GabbleGames Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-10-18

This policy explains what GabbleGames collects, why, and what you can do about it. It's written in plain English, not legal boilerplate.

Operator: [PLACEHOLDER: legal entity name] Registered address: [PLACEHOLDER: address] Contact: [PLACEHOLDER: contact email] Governing law: [PLACEHOLDER: governing law / jurisdiction]

A lawyer has not reviewed this document. See "Before this goes live" at the bottom for what still needs checking.

1. Who this is for

GabbleGames is meant for people aged 13 and over. If you're under 18, please read this with a parent or guardian. We treat under-18 accounts ("minors") differently from adult accounts — see section 7.

2. What we collect

Category What Why
Account Your name and photo from Google Sign-In, your Google account identifier and email address (held by Firebase Authentication). Your public card holds a one-way fingerprint (hash) of your email, not the address To create and secure your account, show you to other players, and let people who know your email find you
Age Your answers to "Are you 18 or older?" and, if not, "Are you 13 or older?" — not your date of birth. We store whether you're an adult, and your card and your sign-in token say whether you're a minor. If you answer that you're under 13, we keep only that, on your Google sign-in, so the app refuses that account on every device To keep minors to free play and apart from adults (section 7), and to keep under-13s out
Country Worked out from your IP address each time the app starts (a lookup at Cloudflare), or from your phone's region setting if that fails. Saved once, at sign-up Shown as a flag by your name, and used to match you with players near you
Invitation Who invited you. When you join, the app sends them a message saying so GabbleGames is invite-only
Profile and settings Favourite game, privacy settings (whether your room shows, whether strangers' messages go to Requests, invisible mode), sound and appearance choices To apply your choices
Games The rooms you join and your seat, the moves you play, room chat, the people you've played with, your requests to be matched (table, number of seats, country). Your game history is kept on your phone To run matches and rooms
Coins and items Your coin balance, the looks you own, and a record of your last 1,000 coin movements (entries, wins, refunds, purchases, gifts, welcome and test coins), kept on our live server; the looks you wear, in Firestore. A one-way fingerprint of the Google or Apple account you signed in with (or of your email address, if you signed in with a verified address), made with a secret key only our live server holds, marking that its one-time welcome coins were given, so a new account made with it doesn't get them again To run the coin economy (section 4)
Messages What you send in direct messages and groups: text, photos, videos, voice messages, documents, polls, contact cards, and your location if you choose to send it To deliver them
Voice Who is in a call, and when. The audio goes between the phones in the call; we don't record it To run room voice and calls
Presence Whether you're online and when you were last seen (unless you turn on invisible mode), the room you're in (unless you hide it), and who you've blocked So friends can join you, and so blocks work
Play nearby (Android) When you use it, your phone uses Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to find phones close by and shows them your name and the game. Once connected, the phones exchange your card (name, photo, country, favourite game, minor or not), the game and its chat directly To play with people in the same place without the internet
Reports What you report, your reason and notes, and copies of up to 20 of the reported messages from your phone To review reports
Push A device token from Firebase Cloud Messaging To send notifications
Usage and crashes (Android app only) App events, crash reports and performance data from Google Analytics for Firebase, Crashlytics and Performance Monitoring, tied to your account identifier. The web app sends none of these To fix bugs and see which features are used
Visit Your IP address and browser, as with any website To serve the site

On your phone or in your browser the app also keeps your game history, your messages and your settings.

We don't ask for your date of birth, a phone number or your address book. Sign-in in the app is Google only.

3. How we use it

4. Coins are virtual, not money

Coins are a virtual item inside the game. Right now you cannot buy coins with money: while GabbleGames is being tested, coin packs are free ("Free while testing"), and adult accounts get a one-time welcome grant of 1,000 coins. You can also win coins.

Coins are spent on looks (boards, pieces, tables, cues, card backs and the like), on gifts of looks for other players in your room, and on entries to coin tables, where the winner takes the pot less a 10% fee. When nobody else is available, a robot may fill a seat at a coin table; its entry is put up by us, and if a robot wins, the coins stay with us.

Coins have no cash value. They cannot be redeemed, exchanged, cashed out, transferred for money, or sold to anyone — in or out of the app.

5. Who else handles your data

Other than these, we share your data only when the law requires it.

6. Who can see what

7. Minors (13–17)

If you say you're under 18 but at least 13, your account is a minor account. Minor accounts:

If you say you're under 13, the app doesn't create an account, and remembers that on your Google sign-in, so the same account is refused on any device.

If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided information to us in a way that doesn't match this policy, contact us at [PLACEHOLDER: contact email] and we will investigate and, where appropriate, delete the account.

8. Your choices

9. Retention

10. Security

Firebase security rules and the live server's sign-in check and topic permissions control access to your data; no player's app can change another player's coins. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach affecting your data, we'll tell you as required by law.

11. Changes to this policy

We'll update the "last updated" date above when this changes, and tell you in-app for anything material (like starting to sell coins, showing ads, or changing how coins work).

12. Contact

Questions, requests, or complaints: [PLACEHOLDER: contact email].

Before this goes live — a lawyer must check