1. Scope and operator
BernStone Games operates the BernStone Games website and its original browser games, including BernStone Stacks and BernStone Flops. In this policy, “BernStone,” “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to BernStone Games.
This policy applies when you browse the publisher site, play either game, create a public player name, submit a score, join a challenge or tournament, sign in, make a purchase, view advertising, or contact us.
2. Information we handle
Information stored on your device
Most game progress is stored in your browser using local storage or session storage. This may include settings, controls, progress, achievements, cosmetic selections, points, run history, tutorial preferences, locally generated device or friend identifiers, challenge state, and saved game data. This information remains on your device unless a feature submits part of it to an online service.
Information you provide
- Public player names, friend codes, score challenge details, and support messages.
- Account information supplied through our authentication provider when you choose to sign in.
- Purchase and checkout information. Payment-card details are collected by Stripe and are not stored by BernStone Games.
Gameplay and community information
- Scores, level, mode, ruptures or pipes cleared, run timing, bounded gameplay statistics, daily results, and tournament results.
- Community-goal contributions, public leaderboard entries, challenge participants and results, and limited replay data used for comparable daily runs.
- Purchase entitlement records such as product, payment/session identifiers, amount, currency, status, and the account receiving the cosmetic item.
Technical information
Our hosting, security, storage, and advertising providers may process IP address, browser and device type, operating system, request time, referring page, requested URL, error information, cookie or consent identifiers, and similar network data. We use this information for delivery, fraud prevention, rate limiting, debugging, security, and advertising where enabled.
3. How we use information
- Provide gameplay, save progress, restore entitlements, and remember preferences.
- Operate scoreboards, world records, daily competitions, tournaments, community goals, and sealed friend challenges.
- Moderate public names, detect fabricated or abusive submissions, enforce rate limits, and protect the games.
- Authenticate accounts, process purchases, handle refunds, and provide customer support.
- Measure aggregate game performance and improve balance, reliability, accessibility, and presentation.
- Serve and measure advertising, including optional rewarded ads, after required consent and publisher configuration are in place.
- Comply with legal, tax, accounting, security, and regulatory obligations.
Depending on your location and the feature involved, our legal basis may be performance of a contract, your consent, compliance with law, or our legitimate interests in operating, securing, and improving the service.
4. Public information
Player names, scores, ranks, selected supporter status, community contribution totals, and completed challenge or tournament results may be visible to other players. Do not use a player name that reveals your full name, contact details, school, address, or other sensitive information.
Score-sharing links contain only the public run summary shown before you share it. Anyone with a public challenge link may be able to view that summary.
5. Service providers and disclosures
We use service providers only where needed to operate the site. Depending on which features are configured or used, these may include:
- Vercel for website hosting, network delivery, and operational logs.
- Neon and Upstash for durable scores, challenges, community data, rate limits, and related storage.
- Clerk for optional account authentication.
- Stripe for checkout, payment processing, refunds, and fraud prevention.
- Google for AdSense advertising, Ad Manager rewarded inventory, consent messaging, and advertising measurement when those services are enabled.
We may also disclose information if required by law, to protect users or the service, to investigate fraud or abuse, or as part of a business reorganization subject to appropriate safeguards. We do not sell personal information for money.
6. Google advertising and cookies
Third-party vendors, including Google, may use cookies or similar technologies to serve ads based on a user's previous visits to this site or other sites. Google's use of advertising cookies enables Google and its partners to serve personalized or non-personalized ads, depending on consent, region, account settings, and applicable law.
You can learn how Google uses information from publisher sites at Google’s partner-sites policy, and control personalized advertising through Google Ads Settings. Additional industry opt-outs may be available at YourAdChoices.
For users in the EEA, United Kingdom, and Switzerland, we use or will use a Google-certified consent management platform before serving advertising that requires consent. The consent message provides the available controls for advertising cookies and data use.
See our Cookie Policy, Advertising Standards, and Privacy Choices for more detail.
7. Retention
- Local browser data remains until you clear site data, reset the game profile, import a replacement profile, or remove it through browser settings.
- BernStone Stacks friend challenges expire after approximately 30 days. Friend identity records are designed to expire after approximately 365 days of their relevant update.
- Public scores, records, community totals, tournament results, and aggregate telemetry may be retained while needed to operate historical rankings and game systems.
- Purchase records may be retained for entitlement restoration, refunds, fraud prevention, accounting, tax, and legal obligations.
- Provider logs and consent records follow the relevant provider settings and retention periods.
We may retain a limited record where necessary to document a deletion, enforce a restriction, resolve a dispute, or comply with law.
8. Your choices and rights
Depending on your location, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict, object to, or obtain a copy of personal information. You may also have the right to withdraw consent or appeal a privacy decision.
- Clear local progress using the game reset controls or your browser's site-data controls.
- Use the in-game export feature to obtain a portable copy of supported BernStone Stacks progress.
- Change a public player name through the available profile controls.
- Use the certified consent message and Google Ads Settings for advertising choices.
- Email privacy@bernstonegames.com for access, correction, deletion, or other privacy requests.
We may need to verify a request before acting. Some data cannot be deleted immediately where retention is required for security, financial, legal, or integrity reasons.
9. Children
BernStone Games is a general-audience service and is not directed to children under 13. Users below the age at which they may independently consent to data processing in their country should use the service only with permission and supervision from a parent or guardian. Do not submit personal details through a player name.
If you believe a child provided personal information improperly, contact privacy@bernstonegames.com so we can review and remove it where appropriate.
10. International processing and security
Our providers may process information in Canada, the United States, and other countries. Those countries may have different privacy laws. We use reasonable technical and organizational measures intended to protect information, but no online service can guarantee absolute security.
11. Changes and contact
We may update this policy as the games, providers, laws, or advertising configuration change. The updated date at the top identifies the current version. Material changes may also be announced in the launcher or game.
Privacy questions: privacy@bernstonegames.com
General support: support@bernstonegames.com