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Privacy Policy — Simply Sudoku

Effective September 6, 2026

Simply Sudoku is a puzzle game built to be small, fast, and honest — this page explains, plainly, the little bit of data that touches the app at all.

Puzzles & progress
Never leaves your device. Boards, saves, stats, achievements, and settings live in local app storage only.
Adsif you watch one
Google AdMob shows a short video only when you choose to watch one for an extra hint, extra mistake allowance, or auto-fill.
Usage analytics
Google Analytics for Firebase records app events (puzzle started/solved, settings changed) to help us fix and improve the game.
Comparative statsopt-in, off by default
If you turn it on, your solve time and difficulty are added to an anonymous daily tally so you can see how you compare.

Information we collect

Information you never send us

Your puzzles, moves, undo history, notes, local best times, streaks, achievements, and app settings (theme, sound, input mode) are stored only in the app's local storage on your device. We have no account system, no sign-in, and no server that receives any of this. Uninstalling the app deletes it.

Advertising (Google AdMob)

Every hint, mistake allowance, and auto-fill has a small free allowance per puzzle. Once you use it up, you can optionally watch a short rewarded video ad for more — this is always your choice; the app never shows an ad without you asking for one, and never blocks pausing, resuming, or starting a new puzzle. Serving these ads uses Google AdMob, which may collect an advertising identifier and other device/usage signals to select and measure ads, under Google's own privacy policy. You can reset or delete your device's advertising ID in your Android system settings at any time.

Usage analytics (Google Analytics for Firebase)

We use Firebase Analytics to understand how the app is actually used — which difficulty tiers get played, whether a feature like Auto-fill gets used, and basic app-open/retention counts — so we can prioritize fixes and improvements instead of guessing. This records app events and general device information (device model, OS version, rough country-level location derived from IP address); it does not include your name, email, or anything else that identifies you personally, and we never combine it with any other data source to try to identify you.

Comparative stats (Google Firestore) — opt-in, off unless you turn it on

Settings has an off-by-default "Compare my times" toggle. If you turn it on, each time you solve a puzzle we add your solve time and difficulty to a shared daily count for that difficulty, so we can tell you things like "faster than 62% of today's players." This count is not linked to your device, an account, or any other identifier — it is a plain running tally, not a per-player record. Turning the setting back off stops any further sharing; it does not retroactively remove counts already added to a past day's tally.

In-app review prompt (Google Play)

After a genuine milestone (like your first solved puzzle), the app may ask Android's own built-in Play Store review prompt to appear. We never see whether you rated the app, what you rated it, or any review text — that entire exchange happens between you and the Play Store, handled by Google.

App permissions

Android permissions this app requests, and why:

PermissionWhy
INTERNETRequired for ads, analytics, and the opt-in comparative-stats feature. Solving puzzles itself needs no connection.
ACCESS_NETWORK_STATELets the ad/analytics SDKs check for connectivity before trying to reach the network.
AD_ID / ACCESS_ADSERVICES_AD_ID / ACCESS_ADSERVICES_ATTRIBUTIONUsed by AdMob to serve and measure ads. Resettable/deletable in your device's Android settings.
READ_BASIC_PHONE_STATE, WAKE_LOCK, FOREGROUND_SERVICE, BIND_GET_INSTALL_REFERRER_SERVICEStandard, automatically-included permissions for the Google ad/analytics libraries above — none requested directly by our own code.
com.android.vending.BILLINGBundled with a Play Billing library the app links against but does not currently use anywhere — no purchase flow is active in the app today.

Your choices

Children's privacy

Simply Sudoku is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us at the address below and we'll act on it.

Data retention

Your local puzzle data lives on your device until you clear the app's storage or uninstall it. Analytics and ad-measurement data are retained under Google's own Firebase Analytics and AdMob retention policies. Comparative-stats tallies are kept per calendar day per difficulty and are never linked back to an individual player.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we'll update the effective date above. Continuing to use the app after a change means you've accepted the update.


Contact us

Questions, requests, or feedback about this policy or your data:
simplycodesoftware@gmail.com