Privacy Policy

1 Information We Collect

We collect information in the following categories to provide, operate, and improve our services:

1.1 Information You Provide Directly

• Account Registration: When you create an account for our games or services, we may collect your username, email address, password (stored as a hashed value), date of birth, and optionally your display name and avatar preferences.
• Contact Forms: When you submit inquiries through our website contact form, we collect your name, email address, subject selection, and message content.
• Newsletter Subscriptions: When you subscribe to our newsletter, we collect your email address and subscription preferences.
• Purchases and Transactions: If you purchase subscriptions, in-game items, or other services, we collect payment information (processed securely by our payment providers — we do not store full credit card numbers), billing address, transaction history, and order details.
• Communications: If you contact us via email, support tickets, Discord, or other channels, we retain records of those communications.
• User-Generated Content: Content you create within our games (e.g., custom ships, flags, sails, society names) is associated with your account.

1.2 Information Collected Automatically

• Device and Connection Data: IP address, browser type and version, operating system, device identifiers, approximate location (derived from IP), and referring URLs.
• Usage Data: Pages visited, time spent on pages, click patterns, game session data, in-game actions, server logs, and error reports.
• Cookies and Similar Technologies: See Section 5 below for details on cookies, web beacons, and local storage.

1.3 Information from Third Parties

• Payment Processors: Confirmation of payment status and transaction IDs from our payment service providers.
• Anti-Fraud Services: Risk assessment data used to detect and prevent fraudulent activity.
• Analytics Providers: Aggregated, anonymized usage statistics from web analytics services.

2 How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following business and legal purposes:

• Service Delivery: To operate, maintain, and provide our games, websites, and related services, including account management, server access, and game functionality.
• Communication: To respond to your inquiries, send technical notices, updates, security alerts, and administrative messages. With your consent, we may also send marketing communications about new features, games, events, and promotions (you may opt out at any time).
• Improvement and Analytics: To analyze usage patterns, improve our services, debug technical issues, conduct research, and develop new features.
• Security and Fraud Prevention: To detect, investigate, and prevent fraudulent transactions, abuse, security breaches, and violations of our Terms of Service.
• Legal Compliance: To comply with applicable laws, regulations, legal processes, and enforceable governmental requests.
• Transaction Processing: To process payments, fulfill orders, and manage subscriptions.
• Community Features: To enable multiplayer functionality, leaderboards, societies (guilds), chat systems, and other social features within our games.

3 Legal Basis for Processing

Depending on your location and the context of data collection, we rely on the following legal bases:

• Contractual Necessity: Processing necessary to perform our contract with you (e.g., providing game services, processing payments).
• Consent: Where you have given explicit consent (e.g., newsletter subscriptions, optional analytics cookies). You may withdraw consent at any time.
• Legitimate Interests: Processing necessary for our legitimate business interests (e.g., service improvement, fraud prevention, network security), where those interests are not overridden by your data protection rights.
• Legal Obligation: Processing required to comply with applicable legal and regulatory obligations.

4 How We Share and Disclose Information

We do not sell your personal information. We may share your information only in the following circumstances:

4.1 Service Providers and Business Partners

We engage trusted third-party service providers who assist us in operating our website, processing payments, delivering content, performing analytics, providing customer support, and conducting email delivery. These providers are contractually obligated to use your information only for the purposes we specify and are prohibited from using or disclosing it for any other purpose.

4.2 Legal Requirements

We may disclose your information if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g., a court order or subpoena).

4.3 Business Transfers

In the event of a merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of all or substantially all of our assets, your personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you via email and/or a prominent notice on our website of any such change in ownership or control.

4.4 Protection of Rights

We may disclose information to protect the rights, property, or safety of Vision Online Games, our users, or the public, including to detect and prevent fraud or abuse.

4.5 Aggregated or Anonymized Data

We may share aggregated or anonymized data that does not identify you individually for research, analytics, and business intelligence purposes.

5 Cookies and Tracking Technologies

5.1 What Are Cookies?

Cookies are small data files stored on your device that help us recognize your browser, remember your preferences, and improve your experience. We use the following categories of cookies:

5.2 Categories of Cookies We Use

• Strictly Necessary Cookies: Essential for website and game functionality (e.g., session management, authentication, security). These cannot be disabled.
• Performance and Analytics Cookies: Help us understand how visitors interact with our website by collecting anonymous, aggregated data about page visits, traffic sources, and navigation patterns.
• Functional Cookies: Remember your preferences (e.g., language selection, display settings) to provide a personalized experience.
• Marketing Cookies: Used to deliver relevant advertisements and measure the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns. These may be set by third-party advertising partners.

5.3 Other Tracking Technologies

We may also use web beacons (clear GIFs), local storage, and device fingerprinting for analytics and security purposes. Web beacons are tiny images with unique identifiers that allow us to recognize when a page has been viewed or an email has been opened.

5.4 Managing Cookies

You can control cookie preferences through your browser settings. Most browsers allow you to refuse cookies, delete existing cookies, or be notified when a cookie is set. Please note that disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of our website and games.

6 Data Security

We implement industry-standard administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect your personal information against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. These measures include:

• Encryption of data in transit (TLS/SSL) and at rest
• Regular security assessments and penetration testing
• Access controls and role-based permissions for internal systems
• Secure password hashing (bcrypt/Argon2) for account credentials
• Network segmentation, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems
• Regular backup and disaster recovery procedures

7 Data Retention

We retain your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law (e.g., tax, accounting, or other legal requirements). Specifically:

• Account Data: Retained while your account is active and for a reasonable period thereafter to facilitate reactivation, comply with legal obligations, and resolve disputes.
• Transaction Records: Retained for a minimum of seven (7) years to comply with tax and accounting requirements.
• Communication Records: Retained until the matter is resolved and for a reasonable period thereafter.
• Analytics Data: Aggregated analytics data may be retained indefinitely; however, personally identifiable information associated with analytics is anonymized after ninety (90) days.
• Security Logs: Retained for up to one (1) year for security monitoring and incident investigation purposes.

When your data is no longer needed, it will be securely deleted or anonymized using industry-standard methods.

8 Your Privacy Rights

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have the following rights regarding your personal information:

• Right of Access: You may request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Right to Rectification: You may request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal information.
• Right to Erasure: You may request deletion of your personal information, subject to certain legal exceptions (e.g., records we are required to retain).
• Right to Restrict Processing: You may request that we limit the ways in which we process your personal information.
• Right to Data Portability: You may request a machine-readable copy of your personal information in a commonly used format.
• Right to Object: You may object to processing based on legitimate interests or direct marketing at any time.
• Right to Withdraw Consent: Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.
• Right to Non-Discrimination: You will not be discriminated against for exercising your privacy rights.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the information provided in Section 14. We will respond to verified requests within thirty (30) days, or sixty (60) days if additional time is needed (in which case we will notify you of the extension and the reason).

9 California Privacy Rights (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a resident of the State of California, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (CPRA), provides you with specific rights regarding your personal information.

9.1 Categories of Personal Information Collected

Over the preceding twelve (12) months, we have collected the following categories of personal information, grouped by CCPA/CPRA category:

• Identifiers: Real name, alias, username, email address, IP address, account ID, device identifiers.
• Commercial Information: Transaction history, purchasing behavior, products or services viewed or purchased.
• Internet or Network Activity: Browsing history, search history, interaction with our website, games, and advertisements.
• Geolocation Data: Approximate location derived from IP address.
• Audio, Electronic, Visual, and Olfactory Data: Screenshots or diagnostic data collected during error reporting (only with your consent).
• Professional or Employment-Related Information: Not applicable at this time.
• Inferences: Profiles reflecting preferences, predispositions, interests, and behaviors derived from usage analytics.

9.2 Business Purposes for Collection and Sharing

We collect personal information for the business purposes described in Section 2 above. We share personal information with service providers for business purposes (as defined under the CCPA/CPRA) but do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

9.3 Your California Rights

9.4 Exercising Your Rights

To submit a verifiable consumer request under the CCPA/CPRA, please contact us using the information in Section 14. We will verify your identity before processing your request. You may also designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf by providing a signed written authorization and valid identification.

9.5 No Discrimination

We will not discriminate against you for exercising your CCPA/CPRA rights. We will not deny you goods or services, charge different prices or rates, or provide a different level of quality — unless such differences are directly related to the value of the information you choose not to provide.

9.6 Retention Periods

We retain personal information for the periods described in Section 7. For specific retention schedules by data category, please submit a request to our privacy contact.

10 Children's Privacy

Our website and games are not directed to children under the age of thirteen (13). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under thirteen in accordance with the COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act).

If we become aware that we have inadvertently collected personal information from a child under thirteen without verified parental consent, we will take steps to delete that information as soon as possible. If you believe we may have collected information from a child under thirteen, please contact us immediately.

For games with age ratings appropriate for younger audiences, we implement age-appropriate privacy protections and comply with applicable children's privacy laws in all jurisdictions where we operate.

11 International Data Transfers

Vision Online Games is headquartered in the State of California, United States. Your information may be processed in the United States and in other countries where our servers or service providers are located.

If you are located outside the United States, please be aware that data protection laws in the United States may differ from those in your country of residence. By providing your information, you consent to its transfer to and processing in the United States and other jurisdictions.

For users in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, or Switzerland: we rely on appropriate safeguards for international data transfers, including Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the European Commission, where required.

12 Third-Party Links and Services

Our website and games may contain links to third-party websites, services, or applications (e.g., social media platforms, Discord, payment processors). We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third parties. We encourage you to review their privacy policies before providing any personal information.

If you use third-party authentication services (e.g., logging in via a social media account), the information shared with us is governed by that third party's privacy policy and your account settings with them.

13 Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or other operational, regulatory, or legal reasons. When we make material changes, we will notify you by posting a prominent notice on our website and/or by sending you an email before the changes take effect.

We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically. Your continued use of our website and services after any modifications constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy. The "Last Updated" date at the top of this page indicates when it was most recently revised.

14 Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us:

If you reside in the European Economic Area and believe we have not addressed your data protection concerns adequately, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority in your member state.