days. Expired sessions (device, IP address) are deleted 7 days after they expire.
Drafts in the studio are deleted after 90 days without a change, rejected works including proofs 90 days after the rejection; of rejected works we only keep an image fingerprint so we notice a re-upload. When an artist deletes their account, all works that were not approved are deleted right away.
Backups of the database and the images are kept for up to 12 months, encrypted and separate from the server. Whatever you or we delete stays in older backups for that long; we only restore from them after an outage.
Your rights
Access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability and objection. You can download your data in the settings under “Data & account”, where you can also delete your account. Questions to [email protected].