Privacy Policy
This policy covers the mobile game Vyapari — Global Trader ("the game"), published by Vikramshila Softwares ("we", "us"). It describes what the game collects, why, who else sees it, and how to have it removed.
The short version. You can play the whole game without giving us anything. There is no sign-up, no email address and no password. If you play online, the display name you choose and the moves you make are sent to our servers so the other players at your table can see them. The game also reports anonymous usage data — which board, how long a game ran — and Google serves the ads and collects device information of its own. Both wait until you have answered the consent form where one is required.
What the game collects
Kept on your device only
These never leave your phone. We cannot see them, and uninstalling the game deletes them.
- Your display name and chosen avatar.
- Your preferred board country, turn length and starting capital.
- Sound, music and vibration settings.
- The last room code you joined.
- How many games you have played and won.
- A random identifier generated on this device, used to tell your seat apart from the others in a game. It is not derived from anything about you or your hardware.
Sent to our servers when you play online
Only when you use Play Online. Pass-and-play games never leave the device.
- An anonymous account identifier. The game signs in to Firebase anonymously. This produces a random ID and nothing else — no email address, no password, no phone number, no social account, and no link to any other app you use.
- Your display name and avatar, so the other players at the table know whose turn it is. Anyone in the room can see them, so please do not use your full legal name or anything you would not want a stranger to read.
- Room details: the six-character room code, which seat you took, whether you are the host, whether the room is public or private, and the board and rules chosen for it.
- Live game state: token positions, cash, deeds, buildings, dice rolls, trades and the in-game activity log.
- Connection status: whether your device is currently connected and how long it is taking to respond, so the game can pass the turn on when somebody drops out.
How the game is used
The game reports a small amount of anonymous usage data through Google Analytics for Firebase, so we can see which boards people play and where games are abandoned. It is switched off until you have answered the consent form, and it is off entirely in development builds.
What is sent:
- A game started: which country's board, how many seats, how many of them were bots, and whether it was online or pass-and-play.
- A game finished: the same, plus how many turns it ran.
- A board was chosen in Settings.
- Which screens were opened, and the standard measures Firebase collects for any app: an app instance identifier, device model, operating-system version, country, and rough session length.
No display name, no room code and no anonymous account id is ever attached to any of this, so what we see is how the game is played, not who played it.
Collected by Google for advertising
The game shows banner, full-screen and opt-in rewarded ads through Google AdMob. To do that, Google collects information directly from your device — typically your advertising identifier, IP address, device and operating-system details, and which ads you were shown or interacted with. That collection is Google's, not ours: we never receive it, and we cannot see who was shown what.
Google explains this at How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services, and its own terms are at policies.google.com/privacy.
What the game does not collect
The game asks for no runtime permissions and contains no crash-reporting toolkit. Specifically, it does not collect:
- your name, email address, phone number or postal address;
- your location, at any precision;
- your contacts, calendar, photos, camera, microphone or files;
- a list of the other apps on your device;
- session recordings, screen recordings or crash reports.
We do not sell your information, and we do not buy any.
Why we hold it
| What | Why | Basis (UK/EEA) |
|---|---|---|
| Anonymous ID, display name, room and game state | To run a multiplayer game you asked to join | Performance of a contract |
| Connection status | To pass the turn on when a player drops out, so a table is not stuck | Legitimate interests |
| Anonymous usage data | To see which boards are played and where games are abandoned | Your consent, asked for on first run where it is required |
| Advertising identifiers (by Google) | To fund a game that is free to play | Your consent, asked for on first run where it is required |
Who else sees it
- Other players in your room. Your display name, avatar and every move you make.
- Google. Firebase Authentication, Cloud Firestore and Realtime Database host the online game on our behalf; Google Analytics for Firebase measures how the game is used; Google AdMob serves the ads. Google's servers include locations in the United States, so playing online involves an international transfer of the data listed above.
Nobody else. We do not share your information with advertisers, data brokers or analytics companies, and we would only disclose it to authorities if the law obliged us to.
How long we keep it
- Live game state — positions, cash, deeds, the activity log — is deleted from our servers when the game ends or the room is closed.
- Room records — the room code, its settings, and the display names and anonymous IDs of the people who sat at it — are deleted automatically 30 days after the last activity in that room. Every move in a room pushes that date back, so a game you are still playing is never deleted underneath you. You can also ask us to delete them sooner; see below.
- Usage data is kept by Google for 2 months and then deleted automatically.
- Anything held on your device is removed when you uninstall the game.
Deleting your data
There is no account to close, because there is no account. To have the room records associated with you removed from our servers, email vikramshilasoftwares@gmail.com with:
- the display name you played under, and
- any room codes you remember, or roughly when you played. The game shows the last room code you joined on the Play Online screen.
We will delete what we can identify as yours within 30 days and confirm when it is done. Because the identifier is anonymous, we may not be able to find records for a display name that several people have used — in that case we will tell you rather than delete somebody else's.
To clear everything held on the device itself, uninstall the game, or use your system settings to clear its storage.
Your choices over ads
If you are in the UK or the European Economic Area, the game asks for your consent the first time you open it, through Google's own consent form. Nothing is requested from an ad network until you have answered it, and answering "no" simply means no ads rather than a limited game. Your answer covers usage measurement as well as advertising: decline and neither runs. You can change it at any time under Settings → Privacy → Ad privacy options.
Wherever you are, you can also limit ad personalisation on the device:
- Android: Settings → Google → Ads → Delete advertising ID, or turn on Opt out of Ads Personalisation.
- iOS: Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking, and turn off Allow Apps to Request to Track.
You will still see ads; they will just be less closely targeted. Rewarded ads are always optional — nothing in the game is locked behind one.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask what we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to object to how we use it, or to receive a copy. Email vikramshilasoftwares@gmail.com and we will answer within 30 days. If you are in the UK or the EEA and are not satisfied, you may complain to your national data protection authority.
Children
The game is not directed at children under 13 (or under 16 in the EEA), and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has provided information through the game, email us and we will remove it. Because display names are visible to strangers in public rooms, we suggest younger players use private rooms with people they know.
Security
Traffic between the game and our servers is encrypted in transit, and access to the multiplayer database is restricted by server-side rules so that a player can only read and write the room they are in. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee that a determined attacker would never get through.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes we will update the date at the top of this page and, where the change is significant, say so in the game before it takes effect. This page is the current version.
Contact
Vikramshila Softwares
vikramshilasoftwares@gmail.com
