Who we are

Guess This Is Life is run by High5ive LLC, a Nevada limited liability company that also operates Conmigo. High5ive LLC is the controller of everything described on this page. Write to hello@guessthisislife.com about anything here.

This page covers this site. High5ive’s general Privacy Policy covers the company’s services as a whole, and will be the one that matters for anything shared between them — a single account across both, when that exists.

The short version

This site counts, it does not track. We keep a tally of how many times each page and each comic is looked at and how often the share button is pressed, so that one day we can say a comic was seen so many times. There is no advertising pixel, no third-party fonts and no social embeds, and nothing on the page phones anybody else as you read it.

The only things kept against a person are the ones you ask for: the daily email (your address, and which emails you opened) and notifications (an anonymous address for your device). Leave either and it is deleted within a day. If you choose to save your Guess This Word stats, we keep your email address and your game results until you delete your account.

How the counting works

We run our own copy of Umami, an open-source analytics tool, on our own server. It sets no cookies. It does not store your IP address. It cannot recognise you on any other site, and it cannot follow you here from one. To tell one visit from the next it keeps a scrambled fingerprint of your connection that is thrown away every month, so the most it ever knows is “somebody who was here earlier this month came back”. There is nothing in it to look up, hand over, or sell, and nobody outside High5ive can see it.

If your browser blocks that sort of thing, the page works exactly the same. You simply are not counted.

The daily email

If you ask for the comic by email, we keep your address, when you signed up and confirmed, and which of our emails you opened. Nothing else. Nobody is added to the list without tapping the button in the confirmation email from their own inbox first.

Each email carries a tiny image, and when your mail app loads it we record that your address opened that email. We use that for one thing: to stop sending to addresses that have not opened anything in a long while, because a list that keeps mailing people who never read it ends up in everyone’s spam folder. Addresses silent for about two months are deleted; if your mail app blocks images we cannot see your opens, so sign up again if that ever happens to you. We do not track clicks.

Leaving deletes you. Every email has an Unsubscribe link. Once you use it you get no more emails, and your address and its open history are permanently deleted within a day. Until then, the same page can email you a copy of your subscription data. We do not keep a “do not email” list of people who left: the only way back on is signing up and confirming again.

Notifications

If you turn on notifications, your browser gives us a delivery address for your device — a long random web address at Google, Apple, Mozilla or Microsoft (whichever makes your browser) — and two keys that let us encrypt the message so only your device can read it. That is all we store: nothing that says who you are, and no email address. Once a day we send today’s comic title to it; the notification is delivered by your browser’s maker.

Turn notifications off in your phone or browser settings (the FAQ shows where) and the next time we send, the address comes back as dead and we delete it.

Saving your Guess This Word stats

You can play Guess This Word without signing in. Your results then stay in your own browser, on your own device, and we never see them.

If you choose to save your stats, we keep:

• your email address;
• your game results: which days you played, your guesses, whether you used the hint, and whether you won;
• a sign-in record for each device you sign in on, so you stay signed in. Your browser holds a small cookie that matches it. The cookie does nothing except keep you signed in to the game, and nothing else can read it.

There is no password. To sign in we email you a 6-digit code that works for 10 minutes. We keep only a scrambled copy of the code, never the code itself, and it stops working once it is used or expires. The scrambled copy is deleted within a day. Your results are used for one thing: showing you your own stats on every phone, tablet and computer you sign in on.

If you tick “Also email me every day” when you sign in, you are added to the daily email, which works exactly as described above. Nobody is added without ticking it.

Sign out on the game page and that device forgets you. Delete my account, also on the game page, erases your email address, your saved results and every sign-in straight away. The results in the browser you are using stay there until you clear them.

Ask Gerald letters

If you write to Gerald, we keep the letter you send, the country you pick and the city or state you give (if any). The form doesn't ask for your name or email. To stop spam we keep a scrambled copy of the connection the letter came from, which can't be turned back into an address, and delete it after 30 days. Letters may be published, including in books, without your name or contact details, as described in the Terms. Because of that, a letter you send is kept even if you later close your account.

Keeping sign-ups honest

To stop bots abusing the sign-up form — for instance, entering somebody else’s address over and over so that they get flooded with confirmation emails — we keep two short-lived records:

• a count of sign-ups from your connection, in memory only, forgotten after an hour;
• a one-way scrambled fingerprint of any address entered, which cannot be turned back into the address, deleted after 24 hours (7 days if that address was entered more than five times in a day).

Asking for Guess This Word sign-in codes is limited the same way: a few an hour per email address and per connection, counted from the codes themselves, which are deleted as described above.

What the site stores on your device

Your cart is kept in your own browser, on your own device. It never reaches us until you check out, and if you clear your browser data it is simply gone. If you turn on notifications, your browser also keeps a small script from us (a “service worker”) whose only job is to show the notification. Guess This Word keeps your results and which of Gerald’s remarks you have already seen in your browser too, so it does not repeat itself, and saves today’s and past words so the game opens faster. If you save your stats, a sign-in cookie is added, as described above. Nothing else.

Who else handles it

Nobody buys or receives any of this. A few services handle it on our behalf, only to do their one job:

• Akamai (Linode), USA — the servers the site, the email list, the notification list and Guess This Word accounts run on;
• SendGrid (Twilio), USA — delivers the emails, including Guess This Word sign-in codes, so it sees the address it is delivering to;
• Bunny.net, EU — serves the comic pictures;
• Google, Apple, Mozilla or Microsoft — deliver notifications to browsers they make.

Some of these are in the United States, so if you are in Europe your data leaves it; each of them offers the standard contractual protections for that.

Why we are allowed to

• The email and notifications: because you asked for them (consent). Withdraw it any time by leaving.
• Guess This Word accounts: because you asked us to save your stats, and we need your email address and results to do it. Delete your account any time.
• Counting visits and protecting the sign-up form: our legitimate interest in knowing the comic is read and in not being used to harass people, done in ways that cannot identify you.
• Orders: to fulfil the contract, and to keep the records the law requires for tax.

How long things are kept

• Email subscription: until you leave or go silent for about two months; deleted within a day after that.
• Notification address: until your browser tells us it is dead.
• Guess This Word account and results: until you delete your account. Sign-in codes: work for 10 minutes; the scrambled copy is deleted within a day.
• Sign-up protection: an hour, or 24 hours (7 days for abused addresses).
• Visit counts: kept, but they are counts, not people.
• Orders: as long as tax law requires.
• Ask Gerald letters: the letter, your country and the city or state you give, kept as long as the letter may be used (including in books); a scrambled copy of the sending connection, kept to stop spam, deleted after 30 days.

What ordering involves

To send you something we need a name, a delivery address and an email address, and a payment has to be processed. We use that information to make and deliver your order and to talk to you about it. We do not sell it, rent it, or hand it to anybody who is not part of getting the parcel to your door.

That means it is shared with:

• the payment processor, who handles the card details — we never see or store a card number;
• the printer who makes and ships the item, who needs the delivery address;
• the carrier who delivers it.

Sending a card

To send someone a card we need an account for you, and we need to know where the card is going — either an email address or another Conmigo user.

The recipient's address is used only to deliver that one card. It is not added to a mailing list, not used to advertise anything to them, not sold, and not kept once the card has been delivered and the delivery has settled. They never had a chance to agree to anything, so they do not get treated as somebody who signed up.

The message you write is stored with the card so the recipient can open it later, and so it can be checked if it gets reported. Delete the card and the message goes with it.

If somebody reports a card you sent, we keep a record of it. That record is attached to your account, because a ban has to be able to stick to a person.

Email

If you order, you get email about that order. You are not added to a mailing list as a side effect of buying something. If a newsletter ever exists it will be something you deliberately sign up for and can leave in one click.

Your say

For the email list you do not need to ask: the Unsubscribe page deletes you and can email you a copy of your data first. For Guess This Word, the Delete my account button on the game page erases your account on the spot. For anything else — orders included, once we are no longer legally required to keep them for tax — you can ask what is held about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for it to be deleted. Ask and it happens; you do not need a reason. Send it to hello@guessthisislife.com.

If you are in Europe or the UK you can also complain to your data protection authority. If something ever goes wrong with data we hold about you, we will tell you, and the authorities where the law requires it, within 72 hours of finding out.

Children

This is not a site for children, and we do not knowingly collect anything from anybody under 13.

Changes

If this changes in a way that matters, the date at the top changes with it.