Privacy policy

MapleSlice is an independent editorial desk publishing reviews of free mobile games set in the ancient world. This policy sets out what happens to information when you read mapleslice.com. It is written against the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the thirteen Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

The short version

• This site has no form, no account, no comment field and no login. We never ask you for your name, your address or anything else.
• The only thing MapleSlice itself keeps on your device is a single local storage entry recording that you closed the cookie strip.
• Pages are delivered through Cloudflare, which processes request data on our behalf and measures page views without cookies.
• If you write to the desk, we hold your message and your address for as long as it takes to answer you and to keep a record of any correction.
• There is no advertising on this site, no placement is for sale, and nothing is passed to data brokers.

Who is responsible

MapleSlice, the operator of mapleslice.com, is the entity responsible for the handling described here and is the point of contact for any question about it. Written enquiries: editor@mapleslice.com.

Information handled when you visit

Delivery and server data

Every request to a website carries technical data: the IP address it came from, the date and time, the address requested, the referring page, and the browser and language it announced. Our hosting provider and Cloudflare process this to deliver the page, to keep the site available and to prevent abuse. An IP address can be personal information under the Privacy Act when it is combined with other information; we do not combine it, and we do not use it to identify individual readers.

Cloudflare

Cloudflare operates as our content delivery network and as a processor of the traffic described above. Its Web Analytics beacon records the address of the page, the referring page, Core Web Vitals timings, the type of device and browser, and the country derived from the IP address, and it does so without setting a cookie. Cloudflare may also set strictly necessary cookies of its own for security and bot management. Aggregated figures tell us which reviews are read; they do not tell us who read them.

Local storage on your device

When you close the cookie strip, this site writes one entry named userConsent into your browser's local storage so that the strip stays down on your next visit. It contains a single word, it is readable only by this site, it is never transmitted anywhere, and clearing site data in your browser removes it.

Correspondence

Email sent to the desk reaches our mailbox with whatever you put in it: your address, your name if you sign it, and the content of the message. We use it to answer you and to keep a record of corrections made to published pages, and we hold it for twenty-four months unless you ask us to delete it sooner.

What we do not do

• No advertising, no advertising networks and no advertising identifiers.
• No subscriber list, no push notifications and no device identifiers of any kind.
• No cross-site tracking pixels, no social plugins, no session recording, no fingerprinting.
• No sale, rental or trade of information about readers, and no disclosure to studios.
• No profiling and no automated decision-making about you.

Why we handle information

To deliver the pages you request, to keep the service available and secure, to understand in aggregate which reviews people read, to answer correspondence, and to meet obligations imposed on us by Australian law.

Disclosure, including overseas recipients

Under APP 8 we tell you where information may travel. Cloudflare, Inc. is based in the United States and operates a global network of data centres; our hosting provider and our email provider process data on our instructions in order to serve the site and carry our mail. We take reasonable steps to ensure that overseas recipients handle information consistently with the APPs. Beyond this, we disclose nothing, except where Australian law compels us to.

Direct marketing

We run no marketing list, so we send no unsolicited commercial messages. Any message you receive from MapleSlice is a reply to one you sent. Should that ever change, messages would identify us and carry a working way to ask us to stop, as the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) requires.

Quality, security and retention

Pages are served over an encrypted connection, access to the mailbox is restricted to the desk, and we keep as little as possible for as short a time as we can. Server logs are retained by our provider for a short operating period; correspondence is retained for twenty-four months; the local storage entry stays on your device until you clear it.

Access, correction and complaints

APP 12 and APP 13 give you the right to ask what personal information we hold about you and to have it corrected. Write to the desk and we will answer within thirty days, at no charge. Since we hold nothing beyond correspondence, an access request usually returns your own messages.

If you are unhappy with how we handled a privacy matter, tell us first so we can put it right. If our answer does not satisfy you, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC): oaic.gov.au, 1300 363 992, GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001.

Children

This site is not directed at children, holds no accounts and collects nothing that would identify a young reader. A parent or guardian who believes otherwise is welcome to write to us.

Visitors from the EEA and the United Kingdom

Readers in those regions may hold additional rights under their own law and can exercise them at the same address.

Changes to this policy

Any change is published on this page with a new date at the top. Material changes are also noted on the front page for a fortnight.

Contact

Questions about this policy: editor@mapleslice.com. We answer in writing, usually within two or three working days.