Privacy Policy

Public puzzle pages may be browsed worldwide. Accounts, authenticated features, puzzle publication, and research participation are limited to eligible people located in the United States during the beta.

• Account and profile: authentication ID, email, login provider, username, and optional display name, avatar, and country.
• Terms evidence: legal version, age and United States location confirmations, research-release preference, source, server timestamp, and later opt-out or supersession.
• Puzzle and community content: grids and metadata, provenance, licenses, collections, reviews, and creator-credit preference.
• Play and research activity: puzzle/version, status, checks, correctness, assistance, timing, ratings, progress, semantic cell edits, tools, undo/redo, grid checkpoints, submitted attempts, focus/idle periods, and event timing.
• Technical and security data: infrastructure request/error logs, short-lived or keyed rate-limit identifiers, and aggregate Vercel Web Analytics such as page, referrer, coarse location, browser, operating system, and device category. Query strings and user-chosen profile or collection path segments are removed before analytics events are sent.
• Communications:messages sent to ARC Playground's contact addresses and information needed to answer them.

The research trace is not designed to collect arbitrary keystrokes, raw pointer movement, unrelated clipboard contents, session-replay video, camera/audio, precise location, email, profile name, or raw IP.

ARC Playground is a research service. Account, puzzle, play, and solve-process data provide and secure the service, verify beta eligibility, save progress, prevent abuse, attribute creators, study human reasoning, validate and calibrate puzzle difficulty, distinguish human and automated activity, produce benchmark datasets, support research collaborations, and support account communication. Core research capture is a condition of authenticated puzzle play under our agreement with you.

Collection, use, retention, and disclosure are limited to the documented purposes and should remain reasonably necessary and proportionate to them. Solve traces are not used for targeted advertising, and contact information is not sold.

Research release is enabled by default. Eligible solver exports replace internal account and session UUIDs with stable keyed identifiers, reduce timestamp precision, and remove direct profile fields. Stable identifiers can link records over time, so ARC Playground treats them as pseudonymous rather than guaranteed anonymous. Account Settings lets you opt out of future unpublished public and research-partner releases while core capture continues.

Community puzzles are different: eligible puzzles are published under CC BY 4.0 and normally include creator credit unless the creator opts out. Imported datasets retain upstream provenance and licenses.

ARC Playground uses Supabase for database/authentication, Vercel for hosting and aggregate web analytics, Google Workspace for operator communications, and the OAuth provider you choose (currently Google or GitHub). They process data under their terms and our service arrangements. Data may be processed in the United States and other locations where these providers operate. Information may also be disclosed when law requires it or to protect users, research integrity, and the service.

Unless you opt out of research release, documented pseudonymized records may be public or shared with universities, nonprofits, and commercial research organizations.

Account, core research, and operational records are kept while an account is active and as needed for the documented research, security, dispute, and legal purposes. Opting out of release excludes eligible records from future unpublished exports. Account deletion removes or de-links account-associated unpublished records subject to applicable law and documented retention needs. Provider logs follow provider retention settings. Aggregate statistics that no longer identify a person may remain.

Published puzzle licenses and snapshots are durable. Deletion removes credit and eligible account-linked rows from future exports but cannot recall a public snapshot or third-party copy.

Account Settings lets you review the legal version, opt out of future research release, manage future creator credit, and delete your account. Core research capture is required for authenticated play; you can stop future core capture by ceasing authenticated play and deleting your account. These Terms do not waive rights provided by applicable law. You may also ask to access, correct, export, restrict, object to, or delete data. Contact privacy@arcplayground.com. Depending on location, you may complain to your data-protection authority.

Accounts, authenticated features, puzzle publication, and research participation are for people age 18 or older who are currently located in the United States. Public pages remain available worldwide. If you believe an ineligible person provided personal data, contact us so it can be investigated and deleted or restricted where appropriate.

General questions may be sent to info@arcplayground.com; security reports to security@arcplayground.com; legal questions to legal@arcplayground.com; and copyright notices to copyright@arcplayground.com.

Material changes receive a new version. If a change broadens account or required research processing, ARC Playground asks for a new affirmative Terms acceptance before later covered account activity continues.