Privacy policy
Last updated 25 September 2026.
This page describes what Starfoundry collects, why, and what you can do about it. It is written to be understood rather than to be thorough at your expense.
Who holds your data
Starfoundry is operated by Sukanvarsi Oy, Finland, which is the data controller for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation. You can reach us through the contact form about anything on this page, including a request to see or delete what we hold. Leave an email address on the form and we will reply to it.
The short version
- You can play the entire game without an account and without giving us anything.
- If you sign in, we store your name, email address and profile picture from Google, and the saves you choose to keep.
- Advertising on this site is served by third parties who may use cookies. In Europe and the UK you are asked first.
- We use Google Analytics to count visits to the website. In Europe and the UK it does not run until you have agreed.
- You can delete your account and everything attached to it at any time.
Playing without an account
If you never sign in, your saved games and settings are stored in your own browser and never sent to us. Clearing your browser data deletes them; we have no copy and cannot restore them.
Two things are sent, and only if you leave them switched on: a count of how many turns you have played and on which day, and — if you take the tutorial — how far through it you got and whether you finished. So that the same browser is not counted as a new player every visit, your browser generates a random identifier and keeps it locally. That identifier is not derived from anything about you — not your address, not your device, not your name — and it is not joined to anything else. All it can tell us is that two days of play came from the same browser. Clearing your browser data ends it permanently.
We use this to know whether the game is being played and at what point people stop, which is the only way to decide what to work on next. It is not attached to a name, an address or an account, we never sell it, and we never give it to advertisers. You can turn it off at any time in the game's own settings, under Play statistics; when it is off nothing is counted, nothing is sent, and the identifier is deleted from your browser.
If you sign in
We use Google Sign-In. When you use it, we receive and store:
- your name and email address as Google provides them;
- your profile picture URL;
- an identifier linking your account to Google's.
We do not receive or store your Google password. We use your email address to identify your account and, rarely, to contact you about the service. We do not sell it and we do not send marketing.
We also store, for as long as your account exists:
- the saved games you choose to keep on the server;
- your game settings, so they follow you to another machine;
- session records, including the approximate time and browser used to sign in.
- a count of turns played per day, and how far you got through the tutorial, unless you switch it off in the game's settings. This is stored against a one-way hash of your account rather than against the account itself, so it counts you as one returning player without our being able to look up who played. Nothing links those counts back to your name or address.
Analytics
We use Google Analytics to see how many people visit this website, which pages they read and roughly where in the world they are. It sets cookies and reports to Google, who process it on our behalf. We use it to understand whether the site is reaching anyone and which pages earn their place — not to identify you, and we do not upload anything about your account to it.
If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, nothing is stored and no measurement cookie is set until you have answered the consent dialogue; you can change or withdraw that answer at any time from the cookie settings. This is separate from the count of turns played described above, which is ours alone and holds nothing about who you are.
Advertising
This site carries advertising, which is what pays for the game being free. Adverts are supplied by third-party networks. We currently use Adsterra, and expect to use Google AdSense as well. Those networks may set cookies or read device identifiers in order to measure adverts and, where permitted, to show ones they think are relevant.
We do not give advertisers your email address, your account, or anything about your saved games.
Inside the game, adverts appear in one place only — the summary shown when a turn resolves — and nowhere else. Each one runs in a sealed frame of its own which cannot read anything belonging to Starfoundry, cannot reach your saved games, and cannot navigate you away from the game; the most it can do is open the advertiser in a new tab if you choose to click it. Nothing is loaded until you have agreed, and if you decline you see a house notice in that space instead.
If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, you are asked for consent before any non-essential cookie is set, and you can change or withdraw that choice at any time from the cookie settings. Google's own description of how it uses data from sites that use its services is published at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
What we do not do
- We do not sell personal data.
- We do not track you across other people's websites ourselves.
- We do not build a profile of you. The only things we measure about how you play are how many turns, on which day, and how far you got through the tutorial — and neither measurement is linked to who you are.
- We do not knowingly collect anything from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us data, write to us and it will be removed.
Your rights
You can ask for a copy of everything we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for it to be deleted. Deleting your account removes your profile, your sessions, your settings and your saved games; it cannot be undone. Ask through the contact form, leaving an address we can reply to, and we will act within 30 days.
If you are in the EEA or UK, the legal basis for storing your account is the contract to provide the service you asked for; for advertising cookies it is your consent. You have the right to complain to your national data protection authority.
Where data is kept
Account data and saved games are stored on servers in Europe. Backups are retained for roughly seven days and then overwritten.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects you, the date at the top will change and the change will be noted on the news page.