A small game. Small data.

Who operates Wordhump

Wordhump, formerly Alphabet Slice, is operated by J Squared Labs LLC. Our privacy officer handles privacy questions, requests, and complaints at hello@jsquaredlabs.com.

Information stored on your device

Wordhump uses local storage in your browser or iPhone app to remember onboarding, an unfinished puzzle, completed Daily results, streak history, assistance use, privacy choices, and game preferences. This information remains on the device where you played. We do not receive it as an account profile, and it does not automatically move to another device.

Words processed during play

To check a guess, offer a suggestion, or reveal an answer, the game sends the current puzzle, range, and guessed word to our game service. This information is used to return that move and is not added to product analytics. Ordinary play is not saved as an account history. Ranked play stores the competition state described below.

Optional iPhone weekly leaderboards

On iPhone versions that offer weekly competition, you can choose to connect Game Center and then join a US or International (outside the US) board. Connecting verifies your Apple Game Center identity; joining is a separate choice. We process Apple’s signed identity proof and keep a keyed pseudonym, not your raw Apple player identifier, email, or Game Center nickname. Temporary sign-in sessions expire after one day.

While you participate, your leaderboard name, player code, home board, weekly solve count, guess total, assisted-solve count and rank are public. On versions that offer profile editing, you can shuffle a name from approved choices and optionally choose a US state or an international country or region to display publicly. No location is shown by default, and you can remove it at any time. These profile choices are stored with your competition pseudonym. Locations and home boards are self-declared; we do not request location permission. Home-board changes begin the following week; editing your name or displayed location does not change your scores or home board. Competition records are separate from optional product analytics and do not use its device reference. Turning analytics off does not turn an opted-in leaderboard off.

To enforce one ranked attempt per Daily, we retain its puzzle date, encoded play state (including bounds and previously used word positions), latest move response, result, guess count and assistance status. The latest response can include a suggestion or revealed answer; these are private and never appear in public standings. This is competition storage, not synchronization of your local history or streaks. Attempts are removed after about 90 days, and inactive profiles are removed after their remaining attempts expire. Expired sessions are removed by daily cleanup.

Use Leave leaderboard to hide your entries and stop ranking new Dailies. Leaving does not immediately delete competition records: rejoining retains your original ranked attempts. The leaderboard screen can open an access or deletion request with your competition reference. You review and send that email yourself. Deleting the app alone does not delete server competition records. Apple operates Game Center under its own Game Center privacy notice.

Information processed to deliver the service

The website and app service are delivered through Cloudflare. Like other infrastructure providers, Cloudflare processes technical request information needed to route traffic, protect the service, and diagnose reliability or security problems. This can include IP address, browser and device information, requested URL, timestamps, and response status.

Website game counts

The website and installed web app count Daily and Bonus games started, solved and finished by revealing the answer. These are game totals, not unique or returning player counts. We do not create an analytics device identifier, link separate games together, or send the earlier individual usage events from the updated website. Practice games are excluded. The game opens without an analytics or age prompt.

Our server uses the existing per-game play token to prevent retries from counting twice. A temporary per-game record holds an opaque key, start day, Daily or Bonus mode, completion outcome and expiry. It contains no device reference, entered words, answers, IP address or user-agent string. Counting ends 48 hours after the game token is created; expired records are removed during counting or the next daily cleanup. Only daily totals by game mode remain, for about 90 days. Older unfinished games can still be played but may not contribute to these totals.

Game counting is on by default unless you previously declined usage analytics. You can turn it off at any time in Privacy settings, without affecting play or progress. This preference is stored on this browser and applies to future requests. Turning it off cannot remove a contribution already combined into daily totals. Earlier privacy references remain available for access and deletion requests.

Optional iPhone usage analytics

On the updated iPhone app, usage analytics is off until you select “Allow usage analytics” and confirm you are 18 or older. We ask only for this age-band confirmation, not your birthday. Declining, being under 18, or choosing not to say leaves analytics off and does not prevent play. This confirmation controls only optional analytics.

With your consent, we collect limited usage events and puzzle results to understand onboarding, feature use and difficulty. We create a random device reference only after you opt in and hash it before storing records. These records are pseudonymous, not fully anonymous. They include event or attempt details, platform and app version, event session references, timestamps, and the notice version and consent time. Analytics is accepted only after adult confirmation. These records contain no entered words, puzzle answers, advertising identifiers or account identity. We do not use them for advertising or cross-app tracking.

Change your iPhone analytics choice from the gear icon on iPhone. Turning analytics off stops future optional collection without affecting gameplay, progress or streaks. Activity before consent is not uploaded later. An attempt already underway when you opt in is not added to the new attempt records.

Installed older iPhone releases continue to use a “Share anonymous usage” choice without the new adult confirmation and may repeat the earlier consent reminder. They continue sending consented product events and puzzle-difficulty points to Analytics Engine and attempt records to the legacy database until updated. The earliest website versions collected product events and attempt records without this control; their old v1 web analytics requests are now ignored. The September 23 website introduced adult-confirmed opt-in. An already-open tab running that version may continue its consented measurement until reloaded. Legacy records remain until expiry or other applicable handling. Update the app to use the controls described here. The updated website does not load the separate Cloudflare Web Analytics browser beacon; historical reports from that service may remain available.

Measuring how hard a puzzle is

When iPhone attempt measurement is enabled as described above, our server can keep a short record of each attempt to tell a puzzle that is genuinely hard from one that is simply unfair. A record is created only once you take an action — a guess, a suggestion, or a reveal. Opening or previewing a puzzle creates nothing.

Each record holds only:

• an opaque attempt identifier, and which puzzle and revision it was;
• whether it was the Daily or a bonus puzzle;
• when the attempt started and, if it finished, when it ended;
• whether it ended by solving or by revealing the answer;
• how many accepted guesses it took, and whether a suggestion was submitted;
• how long the attempt took, from the first action to the end.

New attempt records include the hashed device reference so we can locate them for access and deletion requests. They do not include entered words, answers, boundaries, suggestions, free-form text, raw installation identifiers, IP addresses or user-agent strings. Older attempt records used separate per-attempt identifiers without this device link. Analytics does not match these records to Game Center identities or leaderboard profiles.

Elapsed time is measured from when you first acted to when the attempt ended. It counts any time the game sat open in a background tab, so we treat it as a rough upper bound rather than as time you spent playing. The difficulty statistics we derive from it are capped at 24 hours, though the record itself keeps the start and end times as they were.

Access and deletion requests

Privacy settings shows your current reference and any earlier reference still stored on this device. Request access or deletion there to open an email draft addressed to hello@jsquaredlabs.com. Review and send it to submit the request. Preparing a deletion request switches analytics off; it does not itself delete server records. Your game progress and streaks are unchanged. If no email app opens, email us directly with the references. We assess requests and verify the connection to the records proportionately. Earlier Analytics Engine records, provider logs and backups require separate handling; we will explain what we located, what was deleted, and any limitation.

How long we keep information

New product events and attempt records are removed by a daily automated sweep after their event or attempt-start time is more than 90 days old. Legacy database attempt records also have a daily sweep after their start time is more than 90 days old. Legacy product-event and puzzle-difficulty data stored in Cloudflare Workers Analytics Engine is retained by Cloudflare for three months.

Cloudflare Web Analytics retains unsampled website beacon data for seven days, then aggregates and samples it for longer-term reporting. Its dashboard currently makes reporting available for up to six months. Technical request and security records are retained under Cloudflare’s service policies and are used only to deliver, protect, and diagnose the service.

We cannot look up gameplay records by name or email address. Product events can be located using the privacy references shown in updated clients' Privacy settings; older iPhone builds do not display a reference. New attempt records use the same reference. Earlier attempt records have separate attempt identifiers. Where we can reasonably verify a connection between you and a record, we will assess your request for access, correction, or deletion. Some records may already have expired, may be sampled, or may not be reliably attributable to you. We will explain any limitations rather than assume that all analytics are anonymous. Turning analytics off stops future optional product events and attempt records from that browser or iPhone app; it does not itself erase existing records.

Contacting us

If you email us, we receive your email address, your message, and any information you choose to include. We use this information to answer you, handle support or privacy requests, and keep an appropriate record of the response. Apple iCloud Mail receives email sent to our contact address; email providers process the message to deliver and store it. Please do not send passwords or a full device backup. We keep correspondence only as long as needed to handle the matter and meet applicable legal obligations.

Processing outside your country

Wordhump is operated from the United States. Our infrastructure and email providers may process information in the United States and other countries outside the country where you live. We do not promise that information stays in your country. For information Cloudflare processes on our behalf, its Data Processing Addendum sets out processing, security, confidentiality, and assistance obligations. We remain responsible for the information we entrust to our service providers.

Sharing

Wordhump shares only when you activate the share control. The intended result text contains the puzzle number, number of guesses, streak, and whether a suggestion was used. It includes abstract directional marks for each accepted guess, but not the answer, your guessed words, or the puzzle boundaries. Your device’s share sheet or clipboard is controlled by your browser and operating system.

Cookies and advertising

Wordhump does not use advertising pixels or cross-site tracking cookies. If that changes, this notice and any required consent controls will be updated before the new technology is enabled.

Your choices

Use Privacy settings on the website or the gear icon in the iPhone app to allow or stop future product events and attempt measurement. Deleting the app removes its locally stored progress and preferences. In a browser, you can remove locally stored game data through the browser’s site-data settings. Private-browsing modes may erase progress when the private session ends. Blocking local storage may prevent streaks or unfinished games from being saved, but the current puzzle should remain playable.

Access, correction, and complaints

You can ask our privacy officer whether we hold personal information about you, request access or correction, request deletion, or raise a privacy complaint by emailing hello@jsquaredlabs.com. Explain what you are requesting and whether you used the website or iPhone app. We may ask for limited information needed to verify your identity or authority and locate relevant records. You do not need to create an account to make a request.

We handle requests under applicable law. For New Zealand access and correction requests, we will make a decision as soon as reasonably practicable and normally within 20 working days. If a lawful extension is needed, we will explain why and when to expect our response. If we decline a request, cannot locate information, or cannot make a requested correction, we will explain the reason and your options, including requesting that a statement of correction be attached where applicable.

If we cannot resolve your concern, you can contact the New Zealand Office of the Privacy Commissioner or, where Australian privacy law applies, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

In Canada, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or, where Quebec privacy law applies, the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec. The appropriate regulator depends on the law that applies to your concern.

Changes

Material changes will be reflected on this page with a new effective date. The September 23, 2026 revision adds web and iPhone adult opt-in controls, privacy references, request drafts, and deletable usage records, while distinguishing legacy data. The September 21, 2026 revision clarifies installation identifiers, website and iPhone analytics choices, overseas processing, correspondence, and privacy requests, and includes Canadian complaint contacts. The August 31, 2026 revision states the server-side retention and deletion periods. The August 30, 2026 revision adds the iPhone app’s first-run analytics choice and Settings withdrawal control. The August 21, 2026 revision identifies J Squared Labs LLC as the service operator and adds a contact address. The August 19, 2026 revision added the “Measuring how hard a puzzle is” section above, describing per-attempt records kept by our server.