Privacy at the typing desk
Revised 1 November 2026
A short account of a quiet site
Thistledowplay collects as little about you as a website reasonably can. There are no accounts, no sign-up forms, no comment boxes and no newsletters. You can read every page without telling us who you are.
This page sets out the few ways information moves when you visit, and what you can do about each of them. It is written to be read, not skimmed past.
Your kept games stay on your own machine
When you press a heart to keep a game, or answer the cookie notice, the site saves that choice in your browser’s localStorage. It lives only on your own device and is never sent to us; we cannot see your list or your answer.
Clearing your browser data, or using a private window, removes these saved choices. If you share a list using the share link, the games you chose are written into that link itself, so anyone you send it to can open the same list.
Typefaces delivered by Google Fonts
The typefaces on Thistledowplay are loaded from Google Fonts. To deliver the font files, Google’s servers receive your IP address and basic details about your browser, as happens whenever any website requests a file from another server.
Google handles that information under its own privacy policy. We receive nothing from that exchange, and we use Google Fonts solely to make the pages pleasant to read.
No counting, no tracking, no profiling
We run no analytics tools and no advertising trackers on Thistledowplay. We do not build profiles of visitors, follow you across other websites or record which pages you read.
Our web host may keep routine technical logs, such as the time of a request, for security and to keep the site running, and these are kept briefly and used only for that purpose.
Emails that reach the typing desk
If you write to editors@thistledowplay.com, we receive your email address and whatever you choose to include in your message. We use that solely to read and reply to you.
We keep correspondence only as long as it takes to deal with it properly, and we never add your address to a mailing list or pass it to anyone else.
Off to the games’ own websites
When you press a play button, the game’s official site opens in a new tab. From that point the publisher’s own privacy policy applies, including any accounts, cookies or settings they use.
We encourage you to read their policies, particularly if you are signing up for an account on behalf of a child.
What UK GDPR lets you ask of us
Under UK GDPR you have the right to ask what personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, and to object to how it is used. In practice the only personal information we are likely to hold is an email you sent us, and we will gladly delete it on request.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the independent UK regulator for data protection. We would appreciate the chance to put things right first.
When this privacy note gets retyped
If the way Thistledowplay handles information changes, we will update this page and the revision date at the top. Any change will be described in the same plain terms as everything else here.