Privacy at NewsWords

What the app stores while you play, and what happens when you follow a source story.

Playing on your device.

Puzzle progress, preferences, saved stories and completed results are stored in your browser’s local storage. Clearing that storage removes those records. There is no payment or account requirement to play, and automatic cross-device sync is not part of this launch.

Site delivery.

Cloudflare hosts the site and processes requests to deliver its pages and puzzles. Service logs may include request metadata needed to operate and troubleshoot the site. Fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which receives the associated font requests. We use Amplitude in its EU region to measure page visits, time and scroll depth, loading and interaction performance, and actions such as opening a puzzle, entering its first letter, completing a solve in this browser, copying a result, or following a source link. Analytics requests go through our Cloudflare host. We do not send typed answers, names, saved progress, account identifiers, network addresses or full browser user agents to Amplitude, and we do not record session replay or automatically capture page content. Query strings and fragments are removed from collected URLs; we retain only short campaign labels (source, medium, campaign and content), never search terms or advertising click IDs.

Your analytics choice.

Before you choose, and if you choose “Keep anonymous”, we collect anonymous pageviews, tracked clicks, puzzle actions and engagement. Each event uses a new random event ID, retained only for delivery retries, with no persistent browser identifier, fingerprinting, session grouping or cross-page linkage. Anonymous events are excluded from our unique-browser and session reports. Choose “Allow visit linking” to enable a persistent browser identity and sessions. Earlier anonymous activity is never linked to that identity. You can choose “Stop visit linking” at any time using “Analytics choices” on any public page or game screen. Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track disable collection. Keeping events anonymous does not affect playing or saving your puzzle progress. We remember your choice in a first-party cookie for 180 days. After permission, a separate first-party cookie stores a random browser ID for up to 180 days, and local storage maintains a session shared across tabs. Sessions expire after 30 minutes of inactivity or 24 hours total. Stopping visit linking clears that browser ID and analytics session and resumes anonymous collection without an extra pageview; it does not erase events already received. If identity storage is blocked, collection remains anonymous.

The random ID lets us recognize a returning browser while it survives; it does not identify a person across devices or browsers. Source-link clicks indicate interest, not confirmed reading or purchases on another site. Old PostHog records remain separate and are not imported into Amplitude.

Reviewer access.

The reviewer area uses a secure, HttpOnly session cookie that expires after eight hours. Submitted reviewer names, review decisions and approvals are retained with the edition as editorial records. Reviewer access keys are not saved in browser local storage.

Other websites.

Source-story links take you to the publisher’s site, whose own privacy and subscription policies apply. The issue-reporting link opens GitHub. No puzzle progress is attached to those links.

Removing local data.

Use your browser’s site-data settings to clear NewsWords data on that device. This does not delete a published edition or its editorial record.