Privacy & cookies.

Who is responsible?

Orbino's operator is responsible for the processing described here. See operator and contact details. For privacy requests, write to [email protected].

What the game stores.

You do not need to supply a name, email address, or password to play. Orbino creates a random browser-linked player reference and stores your expeditions, choices, results, timestamps, personal best, and number of completed expeditions. These are pseudonymous records: they can be linked to this browser even though you have not registered an account.

Active expeditions are private to this browser session. Once finished, expeditions with at least three played rounds are automatically published in the public game history, including games ended early or restarted. Public pages show the final empire, round choices and comparisons, game mode, completion time, and a shareable globe image. They have permanent links and can appear in search engines. Your browser-linked player reference, session cookie, and personal best are not published, and public games do not link to a player profile. Game choices are processed on our server; they are not sent to AI providers.

The essential cookie.

_orbino_session is an encrypted cookie used to connect this browser to its saved progress and protect form submissions. It is set with a one-year expiry, which can be renewed as you use the site, and is protected from access by page scripts. It is sent over HTTPS in production.

You can remove it in your browser settings. That disconnects this browser from its history; it does not delete the corresponding records on the server. Blocking it prevents saved play from working reliably. Orbino uses no advertising cookies or cross-site tracking. The site analytics described below do not set analytics cookies.

Site analytics.

We use cookie-free Plausible analytics on our own service at analytics.ddventures.co to understand visits and which pages are useful. It measures pageviews, referral sources, and browser and device categories. Requests also involve technical information such as the visitor's IP address and browser details so Plausible can count visits.

The page addresses we send exclude query strings and fragments, and completed expedition pages are grouped without their game identifiers. We do not send your Orbino session cookie, player reference, country choices, figures, or results as analytics data. Revealing a result or moving to the next round does not create an extra pageview. Analytics is separate from your saved game records.

Technical information and messages.

Serving and protecting the site involves technical information such as IP addresses, browser details, requested paths, timestamps, and errors in hosting and security logs. When error monitoring is enabled, our self-hosted GlitchTip service receives diagnostic reports and sampled performance information. The application is configured to exclude default personal information, request bodies, cookies, and query strings from those reports.

If you email us, we receive your email address and the contents of your message. Please share only what is needed to answer your question.

Why we process this information.

We process the essential cookie and saved game records to provide the game and continuation you request (performance of the service agreement, Article 6(1)(b) GDPR). Security logs and diagnostic information support our legitimate interest in keeping Orbino secure and reliable (Article 6(1)(f)). We handle general enquiries under that same interest in responding to people, and rights requests or legally required records to meet legal obligations (Article 6(1)(c)).

We do not sell player data or use it for advertising. Game outcomes are automated comparisons for entertainment; they are not decisions with legal or similarly significant effects on you.

Service providers.

The production setup uses Hetzner in Finland for the application and database, Cloudflare for DNS and edge security, self-hosted GlitchTip for diagnostics, self-hosted Plausible for site analytics, and AWS S3 in Ireland for encrypted database backups. These services process information needed for hosting, delivery, security, or recovery. Fonts, flag artwork, and maps are served locally, and playing does not contact country-data providers.

Cloudflare and email handling may involve processing outside the European Economic Area. The applicable providers, processing agreements, and transfer safeguards must be confirmed before public launch; this notice will be updated to reflect the live setup.

How long records remain.

Saved expeditions and personal bests currently remain until the operator deletes them; automatic expiry of server records has not yet been implemented. Cookie expiry does not remove these records. Contact us if you want us to locate and delete your saved data.

Before launch, the operator must set and verify retention periods for saved games, correspondence, infrastructure logs, monitoring events, and backup versions. Deletion from the live database may not immediately remove copies from backups. This notice will state the verified retention periods before the public service opens.

Your choices and rights.

Where applicable, you can request access, correction, deletion, restriction, or portability of your personal data, and object to processing based on legitimate interests. You may also complain to the data-protection authority where you live or work or where a possible infringement occurred.

Contact [email protected] before clearing the cookie if your request concerns saved play. Because there is no registered account, an email address alone does not identify your game records. We may need proportionate information to locate them and verify the request; do not send your session cookie.

Changes.

We will update this notice when the service or its data handling changes. Changes to analytics or other data handling will be reflected here.