Privacy Policy — Color Water Sort: Tube Puzzle
Privacy Policy — Color Water Sort: Tube Puzzle
1. Summary
Color Water Sort: Tube Puzzle has no accounts, no sign-up and no login. We never ask you for your name, email address, phone number, contacts, photos, location or any other personal identifier, and we do not sell or rent any data about you to anyone.
To run leaderboards, the app creates a random ID and a random nickname for your device and sends your puzzle results to our server. Neither is linked to you as a person — we have no way to tell who you are.
The app also uses a small number of standard Google services (ads, analytics, crash reporting, notifications, purchases). Those services automatically collect limited technical and usage information. This policy explains exactly what, and why.
2. Information we collect ourselves
Stays on your device only: your level progress, star ratings, unlocked skins, booster counts, settings (sound, music, haptics, reduced motion), your daily-challenge streak, and the record of which hours you tend to open the app — which the app uses to time an optional daily reminder without any of it leaving the device. All of this uses Android's local storage and is deleted when you uninstall the app.
Sent to our server (see section 4 for how it is used):
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| A random player ID, generated on your device on first launch | To keep your leaderboard entries together across sessions |
| A random nickname (for example, "K3P9XQ") that we generate — never chosen or typed by you | So leaderboards have something to display |
| Puzzle results: how long a level took, the score it earned, and how many hints and lives were used | To rank solve times and show you where you placed |
| Puzzle boards generated by Endless and Daily Challenge modes | So a Daily Challenge is the same puzzle for everyone who plays it that day |
| A push notification token, only if you turn notifications on | To be able to deliver notifications |
This is everything. There is no name, email, phone number, contact list, photo, file or location in that list — the app never asks for any of them.
3. Information collected by third-party services
The app includes the following Google SDKs. Each collects data under its own privacy policy.
3.1 Google AdMob (advertising)
The free version of the app shows ads.
- Collected: Advertising ID (a resettable device identifier), IP address, device model, OS version, coarse location derived from IP, and ad interactions (impressions, clicks, rewarded-ad completions).
- Purpose: To serve and measure ads, and to detect ad fraud.
- Controlled by: Google — see the Google Privacy Policy and the Google Advertising Partner list.
- Your control: Android Settings → Privacy → Ads lets you reset or delete your Advertising ID and opt out of ad personalisation. If you delete the Advertising ID you will still see ads, but they will not be personalised.
3.2 Google Firebase Analytics
- Collected: A randomly generated app instance ID, in-app events (level started, level completed, booster used, ad watched, store screen opened), device model, OS version, app version, language, and country derived from IP.
- Purpose: To understand which levels are too hard, where players stop playing, and which features are used — so we can improve the game.
- Not collected: Your name, email, phone number, contacts or precise location.
- Controlled by: Google — see Firebase Privacy and Security.
3.3 Google Firebase Crashlytics
- Collected: Crash and error reports containing the stack trace, device model, OS version, app version, and device state at the moment of the crash (for example, available memory).
- Purpose: To find and fix crashes.
- Note: Crash reporting is disabled in development builds and enabled only in the released app.
3.4 Firebase Cloud Messaging (notifications)
- Collected: A device push token, used to deliver notifications. The token is sent to Google and to our own server, and only if you turn notifications on. If you never turn them on, no token is ever fetched or sent.
- Purpose: To make it possible to send you notifications about the game — for example, a reminder that today's Daily Challenge is still unsolved.
- Interest groups: If you turn notifications on, the app subscribes your device to broadcast groups based on what you play (for example, "plays Daily Challenge"). These are anonymous group memberships held by Google's messaging service; they let us send a message to everyone in a group without us storing anything about who is in it.
- Your control: Notifications are opt-in on Android 13 and newer. You can turn them off at any time in Android Settings → Apps → Color Water Sort → Notifications.
3.4a Daily reminders — scheduled on your device
The daily reminder is not sent from our server. Your device decides on its own whether and when to show it, using information that never leaves your phone: whether you have played today's puzzle, your streak, and the hours you usually open the app. We receive nothing about when you play or whether you saw a reminder.
The app limits itself to at most one reminder per day, sends none if you have already opened today's puzzle, and stays quiet if you have used the app in the last three quarters of an hour. If you stop playing altogether, it sends a single reminder and then stays silent for a week.
3.5 Google Play In-App Review
The app may ask you to rate it using Google's official in-app review dialog. Your review is submitted to Google Play, not to us.
4. Our own game server
Our server does two things: it sends puzzle content down to the app, and it keeps leaderboards.
Downloads. The app fetches level content so new puzzles can be added without a full app update. These requests are authenticated with a static app key, not a user identity, and carry no information about you.
Uploads. When you finish a level, the app sends the random player ID and nickname from section 2 along with your result (time taken, score, hints and lives used) so the level's leaderboard and the overall ranking can be built. Failed attempts are also recorded, without a score, so we can tell which levels are unfairly hard. Boards generated by Endless and Daily Challenge are uploaded when they are created, so that everyone playing a given day's Daily Challenge plays the identical puzzle and can be ranked against each other.
What this means in practice. The player ID is a random value created on your device — not your Android ID, not your Advertising ID, and not anything Google or we can trace back to you. We hold no name, email or account for you, so a row in our database cannot be connected to a person. Uninstalling the app deletes the ID from your device; a fresh install generates a new one and starts over.
All traffic uses HTTPS. Unencrypted (cleartext) connections are blocked by the app.
5. Permissions the app requests
| Permission | Why |
|---|---|
INTERNET | Load ads and download new level content |
ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE | Detect whether you are online, so the game degrades gracefully offline |
VIBRATE | Haptic feedback on taps and pours (can be turned off in Settings) |
POST_NOTIFICATIONS | Optional gameplay notifications (Android 13+, you are asked first) |
AD_ID | Required by Google Play for apps that serve ads |
The app does not request access to your location, camera, microphone, contacts, files, or phone state.
6. Children
This game is not directed at children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us at raisingphoenix289@gmail.com and we will delete it.
7. Your choices and rights
- Reset or delete your Advertising ID: Android Settings → Privacy → Ads.
- Turn off notifications: Android Settings → Apps → Color Water Sort → Notifications.
- Delete all local data: uninstall the app. All progress, settings and unlocks are removed from your device.
- Delete your leaderboard data: email us at raisingphoenix289@gmail.com with the nickname the game shows you and we will delete the matching leaderboard rows. That nickname is the only handle we hold, so please write from a device that still has the app installed — after uninstalling we have no way to identify which rows were yours.
- Access, correction or deletion requests (GDPR / UK GDPR / CCPA / CPRA): we hold no account and no personal identifier, so we generally cannot link stored data to you as an individual; where you can supply the nickname above, we will act on it as described. For requests concerning data held by Google, please contact Google directly using the links in section 3, or write to us and we will assist where we can.
- Legal basis (EEA/UK): legitimate interest for analytics and crash reporting; consent for personalised advertising, collected through Google's consent form where required.
8. Data retention
- Local game data: stays on your device until you uninstall or clear app data.
- Leaderboard data on our server (random ID, nickname, solve times and scores): kept for as long as the leaderboards exist, or until you ask us to delete it.
- Puzzle boards generated by Endless and Daily Challenge: kept indefinitely. They contain no information about you — only the puzzle layout.
- Push notification token: kept while notifications are enabled; it stops working as soon as you turn notifications off or uninstall.
- Analytics and crash data: retained by Google under Google's retention settings (crash reports up to 90 days).
- Advertising data: retained by Google under Google's own policies.
9. Security
Network traffic uses HTTPS, and cleartext HTTP is disabled at the platform level. The released app is obfuscated and minified. The only data our servers hold is the pseudonymous leaderboard record described in section 4 — no names, no email addresses, no payment details, and nothing that identifies you as a person.
10. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the updated version will be published at this URL with a new effective date. Material changes will also be noted in the app's release notes.