Privacy statement

This is a translation. The German version is the authoritative one - if the two differ, the text at the German privacy statement applies. German legal terms are kept as they are, because they name provisions of German law rather than concepts that translate.

Last updated: 27 September 2026

1. Controller

Johnna Golly, Golly Softwareentwicklung
Wentruper Weg 17, 48268 Greven, Germany
Phone: +49 151 18695357
E-mail: info@golly-software.de

Full provider details are in the imprint. No data protection officer is appointed; the legal conditions for that are not met.

WordSprig itself makes no automated decisions in individual cases and does no profiling. Where advertising is personalised, Google may process data to personalise it; see section 12.

2. The short version

WordSprig is playable without an account, without an e-mail address and without giving any personal data. There is no personal sign-up, no age gate and no link to social networks.

When the pages load, nothing is fetched from other servers, with one exception - no web fonts, no analytics, no captcha, no maps, no video embeds and no content from social networks. The fonts are the ones on your operating system; images, the game's scripts and the music tracks from section 3 come from the same server as the page. The exception is Google's base advertising script (section 12), and it is not loaded everywhere:

• The game and the rules load it on every visit. Google thereby receives your IP address and, as the referrer, the address of the website (section 12).
• The imprint and this privacy statement do not load it. Opening these two pages sends no request to Google. Anyone who wants to read how their data is handled should be able to do so without a third party learning that they are doing it.

Advertising: WordSprig embeds Google AdSense as its advertising service. No ads are served today. Personalised advertising and access to your device's storage for advertising purposes happen only with your consent; details, legal basis and withdrawal in section 12.

WordSprig itself sets no cookies. What WordSprig stores in your browser is listed in section 3 and is required to run the game. For advertising purposes, Google sets cookies or comparable storage techniques only after your consent, which Google's consent dialog asks you for on your first visit. The dialog itself may store technically necessary information in your browser to manage your decision (section 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG).

3. Visiting the site

Server-side logs

The pages and the game interface run on a rented server in Germany (Hetzner Online GmbH, a processor).

Your IP address is processed technically - there is no way around that. Without it no server could send you a page: it is the return address of every connection, it passes through the web server and the application, and it sits in memory for as long as the connection lasts. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (DSGVO); the legitimate interest is running the service securely.

It is not stored. That is the distinction that matters, and it has been measured:

• The web server in front discards this site's access log entirely - no line comes into being carrying your address, your request or your browser's identifier.
• For operational messages that arise alongside (renewing the encryption certificate, for instance), address, user agent and headers are removed before the entry is written. What remains is deleted after seven days.
• The application puts your address nowhere, does not evaluate it and links it to no game; nor does it log which address was requested. Its own messages record operation - that a clean-up pass ran, say - and contain nothing about individual visitors.
• If the server computes a different score for an online move than the browser reported, the application writes the language of the match and the two numbers to its operational log. The entry contains no identifier that can be linked to a match or a person - no match or player id, no name, no address, no words. Its only purpose is to notice when browser and server calculate differently.

What cannot be ruled out is stated here too: at the level of the data centre and the network connection, connection data arises that serves operation and defence against interference. The operator has no access to it.

Local settings and state

WordSprig stores the following in your browser (Web Storage, no cookies):

WordSprig follows your system setting for light or dark. There is no colour scheme choice of its own, and nothing is stored for it.

The music tracks themselves are public-domain or expressly licensed recordings of classical music, stored locally on the same server as the page. Sources and licence records are listed in the game under “Music & Credits”.

These entries stay in your browser. They are not sent to the server, except the key from the first two rows, which accompanies every request to the game interface as an X-Device-Key header - and your browser makes such requests only for online duels (section 4).

They need no consent under section 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG because they are strictly necessary for the service you asked for: no key, no match; no setting, no screen that looks the way you left it.

What Google's consent dialog and - after your consent - Google itself store in your browser is not part of this table; it is described in section 12.

4. Session key during a match

On your first visit your browser generates a random string. It contains nothing about you, is not derived from your device and cannot be joined to any other source.

While you play against the computer, two players on one device or one of the extra games, the server learns nothing of it - not even the key, and no record comes into being there. The server creates a record only once you choose “Allow resuming on this device” for an online duel (section 5) and create or accept a duel. If a persistent key is already in your browser, the page asks the server once on loading whether it still counts as saved there. Merely opening an invitation link creates no record.

Someone who only plays is not recognised again. The key lives in your browser session and ends with it; a later visit is somebody else as far as the server is concerned. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR - without this the game could not be played.

5. A persistent key - only if you ask for one

An online duel over an invitation link needs a persistent key: otherwise your opponent is playing against somebody who ceases to exist when a tab closes. Only when you choose “Allow resuming on this device” does the same key move from the session into persistent storage. Right before that button, a short note says who is responsible, what the key is for, which data belong to it and that you can withdraw at any time, with a link to this statement.

The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR (consent), and for storing it on your device section 25(1) TDDDG.

You can withdraw that consent at any time: “Stop resuming on this device” sits in the same place in the game where saving was turned on. Withdrawing takes back exactly that one decision - on the server your key counts as not saved again (and so falls under the 24-hour period from section 10), and in the browser the key is kept only for the running session. Your name, your finished matches and the running session are untouched.

Withdrawal takes effect immediately, even during a running online duel. The duel is neither ended nor resigned: you finish it in the open tab using the session key (section 4). Once you close the tab, WordSprig no longer recognises you, and the match ends in the ordinary way when your time for a move runs out. Open invitations that nobody has answered yet are withdrawn and deleted along with it (section 9); WordSprig asks before doing so.

Clearing the site data in your browser removes only what sits in your browser. It does not replace the withdrawal above: the server would still consider your key saved, and its row would remain. Use the button for the withdrawal.

The deletion of the data held on the server (your record and your invitation links) is a separate, third act: you can ask for it at any time - section 13 says how, and section 10 what is removed.

And a fourth act runs without you: twelve months without activity, and the record is deleted. While the key is stored, the server notes the day of your last visit with it - the day only, no time. If there is no activity for twelve months, your record is deleted together with the name and every entry about your duels. Activity means any request to WordSprig carrying this key and, for online duels, the creation, the acceptance, every move and the end - and likewise everything the same key did on striduel (section 8): the record is one, and it is not deleted for silence in one of the two games while it is active in the other.

6. Game data

Against the computer, two players on one device, and the extra games

These games run entirely in the browser. Board, letters, bag, score and word checking are computed on the device; that includes the extra games (Letter Salad, Word Ladder, Word Duel, Category Blitz, Secret Word). The server learns nothing about them and stores nothing.

Online duels over an invitation link

An online duel is run on the server, because otherwise every browser would know the opponent's letters. Stored per match:

• a match id and a random invitation token,
• references to the two players and their names at the time of the match,
• the match language and the seed the letters were drawn from,
• the status of the match, whose turn it is and until when,
• the public state of the board,
• the private racks of both players and the bag including its order,
• the list of moves: tiles placed with their squares, tiles exchanged, passes, resignations,
• the score of a move as the server computes it from the board (what the browser reports is only compared, not stored),
• the times of creation, joining and ending, and the outcome with its reason (rules, resignation, time).

Each player receives only their own view. The opponent's rack and the bag reach your browser as a count, never as contents. That is not a promise about good behaviour but the shape of the interface: there is no request that hands out the full state of a match.

The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR. Without this data there is no duel.

Live updates

While a duel runs, your browser holds an open connection over which it learns that something has changed. All that travels is a short wake-up - status, how many moves have been made, and whose turn it is. No board, no letters, no bag; your browser then fetches its own view. If the connection cannot be established it asks again every few seconds instead.

A dropped connection is not stored and ends no match. There is exactly one binding deadline, and that is the 120-second turn clock of whoever is to play. Somebody who is waiting loses nothing if their connection drops.

7. Player name

Every player is given an automatic display name from fixed word lists (for example “SilberFuchs598”). It is derived from the random key, contains nothing about you, and two players can end up with the same one. WordSprig has no self-chosen player names.

In a duel your opponent sees your name. It is written into the match record at the time of the match, so the match stays a record belonging to both of you even if one of you later deletes their data; a placeholder then takes the place of the name.

8. A shared server with striduel

WordSprig and striduel come from the same operator and share a server and a database. It matters not to read that as more than it is:

• Game histories are not merged. No cross-product profile is built. Your WordSprig matches are their own records, and no evaluation places your matches beside your striduel runs.
• Counted together, not linked. The player rows of both products sit in the same table, and the operator's figures count them together: how many player rows exist, how many are new and how many have a persistent key. They are sums, not profiles - your matches do not appear in them.
• Your display name reserves nothing. It is generated, and in WordSprig you do not choose one. Names chosen in striduel, by contrast, are unique across the server; the interface shows that such a name is taken, not where. The backfill that reserves changed striduel names leaves WordSprig names alone, because they are generated.

Your browser does not carry you from one domain to the other. WordSprig runs on wordsprig.com, striduel on its own domain; browser storage is per domain. Visiting both means being two different people to begin with. A feature that deliberately transfers an identity from one domain to the other does not exist; were it built, it would be described here first.

9. Invitation links

Whoever starts an online duel gets a link with a random token. The link is the credential: whoever holds it can join the match. That is why it works exactly once - as soon as somebody has joined, the server refuses every further attempt. At most five invitations may be open at the same time.

You can withdraw an invitation as long as nobody has joined: with “Withdraw invitation” on the invitation screen, which you can also reach later from the list of your duels. The row is deleted at once, and the link leads nowhere. Withdrawing the saving (section 5) withdraws all open invitations as well.

Watching via the link: once somebody has joined, the same link no longer lets anyone play, but it does let them read the wake-up from section 6 - whoever knows the link and the match id learns the status, the number of moves and whose turn it is, but not the board or the letters. The same message says how many are watching; nothing about watchers is stored, and they need no record.

Whoever sends the link decides who gets it. WordSprig does not know how you passed it on; the recipient learns your name and the match language from it.

10. Retention and deletion

The 30 days count from the end of the match and not from its start: while it is being played, storing it is necessary to play it. A waiting invitation counts as activity - somebody who sent a link and is waiting for it to be accepted is not inactive. So is a running online duel, even after a withdrawal: the 24 hours for a player without a persistent key then run from the end of the match.

You can ask for your data to be deleted at any time (section 13). The server then removes your record and your invitation links; running duels are closed, and in shared records a placeholder takes the place of your name. The detail of finished matches still falls 30 days after they end. There is no button for it in WordSprig at present.

11. Recipients

Your data is not sold. Two recipients are processors under Art. 28 GDPR:

• Hetzner Online GmbH, Industriestraße 25, 91710 Gunzenhausen - server and data centre in Germany. Database backups are also at Hetzner, in a second German data centre, under the same contract.
• IONOS SE, Elgendorfer Str. 57, 56410 Montabaur - the operator's e-mail mailbox, which means only if you send an e-mail there.

Both may engage further processors, who are contractually bound to the same level of protection. With these two providers, processing takes place exclusively within the European Economic Area.

For the base advertising script (section 12), Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland, receives the data arising from the request (IP address, technical request details, referrer) and - after your consent - the data Google collects in your browser for advertising purposes. This may involve a transfer to Google LLC in the USA, that is, to a third country. Google is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework; for companies certified under it, the European Commission has found an adequate level of protection (Art. 45 GDPR).

Beyond that, the person you give an invitation link to sees the details of that one match - your player name, the course of play and the turn times. That is what the link is for.

12. Advertising

WordSprig embeds Google AdSense as its advertising service. The provider is Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland (section 11).

No ads are served today. The pages contain reserved, empty spaces - at the end of a match and below the rules - but no ad unit. Only the base script is embedded.

What happens on loading, even before any consent: the AdSense base script (adsbygoogle.js) is loaded from pagead2.googlesyndication.com when you open the game or the rules. Google thereby receives your IP address, the usual technical details of a request (browser, time, requested address) and, as the referrer, only the address of the website (https://wordsprig.com) - not the page you are on, and no invitation link. This is technically necessary because this script delivers the consent dialog - a dialog that was only loaded after consent could never appear.

Consent: on your first visit, Google's consent dialog asks whether Google may use cookies or comparable storage techniques for advertising purposes and personalise ads. That happens only with your consent. If you decline or close the dialog, WordSprig remains fully playable.

The legal basis for technically embedding the base script is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR - the legitimate interest in providing the service funded by advertising, together with the consent management that requires. For personalised advertising and for cookies and comparable access to your device for advertising purposes it is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, section 25(1) TDDDG).

Withdrawal: you can withdraw your consent or change your choice at any time with effect for the future (Art. 7(3) GDPR). For this, the footer of WordSprig's start page carries “Ad settings”, which reopens Google's dialog; it appears as soon as Google's consent management has loaded. Deleting the site data of wordsprig.com in your browser works too: the dialog asks again on your next visit. Note that this also removes a persistent key from section 5 from your browser.

Further information from Google: the Google privacy policy and the description of how Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services.

No analytics, no ranking

WordSprig embeds no analytics service and measures no behaviour for marketing. There is no leaderboard, no rating number and no public best-of list.

13. Your rights

You have the right of access (Art. 15 GDPR), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18), data portability (Art. 20) and withdrawal of consent (Art. 7(3)). How to withdraw consent to advertising is described in section 12; saving on this device is taken back as described in section 5.

Access from within the game: on the setup screen, “Show my data” lists everything the server holds for the key in your browser - your display name, your online duels and, should the same key have played there, your runs on striduel too (section 8) - and offers it as a file to download. No e-mail is needed, and the key does not leave your browser for it: it appears in no address and not in the file. If nothing is stored for this device, the access says exactly that.

For erasure and the other rights, write an e-mail to info@golly-software.de (see the imprint) and say what you would like. The same e-mail is the fallback for access when the game is out of your reach.

Do not send your device key. We never ask for it; a key in an e-mail would be a credential nobody should need. So that we can still find your record, please tell us the display name you played under, together with the approximate date and time of your online duels and, if you have it, the invitation link. Without these, no record can be attributed to you - we then cannot hand anything over or delete anything, because we do not know which record would be yours. Games against the computer, two players on one device and the extra games leave nothing on the server anyway (section 6).

If you lose access to the browser - a new device, cleared site data, another browser - nobody can attribute the record to your device any more, ourselves included. It then remains for at most twelve months after the last activity and is deleted by itself afterwards (section 5). We arrange an earlier deletion when the display name and the period identify the record unambiguously.

14. Right to object

Where processing rests on Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (sections 3 and 12), you may object on grounds relating to your particular situation.

15. Right to complain

You may complain to a data protection supervisory authority. The competent one is the Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen, Postfach 20 04 44, 40102 Düsseldorf, phone +49 211 38424-0.

16. Changes

This statement is changed when the product changes - in the same step, not the next one. The date at the top says when it last agreed with the state of the code.