Privacy

CH960 (formerly known as Royal Shuffle) is free: no ads, no purchases, no donations. The app contains no ad networks and no third-party tracking SDKs — no Firebase, no Google Analytics, nothing of the sort.

Data controller

Roman Morozov, the independent developer of CH960. Privacy requests: [email protected]. This policy covers the CH960 mobile app and the website ch960.com.

Online play: guest account and games

Learning, puzzles and the local game need neither an account nor a network. To play with people (online, with a friend by link, arenas) a guest account is created automatically on your first online action: a random identifier, an access key that is stored only on your device, and a nickname. The nickname is generated automatically and can be changed in the profile.

Registration is optional: everything works without it — playing, games with a friend, arenas, learning and puzzles. If you create an account we store your e-mail (it is also your login), a hash of your password (the password itself is not stored anywhere) and the nickname you choose, if any. An account can keep a friends list (requests by nickname, accepted friends) and game challenges from friends — a challenge stores only who invited whom to which game and is shown for a day. When you register or sign in the form checks that you are not a robot with Cloudflare Turnstile, to stop mass sign-ups; the check data is processed by Cloudflare.

What is stored on our server:

• nickname, account identifier, rating and game statistics;
• for an account: e-mail, password hash, friends list and challenges from friends;
• games: moves, result, time control, setup numbers, the nicknames of both sides, the source (app or browser);
• country by IP address (a two-letter code determined by the CDN) — shown as a flag next to your nickname to your opponent and spectators; the IP address itself is not stored;
• your reports about players and the list of players you have blocked.

There is no free-text chat: in a game you can only send a phrase from a fixed list; phrases are relayed to the opponent immediately and are not stored on the server.

The moves of a finished game are kept for 30 days — that is how long the game can be viewed and reviewed by link; after that the moves are erased and only the result and rating changes remain.

Account deletion: Profile → “Delete account”. The nickname, e-mail, password hash and settings are erased, the account is marked deleted and your games are anonymised. You can request the same by e-mail to [email protected].

Ring when a friend accepts

In the app from Google Play you can turn on a call: the phone rings when a friend joins the game you invited them to. For that the app sends our server its Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google) push token — an anonymous delivery address for this device, linked to your player. Only the message “challenge accepted” goes through Google: the game number and your friend’s nickname. Turn the call off in settings or delete your account and the token is erased. The APK from the website and the website itself do not use it.

Anonymous usage statistics

To understand which parts of the app help and where people get stuck, the app sends anonymous usage statistics to OUR own server. The data never leaves our infrastructure and is never shared.

What is collected:

• a random install identifier (UUID), not linked to any account;
• session length and the last screen you were on;
• which screens were opened and how long you spent on them;
• technical events: course day started/completed, puzzle attempted/solved, game started/finished, analysis opened, update prompted/accepted;
• app version, interface language, country (from CDN data).

The CH960 chess widget on other websites (ch960.com/widget) sends the same anonymous statistics to our server: the widget being shown, a game starting and ending, a friend invited, and the name of the site it is on (the domain only, not the page address). The widget contains no third-party trackers.

What statistics do NOT include:

• nickname, contacts or any account data — statistics are not linked to the account;
• your IP address — it is never stored;
• game contents, moves, messages;
• location.

Your control

You can turn statistics off completely: Settings → “Anonymous statistics”. Collection stops and the queued events are erased. You can also reset the install identifier there, which starts a fresh, unlinked count.

Raw events are kept for 90 days, then deleted. Anonymous daily rollups remain.

To have the raw events tied to your install identifier deleted before the 90-day expiry, email [email protected] with the identifier shown in Settings → “Anonymous statistics”. You can also reset the identifier there, which unlinks all previous events.

This website

The statements above are about the app. This website (ch960.com) also collects anonymous visit statistics so we can see which pages help visitors. It uses two tools: Plausible — self-hosted and cookieless — and Google Analytics, which sets cookies (such as “_ga”) and sends aggregated visit data to Google. You can decline non-essential cookies in your browser settings. The app itself still contains neither Firebase nor Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is provided by Google Ireland Limited; see Google's privacy policy. You can opt out of the “_ga” cookie in your browser settings.

Questions about this policy or your data: Support · Legal information