Privacy Policy for Kata·Word

Effective Date: August 7, 2026

Welcome to Kata·Word, a minimalist word-guessing game published by Artivy. Your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy explains what information is involved when you play Kata·Word. Kata·Word is a single-player, fully offline game: we do not require an account, and we do not run our own servers that collect your personal data.

Playing in a browser

There are two ways to play Kata·Word, and they do not collect the same things. Everything else on this page describes the Android app from Google Play. The browser version at artivy/kata_word/play.html is narrower:

Your guesses on the board in front of you, your run of consecutive solves and your played/won counts are kept in your browser's local storage on the device you played on. They are never sent anywhere, and there is no way for us to read them.
The word lists are ordinary files downloaded from this website as you play. Which language and length you chose is stored on your device, not recorded by us.
Google AdSense shows one banner advert in the browser version, below the board and clear of it. It is a plain display advert: it is not rewarded, it gives you nothing in the game, and there is no full-screen or between-levels advert anywhere in the browser version. The advert loads once when the page opens and is never refreshed while you play. Google may set cookies or use similar identifiers to serve it, under their own privacy policy rather than ours. AdMob, described further down, is the Android app's advertising and is a separate thing.
There is no analytics and no crash reporting in the browser version.
The browser version has no coins, no store and no hints, so nothing on this page about purchases or rewarded adverts applies to it.
Clearing your browser's site data for this domain erases your streak and your history. So does playing in a private window, or in a browser that blocks storage — the game will still run, but nothing is kept.
The browser version has no daily challenge, so nothing on this page about a daily word, a daily streak or a calendar applies to it. Every word is drawn at random from the same list.
Progress does not follow you between devices, or between the browser and the Android app. They are separate saves.

1. Information We Collect

Kata·Word itself does not ask for, collect, or transmit any personally identifiable information about you. The only data involved is:

Game Progress (stored on your device): Your statistics, win streaks, trophies, coins, unlocked themes, daily challenge history, hint tokens, and language and game preferences are saved locally on your device. This data is not sent to Artivy.
Device Backup (handled by Android): That same file is included in Android's app backup and phone-to-phone transfer, so your progress can be restored on a new device or after a reinstall. The copy lives in your Google account and is handled by Google under its own terms; Artivy does not perform the backup, receives nothing from it, and cannot guarantee a restore.
Advertising Data (collected by Google): Kata·Word shows ads through Google AdMob. To serve ads, Google may collect device information such as a device/advertising identifier, IP address, and app-interaction data. This collection is governed by Google's own privacy policy, not by Artivy.
Analytics Data (collected by Google): Kata·Word uses Google Firebase Analytics to understand how the game is used in aggregate (for example, which modes are played). This is processed by Google in line with Google's privacy policy.
Crash Reports (collected by Google): Kata·Word uses Google Firebase Crashlytics to record diagnostic information if the app crashes (such as device model, operating system version, and the technical state at the time of the crash), so we can fix bugs. This is processed by Google in line with Google's privacy policy.

2. How Your Information Is Used

The information above is used only to:

Save and restore your game progress on your device.
Display advertisements that keep the game free: a banner on the Settings screen, a full-screen advert after roughly every third finished game, and optional rewarded adverts for a hint. The board itself never carries a banner.
Understand aggregate usage so we can improve the game.
Diagnose and fix crashes.

Uninstalling the app removes the game progress stored on your device.

3. Advertising Consent

Where required by law — for example in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom — Kata·Word shows Google's consent form before requesting personalised ads, using Google's User Messaging Platform. If you were asked for consent, an Ad privacy options link appears at the bottom of the home screen, beside Privacy Policy and Terms, so you can review or change your choice at any time. Players outside those regions are never shown the form and see no such link.

4. Third-Party Services

Kata·Word uses Google AdMob to display advertisements, Google Firebase Analytics for aggregate usage insights, and Google Firebase Crashlytics for crash diagnostics. Google may collect and process data as described in Google's Privacy Policy (https://policies.google.com/privacy). We do not use any other advertising networks or third-party analytics providers.

5. Children's Privacy

Kata·Word is built for children as well as adults, and we do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children.

The first time you open the Android app it asks what year you were born, before any advert is requested. The answer is kept on your device, it is never sent to us, and it is asked only once. It decides one thing:

Players aged 13 or under are treated as children by Google's advertising SDK. Their adverts are not personalised, and no advertising identifier is used to profile them. Because a year of birth cannot tell whether a birthday has passed, anyone who might still be twelve is given this treatment.
Players over 13 see adverts as described earlier in this policy.

The question changes nothing about the game. Every word, coin, trophy and daily challenge is the same whichever answer you give.

Separately, and for every player regardless of age, advert content in Kata·Word is capped at Google's “G” rating — suitable for general audiences, and sensitive advert categories are excluded.

The browser version is a different case, and it is not aimed at children. It asks no age question, shows one ordinary display advert served by Google AdSense under Google's own policies, and reads nothing about who is playing. The age gate and the child treatment described above belong to the Android app.

6. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by updating the "Effective Date" at the top of this policy. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes.

7. Contact Us

If you have any questions or suggestions about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us at 4ndri.nr@gmail.com.