Privacy Statement

Hi there! 👋 In this privacy statement we describe how we collect and use personal data when you’re visiting our website geoguessr.com (the “website”), using the GeoGuessr™ or Seterra™ mobile application (the “app”), playing the GeoGuessr™ or Seterra™ game (hereinafter “GeoGuessr”), or otherwise interacting with us. When referring to “we” or “us”, we mean GeoGuessr AB, which is the responsible legal entity, or the “controller” for the collection and use of personal data described herein.

What do we collect

Contact details. Name and email address, when creating a user account

Profile information and player data. Username, country, game data, Images which you upload to your user account, game statistics, in-game activities and game summaries (including replays)

Data that you share in chats. Information that you choose to include in chats and free text areas. We urge you not to share personal data in this context

Information from other sites (with your consent). Profile information from Google and browser data about what other sites and apps you visit

Data that identifies you. IP-address, login information, and approximate geolocation based on your IP-address

Data on how you use our website. Aggregated and anonymized data about how you move on our website and what products and sites you click

How and why do we use your personal data?

According to the data protection laws, we may only use your data for informed reasons and where we have a legal basis to do so. The reasons for which we process your data are the following:

Providing GeoGuessr. In order to play GeoGuessr and keep track of your scores, you need to create a user account. We collect your contact information to create and verify your user account and ask you to set a username. If you do not set a username, a random username will be set for you. In some features you can also include an image attached to your username. Please note that your profile information and game data will be visible to other users and GeoGuessr.

We need to process your personal data for these purposes in order to fulfill our contractual obligations in our Terms of Use. Your provision of images to your user account is voluntary and based on your consent. You may at any time remove your images through the settings in your user account.

Improving GeoGuessr. We collect data that identifies you and other aggregated data on how you use our website for managing landing pages, heat mapping our website, and analyzing and optimizing website traffic.

We process aggregated data and/or anonymized data (that does not identify you) for these purposes based on our legitimate interest to improve our website and app by making it more user friendly. Data that identifies you will only be processed for these purposes if you consent to it. You may at any time recall your consent or change your preferences on your profile page.

Managing your subscription. We process personal data to help you with questions related to your subscription. If you have any other inquiries regarding your subscription, you are most welcome to send an email to subscription@geoguessr.com.

We need to process your personal data for this purpose in order to fulfill our contractual obligations in our Terms of Use.

Sending newsletters. If you are a customer of ours, we will send you updates about news we think might interest you, such as the release of new features or new maps. You may at any time choose to unsubscribe through the settings of your user account, or by using the “unsubscribe” instructions provided in each newsletter.

We process your personal data for this purpose based on our legitimate interest to update our customers of new features.

Marketing purposes. We may collect profile information from Google and information about which other websites and apps you visit, to create user audiences for marketing purposes, to display targeted advertisement and to measure how users interact with our advertisement. This may include profiling and the use of machine learning and other techniques over your data and in some cases using third parties to do this, if you consent to marketing cookies and similar technologies on our website or in our app.

We process your personal data for these purposes only if you consent. You may at any time recall your consent or change your preferences on your profile page.

What about childrens’ personal data?

To create a user account you have to be at least 16 years old.

Who can access your personal data?

Player data shared with other users. We have a strong community and social features are a core component of our games. Other players may therefore access your profile information and game data through search results and leaderboards. You can also connect with other players and send messages via the website or app.

Other personal data can only be accessed by us and our trusted partners. Your data can only be accessed by those of our employees and consultants who need the data to perform their work. Besides our employees and consultants, we use certain partners to help us provide, improve, promote, and protect our services. For example, we use suppliers to manage marketing, data storage, and web hosting on our behalf. We also use services from Google to analyze how our website and app is used and to display targeted ads and follow up on our marketing campaigns if you consent to such use

For our partners to perform their services, it is sometimes necessary for us to share your data with them. These suppliers may only use your personal data in accordance with our instructions and we only share such data that is required to perform the service in question. We do not sell any personal data to partners or any other third parties.

Independent service providers. For log-in, providing maps and surroundings in GeoGuessr, payments, customer support and product purchases, we rely on the following independent third party service providers.

For the sign-up and login procedure, we use Google Play Store, Facebook and Apple for user authentication.

For displaying maps and surroundings in GeoGuessr, we use Google Maps, Google Earth and Street View.

To provide secure payments, we use Paddle in our check-out on our website, and App Store and Google Play Store (depending on your mobile device) for payments in our app.

For support matters, we use Kundo and Zendesk to ensure that your questions get answered.

To provide branded merchandise, we use Spreadshirt to manage orders, shipping and related services.

To promote our Services and to show personalized ads to you, we use cookies. You can read more under the section “Cookies”.

These service providers have an independent responsibility for the data that they to collect as part of providing requested services. The service providers are considered as data controllers for the data they collect and process about you, including the transaction and payment data, support communication data, and product orders respectively, and are responsible for your data being processed in accordance with the GDPR as well as other applicable laws. If you want to learn how they protect your data, you can click on the links above and get redirected to their privacy policies.

Other disclosures. We may share personal data to authorities when required by law or regulations. Subject to a merger or sale of GeoGuessr AB (in whole or in part), your personal data will be shared with or transferred to the merged or buying entity. In such a case, your personal data will continue to be processed in accordance with this Privacy Statement.

For how long do we store personal data?

Your data is used as long as it’s necessary for the purposes for which we collected the data for. How long we store your data will therefore vary depending on the purpose for which we collected the data. We may store personal data for a longer period of time if it is necessary to defend our legal rights and to obey legal requirements.

How do we keep your data secured?

We take several steps to keep your data secure through access control, pseudonymization and encryption procedures. Please keep in mind, however, that no data transmission can be guaranteed to be 100% secure and you provide personal data at your own choice. Always ensure that you keep your password secret and safe to avoid unauthorized use of your user account.

Where do we store your personal data?

We keep your data securely stored at servers in the European Union. If we transfer or enable our partners to transfer or store your personal data in a country outside of the European Economic Area (EEA), we will take the adequate technical and organizational security measures to ensure that your data is processed with a corresponding level of security as within the EEA. Such actions may include signing EU Model Clauses in case the recipient’s country of establishment is not recognized as providing an adequate level of protection for personal data.

What are your rights?

You always have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

The right to access your data. You always have the right to understand what personal information we collect and share. You have the right to ask us for supplementary information on why we process your data, what data we process, how long we store your data (or what criteria we use for determining the storage period), who we share your data with, and whether your data is transferred to countries outside of the European Economic Area.

The right to correct inaccurate information. You always have the right to correct or ask us to correct any inaccurate data about you.

The right to request erasure or restriction of your data. You have the right to have us erase or restrict the use of your data that is no longer needed for the purposes for which we collected the data. You also have a right to object to any processing you find unlawful or unnecessary for the informed purposes.

The right to information on the source of data we collect. You have a right to get information on the source of information that is not provided by you and about automated decision-making, such as profiling.

The right to data portability. When technically possible, you have the right to get your data transferred to another service.

Right to non-discrimination. You have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment for the exercise of your privacy rights.

You may request the disclosures described above by sending a request to support@GeoGuessr.com. You have the right to make two (2) free requests during any 12-month period. We will make the disclosure within 30 days of receiving your request, unless we request an extension, in which case we will notify you of the extension within the given time period.

Please note that there may be restrictions for us to erase certain personal data, such as personal data we are required to store by law or regulations.

If you have questions or complaints regarding our processing of your personal data, we kindly ask you to contact us over email at data@geoguessr.com. You also have the right, at any time, to file a complaint to the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection, which is the supervisory authority for data protection matters in Sweden.

Cookies

In addition to the data that you provide directly to us when using our services, some data is obtained automatically from your device through the use of “cookies” or similar tracking technologies (hereinafter “cookies”) when you visit our website. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your device and collect information about your device and your use of the website.

We use cookies to:

  • Ensure the basic functionality of the website
  • Maintain the security of the website
  • Analyze the use of our website and help us make it better
  • Promote and market our products and services

Some cookies are necessary for the website to function as intended, and these will be installed automatically on your device based on our legitimate interest to provide you with a functioning and safe website. Other cookies, such as those used for marketing and analytical purposes, will only be installed if you allow us to use such cookies when first visiting our website (as part of selecting your cookies preferences). You can choose to allow all cookies, including marketing and analytics cookies, or to only enable certain types of cookies. All data used for analytical purposes is stored in anonymized form. We use third-party cookies to promote our Services and to show personalized ads to you. You may at any time recall your consent or change your preferences on your profile page.

Third party cookie providers for analytical purposes include amongst others:

For California and Nevada residents

Residents in the state of California and in the state of Nevada have certain specific rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (the 'CCPA') and Nevada Privacy of Information Collected on the Internet from Consumers Act (the “Nevada Privacy Law”), respectively, in relation to their personal information. We have incorporated those rights in this Privacy Statement, together with specific rights under the GDPR, and provide these rights to all our users, no matter of nationality or place of residence. As used in this Privacy Statement, the definition of personal data and personal information shall have the same meaning, unless specially stated otherwise.

Disclosures About Your Personal Information for business purpose. According to the CCPA, in addition to the right to be informed of the purposes for which we process your data, you have the right to be informed of which categories of personal information we have disclosed for business purposes during the preceding year. During the past twelve months, we have disclosed the following categories of personal information for a business purpose:

  • Identifiers, such as your name, IP-address, email, and other similar identifiers.
  • Commercial information, such as the record of purchase of a subscription.
  • Internet or other electronic network activity information, such as session logs.
  • Electronic, visual, or similar information, such as photos you have uploaded to your user account.

Changes

We may update this privacy statement as necessary to reflect changes in our services and offerings and to satisfy legal requirements. We will inform you over email of any material changes that affect your rights before such change taking effect. You can always view the most current privacy statement on our website under the section “Privacy”.

Contact

If you have any questions or feedback about this privacy policy, please contact us at data@geoguessr.com.

Company details

GeoGuessr AB (Reg.No.556939-8349)
Katarinavägen 17,
116 45 Stockholm, Sweden

This Privacy Statement was last updated on 25/9/2023