Privacy Policy

1.Privacy at a glance

2.Who we are and how to contact us

Gamer Guides Ltd (“Gamer Guides”, “we”, “us”, “our”) operates the website at gamerguides.com (the “Site”) and is the data controller for the personal data described here.

For any privacy question or to exercise your rights, contact us at [email protected].

This policy is written to meet the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018, the EU GDPR, and to give users in the United States (including California's CCPA and CPRA) and elsewhere the transparency and choices those laws expect.

3.Information we collect

Information you give us

When you create an account: username, email address, a password (which we store only as a secure hash, never in plain text), the country you select, and your confirmation that you are at least 13 years old.

If you sign in with Google: we receive your Google account ID, email address, and display name from Google to create or match your account. We do not receive your Google password.

Optional profile information (you choose whether to add any of this): real name, date of birth (only stored if it confirms you are 13 or older), gender, pronouns, gaming-platform usernames or IDs you choose to list (for example PlayStation Network, Xbox, Steam, Nintendo, Discord, YouTube, Twitch), your preferred platforms and “gamer type”, games you are currently playing, a profile picture and a “setup” image, and short profile blurbs. You control whether your gender, age and pronouns are shown publicly.

Accounts and community: comments, guide reviews and star ratings, bookmarks, friend and follow relationships, and (for contributors) guide and map content. Comments, reviews and public profile fields are visible to other users.

Purchases and Premium: when you buy Premium, your billing details are collected and processed by Stripe. We receive and store a Stripe customer or subscription reference and your subscription status, but not your card number. Stripe holds that.

When you contact us or subscribe: the message and any attachment you send via the contact form, and (if you sign up to our newsletter without an account) your email address.

Information we collect automatically

• Technical and security data: your IP address at the point of registration, and IP address plus browser and user-agent for security-relevant events (for example, administrative actions and contact-form submissions). We use this to run the Site, prevent abuse, and keep accounts secure.
• Cookies and similar technologies: see the cookies section below.

Anti-spam

When you post a comment, the comment text and related technical data (such as your IP address and user-agent) are checked by Akismet to detect spam.

4.How and why we use your information

The table below summarises the main ways we use personal information and the lawful basis for each. The exact lawful bases and retention periods are kept under review and may be refined.

You can withdraw any consent at any time. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing before you withdrew it.

5.Emails and marketing

We send service emails that are needed to run your account, such as email verification, password resets and important notices.

We also offer optional emails, such as notifications about replies to your comments, friend activity, and our newsletter. You can turn each of these on or off from your account settings, and every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link. If you signed up to the newsletter without an account, the email includes its own unsubscribe link.

6.Cookies, analytics and similar technologies

We and our partners use cookies and similar technologies (including web storage, tags and pixels). They fall into these groups:

• Strictly necessary: a session cookie (prs_session) that keeps you logged in and the Site working. These cannot be switched off.
• Preferences: remembering choices such as dark or light theme.
• Analytics and statistics: Google Analytics 4 and GoSquared (which anonymises IP addresses), used in aggregate to understand how the Site is used.
• Advertising and personalisation: Mediavine and the audience-measurement service Quantcast, to select, deliver and measure ads (see the advertising section below).
• Security and fraud prevention: Cloudflare Turnstile, to tell humans from bots on forms.

You can change your choices at any time on our Cookie Policy page, using the Manage cookie preferences control there, and you can block or clear cookies in your browser. Non-essential cookies (analytics and advertising) are used in line with your consent where the law requires it.

For the full list of the cookies and services we use, see our Cookie Policy.

7.Advertising and Mediavine

Advertising on Gamer Guides is managed by Mediavine. Advertising services may use cookies and similar technologies to select, deliver and measure advertisements, depending on your location and your privacy choices. Opting out does not remove ads; you will still see non-personalised ads.

Manage advertising preferences

Advertising in our mobile apps

Advertising in the Gamer Guides apps for iOS and Android is served by Google AdMob rather than Mediavine. When you use the free tier of an app, the AdMob software inside it sends Google your device's advertising identifier, your IP address and basic device information (such as the model, operating system version and language) so that Google can select, deliver and measure ads. Google may infer an approximate location from your IP address for the same purpose. We do not send Google your name, email address or anything else about your Gamer Guides account.

If your account is ad-free, the app never starts the advertising software, so none of this information is sent. Where the law requires it, the app asks for your consent before it requests any ads, and on iOS Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt controls whether the advertising identifier is shared at all. You can reset or delete the advertising identifier and opt out of personalised advertising in your device's settings. Opting out does not remove ads; you will still see non-personalised ads. Google explains what it does with this information at How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.

8.Who we share your information with

We do not sell your personal data. We share it only with service providers who help us run the Site, and only as needed:

• Stripe for payment processing and subscription billing.
• SendGrid (Twilio) for sending account and notification emails.
• Google for sign-in (if you use it), Google Analytics, and advertising in our mobile apps through AdMob.
• GoSquared, Quantcast, Mediavine for analytics and advertising.
• Akismet (Automattic) for spam checking of comments.
• Cloudflare Turnstile for bot and abuse protection on forms.
• Amazon Web Services (S3) for media and backup storage.
• DocRaptor for generating downloadable PDF guides. To protect against piracy, generated PDFs contain an identifier linked to the account that requested them.

We may also disclose data where required by law, to enforce our terms, or to protect the rights, safety and property of our users or us. Game-data providers (such as IGDB, Steam, PlayStation and Xbox services) are used to fetch public game and trophy information; we do not send your personal data to them.

9.International data transfers

Gamer Guides Ltd is based in the United Kingdom and the Site is hosted in the European Union (Germany). Some of our service providers (for example Stripe, SendGrid, Google, AWS, DocRaptor and our advertising partners) are based in or transfer data to the United States or other countries. Where we transfer personal data outside the UK or EEA, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or the providers' certification under the EU to US and UK to US Data Privacy Framework.

10.How long we keep your information

• Account and profile data: for as long as your account is open. When you delete your account we anonymise it.
• Billing records: retained for as long as required for tax and accounting law (in the UK, generally six years).
• Security and technical logs: kept only as long as needed for security and abuse-prevention, then deleted or anonymised.
• Analytics data: kept according to the provider's settings (Google Analytics' default retention is 14 months).
• Backups: rotated and overwritten on a regular cycle.

11.Children and young people

The Site is not intended for children under 13, and you must confirm you are 13 or older to register. We ask for a date of birth only as an optional profile field, and we store it only if it confirms you are 13 or older.

If you are a young user: the profile fields you fill in (such as username, and gender, age or pronouns if you choose to show them) can be visible to other users, so think before you share. You can delete your account at any time from your account settings, and you can report a problem to us at [email protected]. A parent or guardian can also contact us at that address. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13; if you believe a child under 13 has given us personal data, contact us and we will delete it.

12.Your privacy rights

Depending on where you live (including under the UK and EU GDPR, and California's CCPA and CPRA), you may have the right to:

• Access your personal information
• Correct inaccurate information
• Request deletion
• Restrict or object to certain uses
• Receive portable information
• Withdraw consent
• Opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information

You can do much of this yourself in your account settings (edit your details, manage email preferences, delete your account). For anything else, email [email protected] with your request and we will respond within the time the law allows (normally one month). We do not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

13.How to make a privacy complaint

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, you can make a data-protection complaint. This is different from a general support question: a privacy complaint is about how your personal data has been collected, used or shared.

To complain, email [email protected] with the subject “Privacy complaint” and tell us what happened, the account or email involved, and what you would like us to do. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days and respond without undue delay.

You also have the right to complain to a data-protection regulator. In the UK that is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), at ico.org.uk. In the EU you may complain to your local supervisory authority. We would, however, appreciate the chance to address your concern first.

14.How we protect your information

We protect your data with appropriate technical and organisational measures. Passwords are stored only as secure hashes. Card payments are handled entirely by Stripe and never reach our servers. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to keep your data safe and will notify you and the relevant regulator of a personal-data breach where the law requires.

15.Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We will post the updated version here and change the “Last updated” date and version above. Significant changes will be highlighted where appropriate.