WORLDTAFL · THE SKALD'S OATH
The Skald's Oath
This is the privacy policy of WORLDTAFL. The skald keeps the songs of this hall, so here he swears plainly why anything is counted, what is written down about you, and how to make him forget it. Last updated: 19 September 2026.
The short of it: TAFL is free. No ads, nothing sold, no trackers beyond anonymous and cookieless counts. The skald keeps the least he can and still run a world ladder, and you can burn all of it yourself, inside the game, at any hour.
Why anything is counted at all
You deserve to know what the numbers are for, so here it is in plain words. The skald counts game activity using device tokens. These are real questions he has asked:
- Does the teaching work? He counts how many warriors begin the five trials and how many finish them. When too few finished, the trials were rewritten.
- Is something broken? A player sent word that the screen zoomed on iPhone and would not zoom back. Counts of battles ending early reveal that kind of wound for the many who never write in.
- Is the hall alive? How many battles are fought, and how many warriors find a foe instead of waiting alone. That question is why automatch and the ravens exist.
- What deserves to stay? Anything nobody opens is cut, rather than left to clutter your hall.
Two promises about those counts. First, they never carry who you are: no name, no email, no advertising identifier, no cookies, and your IP address is anonymized before it is counted. Google Analytics is the tool, running in its cookieless mode, and it is the only outside service that receives any of it. Second, they are not gathered to sell you anything. There are no ads in this hall. Every count exists to make a better game for the people already playing it.
The same deeds are also counted here, on this hall's own server, and that half never leaves it. Because Google's cookieless mode forgets you the moment you reload, it can say how often a thing happened and never how many people it happened to, which is the only question worth asking about a tutorial or a wall. So the skald keeps his own tally against your device token: the name of the deed and the day. These event records are kept for a fortnight. The server also keeps your first observed arrival, a count of distinct play days, the latest play day, and a first-arrival channel until you erase your account. That channel is only a short label from a tagged link: owned web, creator, portal, friend, agent, or untagged. Old arrivals without a captured source stay unknown. No full referral URL, arbitrary campaign text, or words you typed are kept in this tally. Burning your account (below) removes these token-linked records; totals that carry no token remain.
If even that is more than you care to give, enabling your browser's Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control setting stops these optional event counts and Google Analytics. A content blocker may also block them. The game plays exactly the same. That is part of the oath: nothing in TAFL is gated behind being counted.
What is written down, and why
- A device token (a random string kept by your browser) so your battles and your rating remain yours between visits. It is tied to no identity unless you sign in.
- Your email address, only if you sign in, handled by Google Firebase Authentication. It serves sign-in, and the skald does not keep a copy of it.
- An address to write to, only if you ask for one. The hall can send you word by letter, but only if you say yes to it in the game. If you do, the address is kept along with the date and the exact sentence you agreed to, so what you consented to is a matter of record rather than memory. Letters are sent for two things and no others: when a warrior is waiting at your table for a game, and when the Thing gathers on a Saturday. No news, no offers, nothing sold. Every letter carries a link that ends it in one tap, and using it deletes the address rather than merely marking it.
- Your chosen name, shown on the public leaderboard and to the warriors you face.
- Your country, a two-letter code inferred from your connection by Cloudflare, which hosts this hall, so a banner can fly beside your name. Never your address, never your precise location.
- Records of battles: moves, results, and ratings. A world ladder cannot exist without them.
- Ravens (push notifications), only if you accept them. Revocable in your browser settings at any moment.
- Word you send to the makers, along with plain device context such as screen size and browser, so a reported bug can be found and killed.
- Anonymous counts of play, as sworn above.
Playing through an AI assistant
An AI assistant you already use (Meta's Muse, Claude and others) can connect to this hall and play for you: read the daily riddle, set a table, move a piece. The hall receives only what that takes: the game code, the move, a display name if you gave one, and a random seat key the hall itself mints for that one game. It asks for no account and no email, and it is sent nothing else from your conversation. The assistant sees what any player at that table sees: the board, the moves, and the other player's chosen name. These games are unrated, and their records expire like any other table: an unjoined one after three days, an idle one after thirty. The hall keeps daily totals of how often this door is used. Those totals carry no seat key and no address. What your assistant's maker does with your conversation is governed by their policy, not this one.
What is never done
- No advertising, and no advertising trackers.
- No letters of any kind unless you asked for them, and never for anything beyond a waiting foe and the weekly assembly.
- WORLDTAFL never sells, rents, or shares your data with anyone.
- No profiling beyond your rating at this game, which is the whole point of the game.
Who else touches any of it
Cloudflare hosts the hall and stores the battle records. Google Firebase handles sign-in. Google Analytics receives the anonymous, cookieless counts. That is the entire list.
Your rights, and ERASE MY SAGA
Wherever you live, these are treated as yours: to see what is held, to correct it, to erase it, and to withdraw a consent as easily as it was given. Your profile carries an ERASE MY SAGA option that permanently deletes your account, name, rating, country, ravens, any word you sent, and any address you gave for letters. Finished battle records remain in anonymized form, stripped of your identity, because the ratings of the warriors you faced were reckoned from those games. For anything else, or to exercise any right by hand, write to help@worldtafl.com and WORLDTAFL will answer within 30 days.
How long anything is kept
As long as your account stands, plus operational backups. Erase your saga and it is gone from living systems at once.
Age
TAFL is not directed at children. You must be at least 13, or the minimum age of digital consent where you live (16 in parts of the EU), to claim a name here.
If this oath changes
If it changes in any way that matters, it will be said plainly on the site.