Website privacy policy

Last updated: 12 November 2026

This policy explains what shngames.com keeps about you, why we keep it, who can see it and how to remove it. The website is run by SHN Games ("we", "us"). Each of our games has its own privacy policy, listed on the privacy page.

The short version

You can read the whole website without an account.
To post, comment, vote or report a bug, you sign in with Google or Discord.
Other players see your username, your countryball and what you post. They never see your email address or your real name.
Countryball of the day keeps your progress in your browser. It sends us a result only if you sign in and choose to join the standings.
This website has no ads, no analytics and no tracking.
You can delete your account yourself at any time.

When you visit

You do not need an account to read the website. When you visit:

Our host, Vercel, receives your network address (IP address) and browser details, because that is how a page reaches your device. Vercel keeps short technical logs of these requests to run and protect the website. We do not use them to follow what you do.
Your browser keeps a few small settings. They are listed below, under cookies and browser storage.
When a page shows a game trailer, the poster picture loads from YouTube, so Google receives your network address. The video itself only loads when you press play, and then it plays in YouTube's privacy enhanced mode.

When you sign in

You sign in with Google or Discord. We never see or store your password for those services. When you sign in, we keep:

From Google or Discord: only your email address and your account id there, which links your sign in to your account here. We do not ask for or keep your name or profile picture.
Sign in keys: the tokens Google or Discord gives us when you sign in. Our sign in system stores them, but we never use them to read anything from your Google or Discord account.
Sessions: a record of each browser you are signed in on, so we can keep you signed in. We do not store a network address or browser type with it.
Your profile: the username and countryball you choose, and when you last changed your username.

When you take part

When you post, vote or report something, we keep:

Posts, comments and bug reports you write, with the date. Bug reports also hold the game, the steps you describe and the game version if you add it.
Votes on community posts, update notes and bug reports. Other players only see the totals.
Reports you send about posts or comments, with your reason. Only moderators see them.
Abuse protection: to stop spam and flooding, we count how often an account and a network address post, comment, vote, report, change a profile, or join the standings and post a puzzle result. For these counts the network address is stored only in a scrambled form (a keyed hash), never as it is. We also keep a fingerprint of each post, comment and bug report to spot the same text sent again and again.
Sign in protection: our sign in system counts sign in and sign out requests from each network address, to stop people from trying to break in. For this one check the network address is kept as it is, for up to 24 hours.

What other players can see

Anyone, signed in or not, can see:

your username, or a default name until you pick one
your countryball
your posts, comments and bug reports, and when you sent them
the total votes on a post, update note or bug report
if you joined the Countryball of the day standings: how many guesses you used on a day you solved, your streak, your best streak, how many balls you caught, and your average and weekly guesses

A day you missed is counted on the standings but never shown next to your name. Other players never see your email address, how you voted, what you reported or which countries you guessed.

Moderators see the reports players send. If an account is banned, moderators can also see its email address, so they can handle an appeal.

Moderation

To keep the community safe, moderators can remove posts, comments and bug reports, reset usernames, ban accounts, and hide or remove a player's results on the standings. We keep:

removed posts, comments and bug reports, hidden from everyone, so we can check appeals and repeat problems
bans, with the reason and the date
a log of what moderators did and why

The community rules explain what is allowed.

Why we use your information

To give you the features you ask for: your account, your profile, your posts, comments, votes and bug reports, and your place on the standings if you join. We need this to provide the service.
To keep the website safe and fair: sign in protection, abuse protection, moderation and technical logs. This is our legitimate interest in running a safe community.
To answer you when you email us.
When the law requires it.

We do not sell your information and we do not use it for advertising. The website does not send you emails.

Who helps us run the website

These companies handle data for us, only to run the website:

Vercel hosts the website and runs its code. See the Vercel privacy policy.
Neon hosts our database, which holds accounts, posts and the other records on this page.

These companies are separate from us, and their own privacy policies apply:

Google and Discord, when you choose one of them to sign in. See the Google privacy policy and the Discord privacy policy.
YouTube, part of Google, for trailer posters and the videos you choose to play.

Vercel and Neon may handle data in other countries, including the United States.

Countryball of the day and the standings

You can play Countryball of the day without an account. Your guesses, your streak and your results are then kept only in your browser, and nothing about the puzzle is sent to us.

The standings are a public board for players who sign in and choose to join. Joining is your choice, with one button, and you can leave at any time. If you join:

When you finish a day's puzzle, your browser sends us that day's list of guesses once. Our server uses it only to check the result, and does not keep it.
We keep your result for each day: the puzzle number, how many guesses you used or that you missed, and when it arrived.
We keep your standings entry: the date you joined, your streak, your best streak, how many days you played, how many balls you caught and your total guesses.
If you already finished today's puzzle in your browser before you joined, that one result is sent when you join.

We do not keep which countries you guessed. The streak saved in your browser is not sent to us: the standings count their own streak from the day you join.

To leave, open your account page and choose Leave the standings. Your daily results, your streak and your totals are deleted at once.

Moderators can hide a player from the standings or remove their results, for example when a result does not look real. An account with a posting ban is not shown on the standings.

Cookies and browser storage

The website only stores what it needs to work or what remembers a choice you made. There are no advertising or analytics cookies.

Cookies, only if you sign in

Sign in cookies: the main one keeps you signed in until you sign out, or for 7 days after your last visit. Scripts on the page cannot read it. Short ones last about five minutes: one helps sign in work safely, and one holds a signed copy of your session and email address so pages load faster.
shn-signed-in: says only that this browser is signed in, with no account details, so pages skip the sign in check for visitors who are not. It comes and goes with the main sign in cookie.

Saved in your browser, never sent to us

theme: remembers light or dark mode.
shn-cookie-consent: remembers that you closed the cookie notice.
shn:cotd:stats: your Countryball of the day streak and results in this browser.

Saved in your browser, sent only if you join the standings

shn:cotd:progress: your guesses in today's Countryball of the day. If you are signed in and on the standings, the finished list is sent to us once so the server can check your result. Otherwise it never leaves your browser.

These stay until you clear the site data in your browser.

How long we keep it

Your account and profile: until you delete your account.
Sessions: deleted when you sign out, or once they expire 7 days after your last visit.
Abuse protection counts: deleted after 7 days.
Fingerprints for the duplicate check: deleted after 90 days.
Sign in protection counts: deleted after 24 hours.
Daily results on the standings: deleted after 60 days, or at once when you leave the standings or delete your account.
Your standings entry (streak and totals): until you leave the standings or delete your account.
Posts, comments, bug reports and vote totals: they stay on the website while it runs, unless a moderator removes them or you ask us to.
Removed posts, comments and bug reports, bans and the moderation log: as long as we need them to handle appeals and keep the community safe.
Emails you send us: as long as we need them to help you.
Technical logs at Vercel: a short time, set by our hosting plan.

A cleanup runs once a day, so a record can stay up to one day longer than the time shown.

Delete your account

You can delete your account yourself. Sign in, open your account page and choose Delete account. It happens at once and cannot be undone. If your account has a posting ban, email us instead and we will delete it for you. We remove:

your link to Google or Discord, your sign in keys and your sessions
your email address
your username and your countryball
your votes
your Countryball of the day standings entry: daily results, streak and totals
the reports you sent about other players' posts and comments

What stays:

Your posts, comments and bug reports stay, so conversations still make sense. They show as "Deleted player" with the default countryball. If you want any of them removed too, email us before you delete your account, because afterwards we cannot tell they were yours.
Moderation records: a ban and its reason, and the log of what moderators did.

Because we remove your email address, we cannot link a new account to your old one. If you sign in again later, you start with a fresh account. If you were signed in on another device, it can look signed in for up to five minutes, but it can no longer post or change anything.

You can also ask us to delete your account by emailing contact@shngames.com from the email address you sign in with. We reply within 30 days.

Deleting your website account does not delete your game accounts. Each game's privacy policy explains how to delete those.

Children and teens

You must be 13 or older to sign in and have an account.
If the law where you live says you must be older to agree to this on your own, you need a parent or guardian's permission before you sign in.
Anyone can read the website without an account.
We never ask for your age, address, phone number or school. Please do not post them, or anything else that shows who you are in real life.
If you are a parent or guardian and think a child under 13 has an account, email us at contact@shngames.com and we will delete it.

Your rights

You can change your username and countryball, leave the standings, and delete your account, yourself on your account page. Under data protection laws such as the GDPR, you also have the right to:

Access: get a copy of the information we hold about you.
Correction: have wrong information fixed.
Deletion: have your information deleted.
Restriction: ask us to limit how we use your information.
Objection: object to how we use your information, for example for abuse protection.
Portability: get your information in a format a computer can read.

To use any of these rights, email contact@shngames.com from the email address you sign in with, so we can check the account is yours. We reply within 30 days.

If you live in Turkey, the Law on the Protection of Personal Data (KVKK, Law No. 6698) gives you similar rights, such as to learn whether and why we use your information, to ask for it to be corrected or deleted, and to object. You can use them the same way.

If you are not happy with our answer, you can complain to the data protection authority where you live.

Keeping your information safe

The whole website uses secure connections (HTTPS). Sign in cookies cannot be read by scripts on the page, and network addresses kept for posting limits are stored scrambled. No system is perfectly safe, but we work to protect your information.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we update the date at the top of this page.

Contact us

For questions about this policy or your information, email:

Email: contact@shngames.com