Privacy Policy
Who We Are and What This Policy Covers
Hello, we're Sandcastle, an app and game developer that provides several usability apps (The Typist, Clear Note Widget) and a number of games (Stay on the Line or You Die, Wordy Words, and Don't Drop the Beat, among others).
This Privacy Policy applies to information that we collect about you when you use our mobile applications and mobile games.
Please note that this Privacy Policy does not apply to any of our products or services that have a separate privacy policy.
Below we explain how we collect, use, and share information about you, along with the choices that you have with respect to that information.
Information We Collect
We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so - for example, to provide our Services, to communicate with you, or to make our Services better.
We collect information in three ways: if and when you provide information to us, automatically through operating our Services, and from outside sources.
Information You Provide to Us
It's probably no surprise that we collect information that you provide to us. The amount and type of information depends on the context and how we use the information. Here are some examples:
Transaction and Billing Information: If you buy something from us, such as an in-app purchase or full version of an app - you will provide additional personal and payment information that is required to process the transaction and your payment, such as your name, credit card information, and contact information.
Content Information: Depending on the Services you use, you may also provide us with information about you in your own user-created content (for example, in the case for Clear Note Widget, an Android sticky note app, you may provide information about yourself through the creation of sticky notes - however, the content of these notes are only saved locally to your device and never transmitted to us at any point during the usage of the app).
Communications with Us: You may also provide us information when you communication with us via online web form or through the developer email.
Information We Collect Automatically
We also collect some information automatically:
Stored Information: We may access information stored on your mobile device via our mobile apps. This access is only for functional use of the apps.
In The Typist, we store a list of all the typing tests that you've ever taken, for the purpose of saving your test history - that way we can track your progress locally. This information doesn't get sent to our servers.
In Clear Note Widget, we store your notes on your device. Like The Typist, this is only stored locally and doesn't get sent to our servers.
How and Why We Use Information
Purposes for Using Information
We use information about you as mentioned above and for the purposes listed below:
To provide our Services;
To further develop and improve our Services - for example, by adding new features that we think our users will enjoy or will help them to create and manage their websites more efficiently;
To monitor and analyze trends and better understand how users interact with our Services, which helps us improve our Services and make them easier to use;
To measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our advertising, and better understand user retention and attrition - for example, we may analyze how many individuals purchased a paid plan after receiving a marketing message or the features used by those who continue to use our Services after a certain length of time;
To monitor and prevent any problems with our Services, protect the security of our Services, detect and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities, fight spam, and protect the rights and property of us and others, which may result in us declining a transaction or the use of our Services;
Legal Bases for Collecting and Using Information
A note here for those in the European Union about our legal grounds for processing information about you under EU data protection laws, which is that our use of your information is based on the grounds that:
(1) The use is necessary in order to fulfill our commitments to you under the applicable terms of service or other agreements with you or is necessary to administer your account - for example, in order to enable access to our website on your device or charge you for a paid plan; or
(2) The use is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; or
(3) The use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or
(4) We have a legitimate interest in using your information - for example, to provide and update our Services; to improve our Services so that we can offer you an even better user experience; to safeguard our Services; to communicate with you; to measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our advertising; and to understand our user retention and attrition; to monitor and prevent any problems with our Services; and to personalize your experience;
Sharing Information
How We Share Information
We do not sell or share our users' private personal information.
Legal and Regulatory Requirements: We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.
Aggregated or De-Identified Information: We may share information that has been aggregated or reasonably de-identified, so that the information could not reasonably be used to identify you. For instance, we may publish aggregate statistics about the use of our Services and we may share a hashed version of your email address to facilitate customized ad campaigns on other platforms.
Published Support Requests: And if you send us a request (for example, via a support email or one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish that request in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users.
Information Shared Publicly
Information that you choose to make public is disclosed publicly.
So far, this is limited only to manually sharing your test results (in The Typist), or using the Leaderboards feature in any of our games.
Please keep this in mind when deciding what you would like to share.
How Long We Keep Information
Since we don't store any of your information, this isn't really applicable.
Security
While no online service is 100% secure, we work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so, such as monitoring our Services for potential vulnerabilities and attacks.
Choices
You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:
Limit the Information that You Provide: If you use The Typist, you have the ability to not share your typing test results. For Clear Note Widget, you can opt to limit the content that you place in your notes. For our games, you can choose not to post your scores to the leaderboard.
Your Rights
If you are located in certain countries, including those that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (AKA the 'GDPR'), data protection laws give you rights with respect to your personal data, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the rights to:
Request access to your personal data;
Request correction or deletion of your personal data;
Object to our use and processing of your personal data;
Request that we limit our use and processing of your personal data; and
Request portability of your personal data.
You can usually access, correct, or delete your personal data using your account settings and tools that we offer, but if you aren't able to do that, or you would like to contact us about one of the other rights, scroll down to How to Reach Us to, well, find out how to reach us.
EU individuals also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority.
How to Reach Us
If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact us about any of the rights mentioned in the Your Rights section above, please contact us at sayhi@sandcastle.cc.
Other Things You Should Know
Transferring Information
Because our Services are offered worldwide, the information about you that we process when you use the Services in the EU may be used, stored, and/or accessed by individuals operating outside the European Economic Area (EEA) who work for us, other members of our group of companies, or third party data processors. This is required for the purposes listed in the How and Why We Use Information section above. When providing information about you to entities outside the EEA, we will take appropriate measures to ensure that the recipient protects your personal information adequately in accordance with this Privacy Policy as required by applicable law. These measures include:
In the case of US based entities, entering into European Commission approved standard contractual arrangements with them, or ensuring they have signed up to the EU-US Privacy Shield; or
In the case of entities based in other countries outside the EEA, entering into European Commission approved standard contractual arrangements with them.
You can ask us for more information about the steps we take to protect your personal information when transferring it from the EU.
Ads and Analytics Services Provided by Others
Ads appearing on any of our Services may be delivered by advertising networks. Other parties may also provide analytics services via our Services. These ad networks and analytics providers may set tracking technologies (like cookies) to collect information about your use of our Services and across other websites and online services. These technologies allow these third parties to recognize your device to compile information about you or others who use your device. This information allows us and other companies to, among other things, analyze and track usage, determine the popularity of certain content, and deliver advertisements that may be more targeted to your interests. Please note this Privacy Policy only covers the collection of information by Automattic and does not cover the collection of information by any third party advertisers or analytics providers.
Visitors to Our Users' Websites
We also process information about visitors to our users' websites, on behalf of our users and in accordance with our user agreements. Please note that our processing of that information on behalf of our users for their websites isn't covered by this Privacy Policy. We encourage our users to post a privacy policy that accurately describes their practices on data collection, use, and sharing of personal information. If you'd like, you can also read more about the data we collect on behalf of our users in our Privacy Notice.
Privacy Policy Changes
Although most changes are likely to be minor, we may change our Privacy Policy from time to time. Sandcastle encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy.
That's it! Thanks for reading.