LADDERWORDS

Privacy

Last updated 28 August 2026

LadderWords is a daily word puzzle. It is built to need as little of your data as a game can get away with. This page says, in plain language, exactly what that means.

What we don't do

• No accounts — there is nothing to sign up for.
• No cookies.
• No tracking across other websites, and no third-party advertising or analytics trackers.
• No selling or sharing of data with anyone for marketing.
• We never see your name, email address, or precise location, and we never store your IP address.

What stays on your device

Your game state, streak, and statistics live in your browser's local storage, on your device. So does a random identifier (a string of letters and numbers, generated the first time you visit) that isn't linked to you as a person. Clearing your browser's site data erases all of this — including, fairly enough, your streak.

Because it lives only there, your streak doesn't follow you around: each browser on each device keeps its own, and a copy of the game added to your home screen counts as its own separate "browser" too. If your streak matters to you, play in one place.

What we receive

When you play, your browser sends us anonymous gameplay telemetry: the words you entered in the puzzle, your step count and solve time, and that random identifier so we can tell returning players from new ones. Alongside it we record coarse context — device type, operating system, browser family, and the two-letter country code our hosting provider derives from your connection. Errors the page hits are reported the same way. None of it identifies you.

What it's for

Two things. First, calibrating the puzzles — telemetry tells us which ladders are gentle and which are cruel, so the difficulty curve improves. Second, the daily review page's census, which shows how the crowd fared — always as percentages across all players, never as individual results.

Who processes it

The site is served by Cloudflare, which — like any network host — handles IP addresses in transit to deliver the site. Gameplay telemetry is stored in a managed database operated by an infrastructure provider on our behalf. We also use Cloudflare's cookieless, privacy-preserving web analytics to see aggregate visit counts and page performance. Definitions link out to Wiktionary; following such a link is subject to that site's own practices.

Changes

If what we collect ever changes, this page changes first, and the date at the top moves.

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