Privacy policy

This policy covers the Black Hole Simulator game and this website, blackholesimulator.com. Black Hole Simulator is made by John Krajewski. Questions or requests go to contact@blackholesimulator.com.

Short version: the game collects nothing about you, and the website collects only what you choose to send us, plus ad measurement cookies if you accept them.

The game

• The game has no analytics, telemetry or account of its own. It does not send us any data.
• Your settings and saved looks are stored on your own computer.
• The game is sold and run through Steam. Steam features you use, such as achievements, Rich Presence, screenshots and the Workshop, are handled by Valve under the Steam Privacy Policy. We only see the aggregate statistics Steam gives developers, and Workshop items you choose to publish.
• The Feedback link in the game simply opens this website.

The website

• Feedback form. If you send feedback or a bug report, we receive your email address, your message, the app version if you give it, and any images you attach. It is delivered to our inbox by email through Resend and is not stored on the website. We use your email only to reply.
• Mailing list. If you signed up for our mailing list (the site no longer asks), we stored your email address, the kind of device you used (computer, iPhone or Android), your country as reported by our network provider, the source, medium, campaign and creative labels in the link that brought you here, and the date. We use it to send occasional news about the game and to measure signups from our marketing, subject to the advertising choices described below. Every email has an unsubscribe option, or you can ask us to remove you at any time.
• Email. Mail to contact@blackholesimulator.com is forwarded to our inbox by Cloudflare Email Routing.
• Giveaways. If you claim a giveaway prize, we store the social platform and handle you enter, the claim code and the Steam key issued to you, so we can confirm the winner and deliver the key. We read the message you send us from your social account only to verify your code.
• Press copies. If we send you a press or creator key, we keep your name, email and a note of when your link was opened.
• Abuse protection and logs. Your IP address is held in memory for up to an hour to limit spam and repeated requests. Our host, Railway, keeps standard server logs.
• Ad cookies, only with your consent. If you click Accept on the cookie notice, the site loads the Meta pixel and the Google Ads tag. They tell us which ads brought people here and when someone clicks through to our Steam page. If you also join the mailing list, your email address is sent to Meta and Google in hashed (scrambled) form so they can match the signup to the ad you saw; they use it only for that matching. Meta and Google may set cookies and process your data under their own policies (Meta, Google). If you click Decline, or ignore the notice, no ad tags are loaded. Your choice is saved in your browser's local storage; clear site data to see the notice again. When you join the mailing list, our server also reports the signup to Meta directly, with your hashed email, your IP address and browser type, and the ad click code from the link you arrived on, so the signup can be matched to an ad even without cookies. In the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland this only happens if you clicked Accept; elsewhere it happens unless you clicked Decline.
• Steam links. Links to Steam may carry campaign labels (UTM tags) so Steam can show us which pages and ads send visitors. They contain nothing that identifies you.

What we don't do

• We do not sell your personal information or share it for anyone else's marketing.
• We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you think a child has sent us information, email us and we will delete it.

How long we keep it

Feedback and email stay in our inbox as long as they are useful for support. Mailing list addresses are kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove them. Giveaway and press records are kept while the giveaway or press outreach is running and for a reasonable time afterwards to resolve claims. You can ask us to delete your information at any time.

Your rights

Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR in Europe and the UK, or the CCPA in California), you may have the right to access, correct, delete or get a copy of your personal information, and to object to or restrict how we use it. Email contact@blackholesimulator.com and we will respond within 30 days. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.

Our legal basis for handling your data is your consent (ad cookies), the request you make (mailing list signups, feedback, giveaway claims), and our legitimate interest in keeping the site secure.

Where data is processed

We are based in the United States, and our service providers (Railway, Resend, Cloudflare, Google, Meta, Valve) may process data in the US and other countries.

Changes

If this policy changes, we will update this page and the date at the top.