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Inkbloom Privacy Policy

Last updated 9 November 2026

Inkbloom is a daily puzzle app. This policy explains what it collects, why, and what you can do about it. It is written to be read, not to be survived.

Who is responsible

Inkbloom is published by Sriram Goparaju. For any question about this policy or your data, write to support@inkbloompuzzles.com.

What we collect, and why

An account, created automatically

The first time you open Inkbloom it signs you in anonymously through Firebase Authentication. This produces a random account identifier. It is not linked to you as a person, and we cannot use it to find out who you are. It exists so your puzzle progress survives a reinstall and can follow you to another device.

An account you link, if you choose to

You may link a Google or Apple account. We do this so your progress can be restored, and because appearing on a leaderboard requires an account that is genuinely yours. When you link one, Firebase Authentication records the email address of that account. We never copy that address into our own database and we never use it to contact you. It stays inside Firebase Authentication, and on your own device.

What you choose to show

• A display name, if you set one. It is checked automatically against a list of offensive words, and a name that fails is replaced with your previous one. It appears next to your times on public leaderboards.
• A country, taken from your device's region or chosen by you. It appears on leaderboards and powers the country filter.

Leave the display name empty and you rank anonymously.

How you play

We store your progress on each day's puzzles: which ones you solved, how long you took, how many hints you used, and the state of any board you left unfinished, along with your streak and your settings. This is what makes the app work across devices, and it is what the Stats screen reads.

When you finish a daily puzzle, your time is submitted to that day's leaderboard along with your display name and country — but only once you have linked a Google or Apple account. Until you do, your daily times stay on your device and are never sent to a leaderboard. Practice puzzles from the Library are never submitted and never ranked.

The all-time streaks board is the one exception: it carries every player's current streak, and a player who has not linked an account appears on it with no name attached.

Technical and diagnostic data

• Your device's timezone offset, so a "day" means your day rather than ours, and your streak does not break at the wrong hour.
• Crash reports and diagnostics through Firebase Crashlytics, so a crash can be found and fixed. These include the device model, operating system version, and where in the app the failure happened. They are essential diagnostics and are collected from the first launch, but they carry no account identifier: a report says what failed and where, not whose phone it was.
• Usage events through Firebase Analytics: that a puzzle was started, completed or abandoned, and with which game and how long it took; that a day was completed; that a streak reached a milestone; that an ad was shown or opted into; that a purchase screen was viewed or a purchase made; and that notifications were turned on. These are counted in aggregate to understand which puzzles people enjoy. They are tied to your account identifier, not to your name. Analytics is switched off when the app starts and is turned on only by your answer to the consent question described under Advertising: where Google's form is required, nothing is collected until you have accepted it, and nothing is collected if you decline or later withdraw; elsewhere, collection begins once the app has confirmed that no form is required where you are. Analytics does not collect your device's advertising identifier.
• An attestation token through Firebase App Check, which confirms requests come from a genuine copy of the app. It carries no personal data and exists to stop leaderboard cheating.

Notifications

If you allow them, Inkbloom sends at most two notifications a day: one when the new page is ready, and one in the evening only if a streak of three days or more is about to end. Both are scheduled on your own device, by the app, from your device's own clock. The app does not register for push notifications and requests no push token. Firebase Cloud Messaging is included in the app for a possible server-sent note in the future, but it is switched off, so no messaging identifier is created or sent to Google; if that ever changes, this policy will say so first. You can turn either notification off in the You tab, or all of them in your system settings. Turning them off does not affect anything else.

Advertising

Inkbloom shows ads through Google AdMob. Ads never appear inside a puzzle. You will see them on menu screens, occasionally between practice puzzles, and as optional rewarded videos you choose to watch in exchange for hints or Ink Drops. AdMob may use your device's advertising identifier to select and measure ads; it is the only part of the app that uses that identifier, and Firebase Analytics is configured not to collect it. You can remove banner and interstitial ads with Ad-free (a subscription, or a one-time purchase) or with Inkbloom Plus.

When it shows an ad, Google's advertising SDK also collects, by Google's own description, your device's IP address (which may be used to estimate your general location), how you interact with ads (such as taps and video views), and performance information about the app and the SDK. Google uses this for advertising, analytics and fraud prevention, under Google's privacy policy. Inkbloom itself does not collect your location.

Asking you about ads first

Where the law gives you the choice — the EEA, the UK, and other regions Google recognises — Google's consent form is shown before any ad is requested. It waits until the first-run introduction is over, so it is never the first thing you see, and nothing is fetched from AdMob until you have answered it. The advertising SDK's own app-measurement component is held back until then, and starts only when the SDK starts after your answer. If you decline, Google may still show limited ads: ads it does not personalise, served within the choices you made in the form. If your answer does not allow ads at all, none are asked for: no banner is placed, and no video is fetched. Firebase Analytics follows your answer separately: it is turned on only if you agree to information being stored on and read from your device, and stays off if you decline, as described under Technical and diagnostic data. Where no form is required, ads and analytics begin once Google's consent platform has confirmed that for your region.

You can change that answer whenever you like. Where the form was required, the You tab carries an Ad privacy choices row that reopens it, and a changed answer applies immediately — withdraw consent and the banner folds away without restarting the app.

If you have Inkbloom Plus you are never shown an ad of any kind, so you are not shown the consent form either. The app only asks Google whether a way back to the choice has to be offered where you are, so that "Ad privacy choices" still opens for you. Ad-free is different: its rewarded videos remain available to you by choice, so you are asked in the ordinary way.

On iPhone and iPad, Apple's App Tracking Transparency question — the one that asks whether the app may track you across other companies' apps and websites — is asked once, just after the short introduction (and after Google's consent form, where one is shown). No ad is fetched before you have answered, so the answer shapes the very first ad you see. Saying no costs you nothing in the app: ads appear just the same, and only their relevance changes. Plus members, who see no ads, are not asked. You can change your answer later in Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking. On Android you can reset or delete your advertising ID in your device's privacy settings.

Purchases

Purchases and subscriptions are handled by Google Play or the App Store, with RevenueCat managing what you are entitled to. We never see or store your card details. Your account identifier is given to RevenueCat so that what you bought follows your account rather than the device you bought it on, and RevenueCat tells our server when that changes. We record only which entitlements your account holds and when a subscription expires.

Who else processes your data

We use these services, and nothing else:

Each of these processes data on our behalf under its own terms. We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it with data brokers.

How long we keep it

Your account and its progress are kept until you ask us to delete them. Leaderboard entries are kept as part of the historical record of each day. Crash reports and analytics are retained on Firebase's own schedule, which is capped at fourteen months for analytics data.

On your own device, Inkbloom keeps copies of past days' puzzles and leaderboard tables so that the app works offline. Anything in those caches older than sixty days is deleted from the device the next time you open the app. Your progress, your stats and your streak are not part of that clear-out.

Your choices

• Play anonymously. Do not link an account and do not set a display name.
• Leave the leaderboards. Clear your display name and your times will rank without any name attached.
• Turn off notifications, in the app or in system settings.
• Answer the ad consent form as you wish, and change your mind. Where the law requires that form, it appears before any ad is requested, and Ad privacy choices in the You tab reopens it at any time. A changed answer takes effect at once, for ads, ad measurement and analytics alike.
• Say no to tracking. On iPhone and iPad, Apple's tracking question is asked once, just after the introduction, and you can change the answer in Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking. On Android you can reset or delete your advertising ID in your device's privacy settings. Either way the app works exactly the same.
• Sign out. Signing out of a linked account clears that account's data from the device — your progress, your stats, your streak, your display name and your country. It stays in your account, and returns when you sign in again.
• Delete your account, or ask for a copy of your data. You → Account & privacy → Delete account deletes your account and everything stored against it at once — your profile, your progress, your streak and settings, your rows on every leaderboard, and your customer record with RevenueCat — and the app starts fresh as a new guest. If you no longer have the app and had linked a Google or Apple account, write to support@inkbloompuzzles.com from that address and we will confirm within thirty days; a guest account can only be deleted from the app, because nothing else proves it is yours. For a copy of your data, write to the same address. The account deletion page has the details, including what stays and why.

If you are in the UK, the EU, or another region with similar law, you also have the right to correct your data, to object to how we process it, and to complain to your data protection authority.

Children

Inkbloom is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them. If you believe a child has given us data, write to support@inkbloompuzzles.com and we will remove it.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will update the date at the top and say so in the app before the change takes effect.