Privacy Policy

The Zhuxiangzhai xiangqi app (竹香斋象棋, the “App”) and the website zhuxiangzhai.com are run by Vincent Wang (“we”). If you have any question about this policy, write to privacy@zhuxiangzhai.com.

The following stays in the App’s own storage. It is not sent to us, and we cannot see it:

• Your game library: games you saved, and finished Friend Match games (including your opponent’s nickname);
• Your progress in the endgame challenges, the daily puzzle and the xiangqi lessons;
• Your settings, and the nickname you use in Friend Match.

On Android, “Export game” (导出棋谱) and “Save” (保存) on the board also write a copy of the game record into the App’s own folder (under Android/data); exporting also copies the record to the clipboard. All of this is deleted when you uninstall the App.

If you have turned on system backup on your phone (Google or iCloud), the system may back this data up to your own account, where Google or Apple handles it under their own rules. The Friend Match reconnect credential is kept in the system’s secure storage and cannot be used on another device.

When you use Friend Match, the App connects to our server play.zhuxiangzhai.com over an encrypted connection (HTTPS / WSS) and sends:

• Nickname: chosen by you, “棋友” plus four digits by default, at most 12 characters, and visible to your opponent. Please don’t use your real name or anything else that could identify you.
• Room details: the room code, the time control, and whether you play Red or Black.
• The game itself: every move, both players’ remaining time, and actions such as offering a draw, resigning or asking for a rematch.
• Reconnect credential: a random string the server gives the App, kept in your phone’s secure storage, used to get back into your room after a disconnection. The server keeps only a digest of it, never the string itself.

The server also creates random numbers (for rooms, games and seats) to tell rooms and games apart. They are not linked to anyone’s identity.

We do not collect your name, phone number, email, contacts, location, device identifiers or advertising identifiers.

IP address: like any online service, the server can see your IP address. We use it only to prevent abuse, by limiting how many rooms one source can create, join or reconnect to per minute. It is used briefly in memory, never written to the database, and not kept in an access log. If something goes wrong, the server’s error log may contain an IP address; that log is used only to fix problems.

How long it is kept:

• A room nobody joins closes after 30 minutes. After a game ends, the room stays open 10 more minutes for a rematch, then closes.
• When a room closes, nicknames, moves and credential digests are deleted from the server. Only the room’s random numbers and each game’s start and end times remain; they contain no personal information.
• The server is backed up once a day, and each backup is deleted after 30 days. The copies of the backups on the operator’s own computer are also kept for only 30 days.
• Finished games are stored in each player’s own game library on their phone, and each player keeps their own copy.

The invite link you share contains the room code. When someone opens it in a browser, they visit our invite page hosted on Cloudflare (see section 6).

To learn how many people use the App, in which countries, and which features are useful, the App sends some usage information to the analytics service Aptabase, for example:

• That the App was opened, and how long it has been installed (only in a few bands: the same day, the next day, within a week, within a month, longer);
• Which feature was opened, that a game of a certain type was started or finished (vs. computer, Friend Match, or two players on one device), and which kind of puzzle or mating exercise was solved for the first time;
• The system and App versions, and your phone’s language and region setting. Each use also carries a random session number, which changes after an hour of inactivity.

These statistics never include your nickname, room codes or games, nor any device or advertising identifier. Aptabase estimates the rough country or region from the network connection. From your IP address, the browser identifier and a random value that changes every day, it computes an anonymous number that is valid for that day only, so the same person cannot be matched across days.

The statistics are stored in the European Union (Germany) and kept by Aptabase for up to 5 years. Because no one can tell who they belong to, neither we nor Aptabase can look them up or delete them for a particular person.

If you don’t want to send them, turn off “Send anonymous usage statistics” (发送匿名使用统计) in the App’s Settings (设置); nothing is sent after that.

The Friend Match server is in Hong Kong, China, rented from Tencent Cloud. When you use Friend Match, your nickname and games are sent to Hong Kong to be processed and stored there. Anonymous usage statistics are stored in the European Union (Germany). The laws in these places may differ from those where you live, but we protect this information as this policy describes.

The website zhuxiangzhai.com and the invite page link.zhuxiangzhai.com are hosted on Cloudflare. To deliver the pages to you and defend against attacks, Cloudflare processes technical information in each request, such as the IP address and browser type, under its own privacy policy.

The website and the invite page use Cloudflare Web Analytics to see the number of visits, which sites people come from, and roughly which countries they are in. It uses no cookies and does not track individuals. The website has no ad code; apart from this analytics script, fonts and other resources are loaded from the site itself.

We do not sell or rent your information, and we do not use it for advertising. Only the following providers run infrastructure for us, and they process data only as we need:

• Tencent Cloud: the Friend Match server (Hong Kong);
• Aptabase: the App’s anonymous usage statistics (European Union);
• Cloudflare: website hosting, DNS and website analytics.

We may disclose information when the law requires it. The App contains no advertising or crash-reporting tools, and apart from Aptabase’s anonymous statistics, no other third-party tools.

We process nicknames and games to provide the Friend Match you asked for; we use IP addresses briefly to prevent abuse and keep the service running; and we collect anonymous usage statistics to improve the App and to understand how our promotion works, which you can turn off at any time. We do not use this information for anything else.

The App is not directed at children under 13 (some places set a higher age; the local law applies). We don’t ask for age and don’t collect information that directly identifies anyone. If you believe a child has put personal information in a nickname, contact us and we will delete it.

• Change your nickname or delete saved games in the App at any time;
• Turn off “Send anonymous usage statistics” in Settings;
• Uninstall the App to delete all of its data from your phone;
• Write to us with the room code and the approximate time to ask what we hold or to have it deleted (including from backups). We will reply within 30 days.

Because there are no accounts, we usually cannot link data on the server to a person, which is why we need the room code. Depending on the law where you live (for example Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) or the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)), you may have further rights, and you can complain to your local data protection authority.

Everything between the App and the server is encrypted. The server exposes only the services it needs, reconnect credentials are stored only as digests, and backups exist only on the server and on the operator’s own computer. No system can be perfectly secure; if a security incident affects you, we will notify you as the law requires.

Before we add new features (such as online matchmaking or paid content) or change how we handle information, we will update this policy and the date at the top. Important changes will be announced on the website or in the App.

Vincent Wang, email privacy@zhuxiangzhai.com. See also our Terms of Service.