Privacy Policy
Effective 2026-07-11 · Flotillas Adrift (flotillasadrift.com)
Overview
Flotillas Adrift is a free browser game. This page explains, plainly and specifically to what the game actually does, what information it stores, where it lives, what's visible to other players by design, and how you can have it removed. It applies to flotillasadrift.com and nowhere else.
Account & sign-in
The game runs in one of two modes. Which one you get depends only on whether cloud sync is configured for the build you're playing — you don't choose it.
- Cloud mode — sign in with Google or with an email + password account, via Google Firebase Authentication. We never see or store your password ourselves; Firebase handles that. Signing in with Google shares your Google account's basic profile info (display name, email address) with Firebase, subject to Google's own privacy terms.
- Local mode — no account at all. You pick a commander name and play under a profile kept entirely on your own device (browser local storage). Nothing is sent anywhere.
Data we store (cloud mode)
When you're signed in, your flotilla's data lives in Google Firestore (part of the same Firebase project as sign-in), organized as a handful of small documents:
| What | Contains | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud save saves/<your account id> |
Your full flotilla state — city layout, economy, military, population, inbox, settings. | Lets your progress follow you between devices. |
| Public roster entry roster/<your account id> |
A public slice of your flotilla: nation/ruler name, team color, strength, population and civic stats, your flag, alliance tag, and your reputation ("infamy") score and its underlying prisoner/slave-treatment tallies. | Powers the world map, rankings, and other players' ability to view your flotilla's country page — see Public by design. |
| Messages messages/<message id> |
Direct messages you send to, or receive from, other players (sender, recipient, subject, body, timestamp). | In-game diplomacy/messaging. |
| Alliance membership alliances/<alliance id> |
One shared document per alliance: member list, ranks, applications, treasury/aid ledger, and posted charter documents. | Multiplayer alliances — visible to fellow members and, for public documents, to anyone. |
| Flag image uploads flagUploads/<your account id> |
A downscaled image you submit to fly as a custom flag, held pending human review before it's approved. | Lets an admin manually screen custom flag art (an automated filter can't read pixels). |
| Global news votes globalNews/<headline id> |
Notable in-game events you generate (wars, etc.) and the up/down votes you cast on the shared news wall (one vote per player, attributed to your account). | A shared, cross-player news feed. |
| Device lease heartbeat leases/<your account id> |
A small timestamp + device id, refreshed periodically. | Stops two of your own devices from overwriting each other's save at the same time. Not shown to anyone else. |
There is no payment or billing data of any kind — the game is free and has no purchases.
Public by design
Flotillas Adrift has a social/leaderboard layer, and some of what you do is meant to be visible to every other player — this isn't a data leak, it's how the World Map, Rankings, alliances, and rival "dossier" pages work. Specifically: your nation name, ruler name, flag, team color, population and civic statistics, military strength (a summary number, not exact unit counts unless another player scouts you in-game), alliance tag, reputation score and its underlying prisoner/slave-treatment counters, public alliance charters, and your votes/posts on the shared news wall are all readable by anyone who plays the game. Choose your commander/nation names and public flotilla details with that in mind.
Direct messages are only readable by the sender and the recipient. Your cloud save itself (full internal state) is only readable by your own account.
Data kept only on your device
Independent of cloud mode, the game keeps some things in your browser's local storage: your local save (used directly in local mode, or as an offline cache in cloud mode), UI preferences (layout toggle, icon style, etc.), a stable per-device id used for the device-lease/multi-tab protections above, and — in local mode only — your named local profiles. None of this is transmitted anywhere unless you're signed into cloud mode. Clearing your browser's site data removes all of it.
Third parties we use
The game relies on two external services, and nothing else:
- Google Firebase (Authentication + Firestore database) — as described above, for accounts and cloud data in cloud mode. See Google's Privacy Policy.
- Google Fonts — the page's typefaces are loaded from fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com. Your browser makes a request to Google's font servers to fetch them, which — like any web request — exposes your IP address to Google. We don't use this for tracking and receive no data back from it.
We do not use any other third-party service, SDK, or embed.
No ads, no analytics, no tracking
Flotillas Adrift carries no advertising, no advertising networks, and no third-party analytics or tracking scripts (no Google Analytics, no Meta/Facebook Pixel, no ad tech, no session-replay tools). We don't sell or share your data with advertisers because there aren't any. We keep no server logs of your play beyond what's described above.
How long we keep it
Cloud data (save, roster entry, messages, alliance membership, flag uploads, device lease) is kept for as long as your account is active, so your progress persists across sessions and devices. It is not automatically purged after inactivity — an idle flotilla just sits as-is until you return, reset it, or ask us to remove it.
Deleting your data
In-app: "New flotilla & reset" (Settings → Danger Zone)
Every account has a self-serve reset in Settings, sometimes called "scuttling" the flotilla. Confirming it (you must type your account email or flotilla name to arm it):
- Erases the local save on that device, and
- Overwrites your cloud save with a blank, unfounded state on the next sync.
Be aware of what this does not do: it does not delete your Firebase sign-in account, and it does not retroactively erase records tied to your account id that other players' clients already hold a copy of or that live in shared documents — for example messages you've sent or received, your membership entry inside an alliance's shared document, or your public roster/news-wall history (your roster entry simply stops updating until you found a new flotilla or ask us to remove it). This control is meant for "start over," not "erase every trace."
Full erasure request
For complete removal — your Firebase sign-in account, cloud save, roster entry, messages, alliance membership record, and any pending flag upload — email wordweftgame@gmail.com from the address tied to your account (or otherwise identify your account/commander name) and ask for your data to be deleted. We'll confirm and remove it by hand within a reasonable time.
Children's privacy
Flotillas Adrift is a general-audience strategy game and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has created an account or provided data to us, contact wordweftgame@gmail.com and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes in a meaningful way, we'll update the effective date above. Continued use of the game after a change means you accept the updated policy.
Contact
Questions, requests, or reports: wordweftgame@gmail.com
See also: Terms of Service · Play Flotillas Adrift →