Privacy Policy for Blabbergast

Blabbergast is an application developed and published by Ulsh Solutions, LLC (“Ulsh Solutions,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). This policy covers Blabbergast for iOS and Android.

Blabbergast does not collect personal information. It has no account system, no login, and no Ulsh Solutions server, and its own code makes no network connections. The players, categories, and settings you set up are stored in the application’s private storage on your device and stay there.

We do not know who has installed Blabbergast, who plays it, or how often. That information is never sent to us, so there is nothing for us to receive, store, or disclose. The one exception is an email you choose to send us, described under “If You Contact Us.”

1. Information We Do Not Collect

Ulsh Solutions collects no personal information through Blabbergast, apart from any email you choose to send us (see “If You Contact Us”).

The application does not ask for, and is not able to access:

• Your email address, telephone number, or postal address
• Your contacts, photos, camera, microphone, calendar, or files
• Your location, of any kind or precision
• Advertising identifiers, or any other identifier used to track you

The only names Blabbergast asks for are the players’ names, which can be first names, nicknames, or anything you like. They are kept on your device, as described below, and are never sent to us.

Blabbergast is played out loud, but it does not listen. It never uses your device’s microphone; the players at the table judge every answer.

On iOS, Blabbergast declares no permission usage descriptions at all, so the operating system will never ask you to let it use a protected resource. On Android, it requests no runtime permissions.

There is no account to create and no credential to supply in order to play.

2. Information Stored on Your Device

Blabbergast stores a small amount of information locally, using the ordinary preference storage each operating system provides to applications for their own settings — NSUserDefaults on iOS and SharedPreferences on Android. This information is held in the application’s private storage on your device.

That information consists of:

• The players you add, by the name you give each one
• The categories you write yourself, and which categories are chosen for play
• Your game rules: how long a turn lasts, how many round wins take the game, which letters can come up, and how challenges work
• Your appearance preference — light, dark, or whichever your device is set to — and whether sound effects and vibration are on
• Whether the rules have already been shown, so that How to play opens by itself only the first time
• Whether the Full Game has been unlocked on this device, so that it stays unlocked without a network connection
• When the application was first used, how many games have been played to the end and on which days, when the application asked your app store to show its rating prompt, and whether you have turned those prompts off

This information is not sent anywhere. It is not readable by Ulsh Solutions, and it is not kept in any database we operate.

Scores are kept only for the game being played, in the application’s memory. They are not written to storage, so a game in progress does not survive the application being closed by you or by your operating system.

Because this information is stored locally, deleting the application, clearing its data, losing the device, or replacing the device will remove it, except where a backup of your device keeps a copy. If your device backs up its applications’ data — to iCloud or a computer from an iPhone or iPad, or to your Google account from an Android device — that backup may include this information. Backups are kept under Apple’s or Google’s terms, or on your own computer, and Ulsh Solutions cannot access them.

3. No Analytics, Advertising, or Tracking

Blabbergast contains no analytics, no crash or diagnostic reporting, no advertising, and no tracking or attribution code, and it uses no service that provides any of them.

The one exception is Google’s, not ours. On Android, the billing library Google provides for purchases may send Google diagnostic information about the billing system itself, as described under “Internet Access.” None of it reaches Ulsh Solutions.

The application does not request permission to track you, and does not access the advertising identifier on either platform. It declares no ad-attribution networks.

Ulsh Solutions does not sell personal information, does not share information for targeted or behavioral advertising, and does not build advertising profiles.

Ulsh Solutions runs nothing here for you to opt out of.

4. Purchases

Blabbergast is free to download and play. The Full Game, a single one-time purchase, unlocks everything the free game leaves out. It is the only thing the application sells. It does not renew, and there is no subscription. Its price is displayed in the application and in the applicable app store before you buy, and may change over time.

All purchases are processed entirely by the app store you bought from — the Apple App Store on iOS, Google Play on Android.

Your payment card number and other payment credentials are never entered into Blabbergast and never pass through it. Ulsh Solutions does not receive, collect, or store them.

To unlock the Full Game, the application asks the store, on your device, whether the Full Game has been bought — using Apple’s StoreKit on iOS and Google Play Billing on Android — and the store answers with its record of the purchase. The application uses that record only to unlock the Full Game. All it keeps is a note in local storage that the Full Game is unlocked, so that the game opens unlocked even with no network connection. No Ulsh Solutions server is involved, and the record is never sent to us.

Until the Full Game is unlocked on a device, the application quietly asks the store each time it starts whether the Full Game is already yours — bought before, on this device or another, or shared with you through Family Sharing on the App Store. Restore purchase, in Settings and on the Full Game screen, asks the store the same question whenever you choose.

Ulsh Solutions does not use purchase information to create advertising profiles or to track users across unrelated applications or services.

Payment processing, billing, and refunds are handled by the applicable app store under that provider’s own terms and privacy practices.

5. Promotional and Offer Codes

Codes for the Full Game are redeemed through the app store, not through Ulsh Solutions.

On iOS, Redeem a code opens Apple’s own code redemption sheet, presented by the operating system. On Android, it opens Google Play’s redemption page, because Google Play provides no equivalent sheet inside an application; when you come back, Blabbergast asks the store whether the Full Game is now yours.

In both cases the store tells the application only that the Full Game is now owned, and the application tells Ulsh Solutions nothing.

6. Ratings and Reviews

Now and then, after a game has been played to the end, Blabbergast asks your app store to show its own rating prompt — Apple’s on iOS, Google Play’s in-app review on Android — and the store decides whether to show it. The application never asks in the middle of a round.

To choose when to ask, the application keeps the record of finished games described under “Information Stored on Your Device.” Ask me now and then, under Rate Blabbergast in Settings, turns the prompts off.

Rate or review, in the same place, opens Blabbergast’s page in the App Store or on Google Play. If you rate or review Blabbergast, from the prompt or in the store, your rating or review goes to the app store and is handled under its terms. The application never learns whether you rated it, or what you said.

7. Links to Other Applications

A few buttons in Blabbergast open another application on your device. In Settings, Privacy policy opens our website, ulshsolutions.com, in your browser; Rate or review opens your app store; and Contact support opens your email application. On Android, Redeem a code opens Google Play.

What you do in those applications is handled under their own terms. A visit to our website is covered by our website privacy statement.

8. If You Contact Us

Contact support, in Settings, opens your own email application with a new message addressed to info@ulshsolutions.com, with the subject “Blabbergast support.” The application adds nothing else to it, and nothing is sent unless you send the email yourself.

If you send it, or otherwise email us, we receive your email address, your message, and anything you include. We use it only to read and reply to your message and to improve Blabbergast. We do not sell it, share it for advertising, or add you to a mailing list.

We keep these messages only for as long as we need them for those purposes, and we will delete a message you sent us if you ask.

9. Internet Access

Every part of Blabbergast that you play works with no network connection. Its categories and sounds are part of the application, nothing is streamed or downloaded, and its own code makes no network connections. The only connections made on its behalf are your app store’s, for the Full Game and the rating prompt, and Google’s, described next.

One detail is worth stating plainly rather than leaving you to discover it in a permission list. On Android, the Google Play Billing library that makes the Full Game possible brings Google’s own components into the application, and those components declare the INTERNET and ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE permissions. This is why Blabbergast appears to request internet access on Android even though no part of the game uses it.

Those Google components may contact Google’s servers and may send Google diagnostic information about the billing system itself. That processing is Google’s, is governed by Google’s privacy policy, and is not something Ulsh Solutions requests, receives, or can access. The library stays because without it the Full Game could not be bought on Android at all.

On iOS, purchases use Apple’s StoreKit, which is part of the operating system.

10. App Store and Platform Information

Blabbergast is distributed through third-party platforms and runs on devices and operating systems provided by third parties.

These platforms independently collect and process information associated with downloading, purchasing, installing, updating, and using an application, and they may provide Ulsh Solutions with aggregated, platform-generated reports — for example, how many copies were downloaded in a given country, or aggregated crash and performance data collected by the platform itself rather than by us.

Aggregated reporting of this kind does not identify individual users to us.

Information independently collected by an app store, operating system provider, or device manufacturer is subject to that provider’s privacy practices, which Ulsh Solutions does not control. Apple’s privacy policy is available at apple.com/legal/privacy, and Google’s at policies.google.com/privacy.

11. Children’s Privacy

Blabbergast is a party word game whose content is suitable for players of all ages. It is not directed at children under 13.

Because the application collects no personal information from anyone, it collects none from children. It requires no account and no contact information in order to play, and the players’ names you enter stay on your device.

Contact support, described under “If You Contact Us,” is not intended for children. A parent or guardian who believes a child has emailed us may ask us to delete that message, and we will.

Parents and guardians should supervise children’s use of devices, applications, and app-store purchasing features as they consider appropriate.

12. Data Security

The most reliable protection for information is not to collect it, and that is the approach Blabbergast takes.

Because the information the application stores stays on your device, apart from your device’s own backups, its security depends on the security of your device and its operating system. The application writes only to its own private application storage, which other applications cannot read.

Ulsh Solutions maintains no copy of your players, categories, settings, or purchase status on any server of ours, because no such copy is ever created.

13. Data Retention and Deletion

Ulsh Solutions retains no personal information from Blabbergast, apart from any email you choose to send us, which we delete on request as described under “If You Contact Us.”

You can remove players, and categories you wrote, in the application at any time. Everything the application stores can be removed by clearing its data or uninstalling it, subject to the behavior of your operating system and any device-level backup service you use.

App stores and payment providers retain purchase records according to their own legal obligations and privacy practices.

14. Future Features

Ulsh Solutions may introduce additional functionality in the future, which could include online features or other services.

If future functionality changes the information that is collected, processed, transmitted, or stored, we will update this Privacy Policy before or when those changes take effect.

This Privacy Policy is not authorization to begin collecting categories of personal information materially different from the practices described here without first updating these disclosures.

15. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes to Blabbergast, to applicable law, to platform requirements, or to our business practices.

When we make changes, we will update the effective date shown at the top of this policy.

Material changes affecting how user information is handled may also be communicated through the application, our website, or other appropriate means.