Privacy

The short version

• Walking around the village sends nothing about you anywhere, except a visit count, and not even that if your browser asks not to be tracked.
• If you leave a name or email at the pier, I keep it.
• If you sign in, I keep your email and your progress.
• If you chat, I keep your questions and the answers. Anthropic's Claude writes the answers.
• I never sell any of it or use it for ads.

The pier form

If you leave a name or email on the short form at the pier, the site keeps it with the time, the look you picked, your answer, and the page or campaign link that brought you here. I keep it so I can write to you personally if you left an email. Only I see it, and it never goes on a mailing list. It stays until you ask me to remove it.

Your account

If you sign in, I keep your email, your game progress, and the date you signed up. Your progress is the same save your browser keeps; the server copy leaves out the name and email you typed at the pier unless you left that email under the consent line. If I made you a personal link, I also keep your name, the letter, and the date you first opened it. A sign-in link works once and is erased when you use it, or after 15 minutes. All of it stays until you delete your account.

Chat with Rob

Chat is an AI that speaks for me. When you ask something, your question, your last ten questions and answers, and a note on where you are in the story go to Anthropic, whose Claude model writes the answer. Your email never goes with it. Anthropic deletes what it gets within 30 days unless a question breaks its rules, and it doesn't train its models on it.

I keep your questions and the answers under your account so Chat remembers you, and I read them. Each morning I get an email with the day's chats and the email of whoever asked, and a Claude model reads them first to flag weak answers. Those emails stay in my inbox. Your chats stay in the site's database until you delete your account.

Visit counting

Cloudflare Web Analytics counts page views: which page, where the visit came from, and the kind of browser. It sets no cookie and doesn't follow you to other sites. If your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control, the site doesn't count you at all. That's how this site answers Do Not Track.

The bot check

When you ask for a sign-in link, Cloudflare Turnstile checks that you're a person. It looks at your browser and your connection, not at your email. Cloudflare explains it in its Turnstile privacy addendum: https://www.cloudflare.com/turnstile-privacy-policy/

Who else handles it

• Cloudflare hosts the site and the database, counts visits, and runs the bot check.
• Resend sends the sign-in email and keeps a log of it for 30 days.
• Anthropic writes Chat's answers.
• Google runs my email, where the daily chat email lands.

All of them are in the United States, and each works under its own data protection terms. When you use this site from the EU or UK, your information goes to the United States.

Cookies and storage

The site sets one cookie, and only if you sign in: __Host-village, which keeps you signed in on that device for 180 days or until you sign out. Your browser also keeps your game save, your settings, a note that you're signed in, and a few small game flags. Each one is there for something you chose to do, so there's no cookie banner. Clear them any time by clearing this site's data in your browser, or with Clear saved progress in Options.

Seeing, fixing and deleting

• Delete my account (Options, Keep your place) erases your email, your progress, your chats, and anything you left at the pier with that email, at once.
• Delete my link (on your letter) does the same for a personal link.
• Clear saved progress (Options) clears the save in your browser.
• For anything else, like a copy of what I keep or removing a pier form entry, write to me. I'll answer within 30 days.

Deleted information can sit in the database's backups for up to 30 days before it's gone for good.

If you're in the EU or the UK, the law gives you these rights, and I rely on your consent for the pier email, on giving you what you asked for when you sign in or chat, and on keeping the site working and free of bots for the visit count and the bot check. You can also complain to your data protection authority.

Children

The village is open to anyone, but it isn't meant for children under 13. The pier form and accounts are for 16 and up, and Chat is for 18 and up. If I learn that a child under 13 left something here, I delete it.

Changes

When this page changes, the date at the top changes. If something big changes, I'll say so here.