GOAT BAND Privacy Policy
Effective November 9, 2026 · Last updated November 9, 2026 · Version 3.0
This policy explains what information GOAT BAND collects, why, who receives it, how long we keep it, and the choices and rights you have. It covers the website goat-band.com and everything you can do on it: playing as a guest, signing in, the daily board, songs, the Community, emails and purchases.
The short version
- You can play without an account. We give your browser a random ID in a cookie so your bands are saved. We never ask for your real name, phone number or home address.
- If you sign in, we keep your email address. We use it to send sign-in links, account emails and, only if you turn them on, reminder emails. It is never shown publicly.
- We record how the game is played. Your bands, picks, scores and results are saved to your account or your browser's random ID. We keep them while your account exists, and we unlink a guest's bands from the browser after 24 months without play. We also keep a log of game events (for example, button taps and how long a decision took) for one year. We use these to run the game, keep it fair, improve it and test changes. We don't sell these records or give them to advertisers.
- Some things are public. Songs you generate are published to the Community under a generated leaderboard name, like "Copper Kite 0193". Daily scores are public only once you turn on posting, and posting covers all your daily scores, past and future, until you stop. A finished band's result page can be seen by anyone who has its link. Your email and account name are never public.
- Payments go through Stripe. We never see or store your card number.
- Songs are made by AI providers. Anthropic writes each song's plan and lyrics from your band's line-up. ElevenLabs makes the audio. Neither receives your email, account name or IP address.
- You have rights. You can ask to see, correct or delete your information by emailing privacy@goat-band.com. Many controls are in the game itself, on your account page and on Your Privacy Choices.
1. Who we are and how to contact us
GOAT BAND is run by d'Anconia Ventures LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company, 30 N. Gould St., Ste. R, Sheridan, WY 82801, USA ("GOAT BAND", "we", "us"). We decide how your information is used, so for European data-protection law we are the "controller".
Contact for anything about privacy: privacy@goat-band.com
We have not appointed a data protection officer.
2. Who this policy covers
This policy applies to everyone who visits goat-band.com, whether or not you sign in. Some sections add rights that depend on where you live:
- US state rights and the California and other US state disclosures.
- Rights for people in the EEA, UK and Switzerland, with the legal bases in section 4.
GOAT BAND also uses the names of real musicians and producers. Section 18 explains what we hold about them.
3. What we collect
3.1 Information you give us
| What | When | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | When you ask for a sign-in link | We send the link to the address you type. When you sign in, we keep that address to send you email, and a normalized version that identifies your account: we lower-case it, remove anything after a "+" in the part before the "@", and for Gmail addresses remove dots. So variants of one inbox are one account. |
| Birth month and year | Once, when you create an account (or at your next sign-in, for older accounts) | Used only to apply our age rules. We never share it. Never used for analytics. See section 15. |
| Reminder settings | If you turn on email reminders on your account page | Which reminders you want, how often, the time slot and your time zone. We also keep a record of each time you save them (what you turned on, when, and the wording you saw), and when you last unsubscribed through an email link. |
| Privacy choices | If you use Your Privacy Choices or Global Privacy Control | Whether you've opted out of sale, sharing and targeted ads, and whether game measurement is on. |
| Choices you make in the game | As you play | For example: turning daily posting on or off, generating, unpublishing or deleting a song, voting on a song, picking or shuffling your leaderboard name. |
| Your agreement to our Terms | When you create an account or buy credits | Which version of the Terms you agreed to and when. |
| Reports | If you report a song | The reason you choose and any details you write. We link the report to your account. |
| Messages to us | If you email us or use the form on our Contact page | Whatever you include, plus your email address. |
We do not ask for a password, your real name, a phone number or a postal address. We ask only the month and year you were born, not the day. Card details are entered on Stripe's page, not ours (section 9).
3.2 Information created as you play
- Account details. An internal account ID; an account name we make from the part of your email before the "@" (shown only to you, in the site header, and to our admins; you can't change it); the date you joined; and flags such as whether your account is ad-free or banned, or belongs to someone we know is under 18.
- Your leaderboard name. A generated name, like "Copper Kite 0193". We create it the first time you publish a song, open the "Post my score" sheet on a daily result (even if you then choose "Not now"), or choose a name on your account page. Before your first public song, we show you the name and ask you to confirm it. You can shuffle it for a new one, but you can't type your own or remove it. We may reset it if it breaks our rules. See What is public.
- Games. Every band you draft: the acts and decades dealt, every pick, swap and choice (each with the time our server received it), the result, score, simulated career and story, and an automatic coaching report. Practice runs ("rehearsals") are stored the same way.
- Daily board entries. Your score and placement for each daily board you play, whether the run was verified, and (to count "same band" results) a scrambled code of your line-up.
- Streaks. We work out your daily streak from your games when needed. We don't store it separately.
- Songs. For each song you generate: the band information sent to our AI providers, the plan and lyrics they return, the audio file, the title, and the song's publication status.
- Votes you cast on songs.
- Credits and purchases. Your credit balance and history (welcome credits, purchases, songs generated, automatic refunds), your ad-free status and where it came from, and purchase records (section 9).
- Experiment groups. Which group you are in for tests we run: the 10% reminder test group (section 8).
3.3 Information collected automatically from your device
- A random guest ID in a cookie (
gb_guest). It keeps your bands and daily runs together before you sign in. Where allowed, we also use it to keep your experiment groups stable and to link analytics records (section 4). We set it the first time you start a game. When you sign in, we move that browser's guest bands into your account and keep a record linking the old guest ID to your account. - A random tab ID (
gb_sid), kept only until you close the tab, that groups the actions from one visit. - Analytics records. For things that happen in the game (for example: starting a game, viewing a musician, locking a pick, finishing a band, sharing a link, opening a shared link, viewing a page, opening a reminder email's link, turning sound off), we store a record with the event name, the time, your account ID and/or guest ID and tab ID, and details such as the game, the musician picked, the score, how long a decision took, and your display settings (sound on or off, animation speed, and whether your device needed a lighter animation mode). Records linked to an account or guest ID also note which ads test group that ID falls into. When you ask for a sign-in link, we record a scrambled (hashed) form of your email address. Someone holding your address could match it, so we treat it as personal information. If you turn game measurement off on Your Privacy Choices (in the EEA it is off unless you turn it on), we still count that events happened, but without any ID or test group.
- Your IP address. Our servers read it on each request. We store it for about a day as part of our abuse limits (for example, too many sign-in requests or new games from one address), and for the daily board we use it to limit how many guest scores from one address count in a board's results. We do not store it with your games, your analytics records or your sessions.
- Your browser's time zone. Read in your browser to decide which ads or consent messages apply, and offered as a default when you set up reminders. It is only stored if you save reminder settings.
- Server logs. Our app writes technical logs of errors and payment events, which our host stores. Our host may also log requests. These logs can include IP addresses, page addresses, internal IDs and, occasionally, an email address (for example in an email-delivery error).
- Settings saved in your browser such as sound off, reveal speed and tips you've dismissed (section 6).
We also read, but don't collect, your browser's Global Privacy Control setting, if any. Our pages read it in your browser to limit ads (section 7). We don't store the signal itself; if you're signed in, we save the resulting opt-out to your account.
3.4 Information from others
- Stripe tells us whether a payment succeeded, failed, was refunded or was disputed, with the amount, currency and Stripe's IDs for the payment (section 9).
- Other players may vote on or report content you publish.
- Parents or guardians may tell us a player is under 18 (section 15).
3.5 What we don't collect
We don't collect passwords, real names, phone numbers, postal addresses, precise location, contacts, photos, or your voice. We don't use third-party analytics, session recording or error-tracking services. We don't attach your IP address or browser details to your sign-in session.
4. How we use information, and our legal bases
We use information only for the purposes below. For people in the EEA, UK and Switzerland, the table also gives the legal basis under the GDPR, the UK GDPR and Swiss law. "Legitimate interests" means we have a real reason, such as keeping the game fair or improving it, and we have weighed it against your privacy.
| Purpose | Information used | Legal basis (EEA/UK/Switzerland) |
|---|---|---|
| Let you play, save your bands as a guest, and move them into your account when you sign in | Guest ID, games | Performing our contract with you (the Terms) |
| Sign you in and keep you signed in | Email, session cookie, sign-in link record | Contract |
| Run daily boards, streaks, leaderboards | Games, scores, leaderboard name, posting choices | Contract |
| Generate, publish and host your songs; run the Community and votes | Band data, songs, votes, leaderboard name | Contract |
| Sell credit packs, add credits, give ad-free status, and handle refunds and chargebacks | Purchase records, credit history | Contract. We keep purchase records for accounting, tax and dispute reasons to meet legal obligations and on the basis of legitimate interests. |
| Send sign-in and account emails (purchase confirmations, account notices) | Contract | |
| Send reminder emails you asked for | Email, reminder settings, streak and board data | Consent (you can withdraw it at any time) |
| Measure whether reminders help (a small group doesn't get them for a while) | Reminder settings, experiment group, activity | Legitimate interests (improving the game) |
| Understand how the game is played, find problems, and test changes ("A/B tests") | Analytics records, experiment groups | EEA: your consent, through the "Measure how I play" switch. UK and Switzerland: legitimate interests (improving the game); you can turn it off at any time. |
| Keep the game fair and safe: rate limits, replay checks of runs, anti-cheat review, moderation, bans | IP address, IDs, games, action timings, reports | Legitimate interests (security and fair play) |
| Apply our age rules, using your birth month and year | Age answer, known-minor flag | Legal obligation and legitimate interests (protecting younger players) |
| Keep backups and recover from failures | The whole database | Legitimate interests (keeping the service running) |
| Answer your messages and requests, and meet legal obligations | Whatever the request involves | Legitimate interests; legal obligation where one applies |
Device storage in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland. European rules require your consent before we store or read information on your device, unless it is strictly necessary for something you asked for. In those regions, until you choose otherwise, we use only the cookies and browser storage needed to sign you in, keep your game and remember your settings. In the EEA, we measure how the game is played only if you turn it on; in the UK and Switzerland it is on, and you can turn it off at any time on Your Privacy Choices.
Automated decisions. We don't make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects by automated means. Some game checks are automatic: for example, a run that fails our replay check isn't counted on a leaderboard. If you think a check got it wrong, contact us.
How we analyse play. We analyse how you play (for example your picks, scores and how long decisions take) to run the game, coach you, keep leaderboards fair and test changes. Some laws call this profiling. We don't use it to infer things like your age, gender, health or other personal characteristics, we don't sell it, and we don't use it for advertising.
AI training. We don't train AI models, and we don't use your personal information to train large language models. Our AI providers don't train their models on what we send them.
5. What is public
Your email address and your account name are never shown publicly. What other people can see:
| Where | What anyone can see | Your control |
|---|---|---|
| Your leaderboard name | A generated name, like "Copper Kite 0193". It is the one name that links your public songs and daily scores. | Shuffle it on your account page (up to 20 times an hour). It changes everywhere at once, but copies already in link previews, caches or screenshots can't be changed. You can't remove it. Songs you published before November 9, 2026 stay credited to "a GOAT BAND player" until you have a leaderboard name; from then on they show it, like all your songs. |
| Songs and the Community | Songs are published automatically when they finish. Anyone can see and play them, with the title, lyrics, audio, your leaderboard name, the publish date, the band's score and line-up (real musicians' names, acts and decades), the song's style details, vote totals, and a link to the band's result page. Song pages appear in search engines, and the page description includes your leaderboard name. | Unpublish or delete a song on its page at any time (section 12 explains what "delete" keeps). |
| Votes | Only the totals. Nobody else can see how you voted. | Remove your vote at any time. |
| Result pages | Every finished band, including practice runs, has a result page that anyone with its link can open, without signing in. It shows the score, the full line-up and choices, the simulated career and story, and the band's theme music. It doesn't show your name, account name or email. Result pages ask search engines not to list them. A daily board's line-ups stay hidden until the board is final (a board is final shortly after it closes, once late finishes are counted). | Result pages can't be made private today. They are reached by link, including links on public song pages and final daily leaderboards. |
| Daily leaderboards | Only if you turn on posting (the first time you choose "Post my score"). Posting is one setting for your whole account: while it is on, every verified daily score on your account is listed, including boards you played before you turned it on and every board after, with your leaderboard name, score, rank and your band's distinction. Once a board is final, the listing also links to your band's result page. If you don't post, you are counted in the number of players but not listed. | "Change name" or "Stop posting" on a daily result page. Stopping takes all your scores, past and future, off the leaderboards. "Take me off every leaderboard" on your account page also stops posting. |
| Links you share | When you share a result, song or score, the link carries a random code. Link previews (in messaging and social apps) show a card with the score or song title, and song cards say "Made by" your leaderboard name. | Only you decide what to share. |
What we record when someone opens a shared link. When someone opens a link you shared, we record that the link was opened, together with their own account or guest ID, so we can see which shares bring players. Because the link's code is also on our record of your share, this connects their visit to your share. Nobody else can see this.
Public audio, artwork and preview images can be stored by browsers and other caches for up to a year, so a song you unpublish may still play from a copy someone already has.
6. Cookies and similar technologies
We use a small number of first-party cookies and browser storage keys. We don't use third-party analytics cookies.
6.1 Cookies we set
| Name | What it does | How long | Needed for the service? |
|---|---|---|---|
gb_session | Keeps you signed in. Holds a random code; we store only a scrambled form of it. | 30 days, or until you sign out on that browser | Yes |
gb_guest | Your random guest ID: keeps your bands and daily runs before you sign in. Where allowed, also keeps your experiment groups stable and links analytics records. Replaced with a new ID when you sign in. | 1 year; deleted when you sign out | Yes, to save your game. We use it for tests and measurement only where allowed (section 4). |
gb_daily_claim | Shows a one-time note after sign-in about which of your daily runs counted. Holds only a board number and an outcome. | 24 hours, or until the note is shown | Yes |
gb_privacy | Remembers your choices on Your Privacy Choices: whether you've opted out of sale, sharing and targeted ads, and whether game measurement is on. | 1 year | Yes (remembers your choice) |
gb_age_block | Stops the age question being retried straight away after an answer under 13. Holds no personal information. | 24 hours | Yes |
6.2 Browser storage we use
Kept until you clear your browser data (localStorage):
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
gb-runs-v1 | Counts finished runs on this device, to choose the default detail level of draft cards. Never sent to our servers. |
gb-generation-<game> | Remembers a song that is still being generated so the page can pick it up after a reload. Removed when the song finishes or fails. |
gb-card-detail, gb-producer-rows | Your chosen detail level for draft cards and the studio table. |
gb-tip-producer, gb-forecast-intro | Remembers tips you've dismissed. |
gb-tips-v1 | Remembers which first-time tips you've seen or dismissed, and whether you turned tips off. |
gb-tip-daily-objective, gb-tip-daily-star-fee, gb-tip-daily-card | Remembers the daily tips you've dismissed. |
gb-label-v1 | Remembers how often you've been asked to sign in to keep your label, and whether you hid that note for now. |
gb-combo-seen | Counts how often you've seen each combo banner, so it can get shorter. |
gb-silent-play | Your sound setting. |
gb-rapid-reveals | Your reveal-speed setting. |
Kept until you close the tab (sessionStorage):
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
gb_sid | Your random tab ID for analytics records. Only while game measurement is on. |
gb_share_opened:<code> | Records a shared link's opening once per tab (analytics). Only while game measurement is on. |
gb_cv:<card> | Records that this tab already counted a view of a musician's card in a draw, once per card (analytics). Only while game measurement is on. |
gb_entry_landed | Records an arrival from a reminder email once per tab (analytics). Only while game measurement is on. |
gb-juice-lite | Why the lighter animation mode is on. |
gb-still-counted | Counts reduced-motion use once per tab, in a daily total with no ID attached. Only while game measurement is on. |
We don't use IndexedDB, service workers or offline caches.
Stripe. Paying opens Stripe's own page, which sets its own cookies on Stripe's domain under Stripe's privacy policy.
6.4 Your choices
You can block or delete cookies and site data in your browser settings. If you delete gb_session you'll be signed out. If you delete gb_guest before signing in, you'll lose access to the bands you played as a guest: they stay on our servers (see section 12), but we can no longer tell they are yours. A new guest ID also gets a new experiment group.
Do Not Track. There is no common standard for the browser "Do Not Track" setting, so we don't respond to it. We do act on Global Privacy Control as described in section 7.
7. Advertising and your choices
GOAT BAND doesn't show ads at the moment, and no advertising code loads on our pages. If we turn ads on, we will update this policy before we do. A 12- or 99-song credit pack includes ad-free status, which will turn off ads for your account whenever you're signed in once ads are live.
Your privacy choices
Your Privacy Choices, linked at the bottom of every page, has your privacy choices in one place.
Because GOAT BAND shows no ads, we don't sell or share your personal information or use it for targeted advertising. If you use Global Privacy Control, the switch on Your Privacy Choices or email privacy@goat-band.com with the subject "Opt out", we remember your opt-out (for your account too, if you're signed in) and will apply it if we ever turn ads on. You can also turn our game measurement off on that page.
8. Emails
| When | Can I stop it? | |
|---|---|---|
| Sign-in link | Each time you (or anyone typing your address) ask for one | It's needed to sign in, so it has no unsubscribe link. If you didn't ask for it, ignore it: the link expires after 15 minutes and works once. |
| Purchase confirmation | After each credit purchase | No: it's your record of the purchase. |
| Account notices | If we suspend your account or remove your content, or to confirm an account deletion | No |
| Service notices | When our Terms change in a way that matters to you, or if GOAT BAND is closing | No: they are about your account and purchases. |
| Board reminder ("Daily #N is open") | Only if you turn it on | Yes |
| Streak alert (your streak is about to end) | Only if you turn it on | Yes |
How reminders work. Reminders are off until you turn them on on your account page. We record each time you save your choices. You choose how often (daily, weekdays or Mondays), a time slot (morning, midday or evening) and your time zone. We normally send at most one reminder email per board day, within your chosen time slot. Board reminders and streak alerts aren't sent once you've played that day's board. Reminder emails contain no ads. Reminders aren't available to players we know are under 18.
Stopping reminders. Every reminder has a one-click unsubscribe link (and a standard unsubscribe header your email app can use) that works without signing in and turns off all reminder types at once. Each unsubscribe link keeps working for at least 30 days after the email was sent, and we act on it at once. You can also change or turn off each type on your account page.
Reminder test group. To learn whether reminders help, a random 10% of players who turn them on don't receive them while the test runs. We compare how often each group comes back, per account. The test ends on February 7, 2027. If you'd rather not be in it, email privacy@goat-band.com and we'll take you out.
What we measure. Links in reminder emails carry a tag so we can count how many people arrive from them, and we record that arrival in our analytics. Our emails don't contain tracking pixels.
We don't send newsletters or marketing emails. (Stripe may also send you a receipt for a purchase.) Reminders show our postal address, as US law requires.
9. Payments (Stripe)
Credit packs are sold through Stripe. When you choose a pack, you go to a payment page hosted by Stripe. You enter your card or wallet details, email and any billing details there, on Stripe's site. We never see or store your card number.
- What we send Stripe: the pack you chose, your GOAT BAND account ID and a purchase ID, so Stripe can tell us which account to credit. We don't send your email address.
- What we get back and keep: whether the payment succeeded, failed, was refunded or disputed; the amount and currency; and Stripe's IDs for the checkout, the payment and (if Stripe created one) the customer. We use these to add or remove credits and ad-free status and to handle refunds and chargebacks. We also keep which version of the Terms you agreed to at checkout, and when.
- Stripe's own role: Stripe processes the payment for us, and also uses payment information for its own purposes, such as fraud prevention and meeting its legal obligations, as described in the Stripe Privacy Policy. Stripe keeps its own records, including our account ID, which deleting your GOAT BAND account doesn't remove.
10. AI song generation
When you spend a credit to generate a song, two AI providers are involved. Neither receives your email address, account name, leaderboard name, account ID or IP address, and nothing you type is sent to them.
| Provider | What it does | What we send | What we don't send |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | Writes the song's plan: title, concept, style and lyrics | Your band's data: the five musicians' names and our IDs for them, their roles and our editorial ratings and style descriptions, the producer's style tags, the band's scores and simulated career, and our internal ID for the game. If the first answer breaks our rules (for example by naming a real artist), we send it back once with the words to avoid. | Your email, account or leaderboard name, account ID, IP address, payment data |
| ElevenLabs | Makes the audio | The style descriptions, section lengths and lyric lines from the plan, and a number we compute from internal IDs to vary the result. Before sending, we check the request for the names of the musicians and bands in our catalog and our IDs. We remove them from style descriptions, and if one appears in the lyrics we stop the song and refund the credit. | Musicians' names, the song title, the game ID, anything about you |
The game ID sent to Anthropic doesn't identify you to Anthropic, but we can link it to your account or guest ID. Each provider handles this data under its own terms and privacy policy (Anthropic, ElevenLabs). We keep everything sent and received for each song (section 12).
11. Who we share information with
We don't sell your information for money.
Service providers
These companies process information on our behalf, under contracts that limit how they can use it:
| Provider | What it does for us | What it receives | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fly.io | Hosts the website, database and song audio files | Everything we store, and every request to our site (including IP addresses and page addresses) | United States (Dallas, Texas). Requests may first pass through Fly.io's network edge nearest you. |
| Cloudflare (R2) | Stores continuous backups of our database | A copy of the whole database (not the audio files) | North America (western region) |
| Resend | Sends sign-in, account and reminder emails | Your email address and the email's contents, including your sign-in link or unsubscribe link | United States |
| Stripe | Processes payments (also acts independently, see section 9) | Your account ID and a purchase ID from us; payment details you enter on Stripe's page | United States and other countries where Stripe operates |
| Anthropic | Writes song plans and lyrics | Band data and the game ID (section 10) | United States |
| ElevenLabs | Makes song audio | Style descriptions, lyrics and a number derived from internal IDs (section 10) | United States |
We tell our service providers to delete your information when we delete it (section 14).
Independent companies
- Stripe uses payment data for fraud prevention and its legal obligations.
- Your email provider (for example Gmail) receives the emails we send you.
Others
- The public, for what you publish (section 5), including search engines and the apps that make link previews.
- Our admins. People who run GOAT BAND can see account emails and account names, games and songs (including unpublished and deleted songs, and what was sent to and returned by the AI providers), purchases and credits, reports (including who made them), daily-board results, and our analytics and test dashboards. They use this to operate the service, support players and keep the game fair. Admins can also hide or remove content, ban accounts, reset a leaderboard name, and grant or remove ad-free status. Admin actions are logged.
- Legal reasons. We may disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect players, the public or GOAT BAND from fraud, abuse or harm.
- A change of owner. If GOAT BAND is transferred (for example to a company the current operator forms), your information would go with it, under this policy.
12. How long we keep information
We keep information only as long as we need it for the purposes in section 4. These are our periods, or the rule that decides them:
| Information | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Sign-in link record (your email as typed, where to return you, your guest ID) | About 15–20 minutes (the link expires after 15 minutes; we delete expired records every few minutes) |
| Your email address or IP address in our abuse limits | About one day. For the daily board's guest check, until about a day after that board closes. |
| Sign-in session | 30 days, or until you sign out on that browser |
| Guest ID cookie (in your browser) | 1 year, or until you sign out or clear cookies |
| Your account (email, account name, leaderboard name, settings, privacy choices, ad-free status, birth month and year, Terms acceptance) | For as long as your account exists |
| Games, results, picks and their timings, coaching reports, practice runs, daily entries | For as long as your account exists. Unfinished games left for 14 days are marked abandoned. Bands played as a guest that no account has claimed: after 24 months without play we remove the guest ID from them, so they are no longer linked to any browser; their result links keep working. |
| Analytics records (including the hashed email from sign-in requests) | 365 days, then deleted automatically |
| Experiment groups | For an account, as long as the account exists; for a guest ID, 400 days |
| The link between a guest ID and your account | 400 days |
| Reminder settings and the records of each time you saved them | For as long as your account exists |
| Records of reminder emails sent, and unsubscribe codes | 400 days (about 13 months), then deleted automatically |
| Songs (title, lyrics, audio file) and everything sent to and returned by the AI providers | Until you delete the song or your account. Unpublishing hides a song from others and keeps it. Deleting a song hides it at once, and we erase its audio and lyrics 30 days later. |
| Votes | Until you remove the vote, or delete your account |
| Reports you make, and moderation records | 3 years after the decision, or longer if we need them for a legal claim. |
| Purchase records, credit history and ad-free records | While your account exists, so your credit balance stays correct. After you delete your account, 7 years without your email, for tax, accounting and chargeback rules. |
| Admin action log | 3 years |
| Records of privacy requests | 24 months, as US law requires |
| Server logs | As set by our host, Fly.io |
| Backups | Database backups roll off after about 72 hours (plus up to 6 hours). Our host's daily snapshots of the database and audio files are kept for about 5 days. Copies we make before major updates are deleted within 7 days. So all backups clear within about 7 days. |
| Information in your browser | Until you clear it, or until the lifetime shown in section 6 |
When we delete information, it can stay in backups until they roll off, and in copies others already have (for example cached audio, link previews or screenshots). If we ever restore a backup, we re-apply deletions made since. Stripe and our email provider keep their own records under their own policies.
13. How we protect information
- The whole site uses HTTPS, and browsers are told to always use it.
- Sign-in uses single-use email links that expire after 15 minutes. We store only scrambled (hashed) forms of sign-in links and session codes, so someone reading our database couldn't use them.
- Our sign-in and guest cookies can't be read by scripts on the page and are sent only over HTTPS.
- Card details never reach our servers.
- We limit how often requests can be made, to slow down abuse.
- Admin access is limited to named accounts, and admin actions are logged.
- Our pages are protected against being embedded in other sites.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal information, we will tell you and the authorities where the law requires.
14. Your rights and choices
14.1 Controls in the game
| You can… | Where |
|---|---|
| See the email address on your account | Account page |
| Opt out of sale, sharing and targeted ads; turn game measurement on or off | Your Privacy Choices |
| Pick or shuffle your leaderboard name | Account page; also when posting a daily score |
| Turn daily posting on or off (stopping unlists all your daily scores, past and future) | A daily result page; "Take me off every leaderboard" on your account page |
| Turn reminder emails on or off, or change them | Account page; the unsubscribe link in any reminder |
| Unpublish, republish or delete your songs | Each song's page |
| Remove a vote | The song's page |
| Download a copy of your data | Account page |
| Delete your account | Account page |
| Sign out (removes your session, guest ID and claim cookies from this browser; other devices stay signed in) | Header menu or account page |
14.2 Your rights in the United States
Depending on the state you live in, you may have the right to:
- know and access the personal information we have about you, and get a copy in a portable format;
- correct inaccurate personal information;
- delete personal information;
- opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of personal information and of targeted advertising (section 7);
- appeal if we decline your request; and
- not be treated differently for using any of these rights.
We give these rights to everyone in the US, whatever state you live in.
14.3 Your rights in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland
You have the right to:
- access your personal information and get a copy;
- correct it if it's wrong or incomplete;
- delete it ("right to be forgotten");
- restrict how we use it in some cases;
- portability: receive the information you gave us in a machine-readable format, or have it sent to another company;
- withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent (for example reminder emails, game measurement in the EEA), without affecting what we did before; and
- complain to a data protection authority (section 14.5).
Your right to object. Where we rely on legitimate interests (for example analytics in the UK and Switzerland, A/B tests, the reminder test group and security), you can object at any time, for reasons about your situation. Email privacy@goat-band.com. We will stop unless we have compelling reasons that override your interests, or need the information for legal claims. You can also object to analytics at any time with the switch on Your Privacy Choices.
14.4 How to make a request
Signed in, use Account to delete your account or download your data. For anything else, email privacy@goat-band.com from the email address you sign in with, and say what you'd like us to do.
- Verifying it's you. To protect your account, we only act on requests we can link to you. We'll verify a request by sending a sign-in link to the address you wrote from, and reply there.
- If you played as a guest. Your guest ID is stored in a cookie only your browser can send, so we generally can't tell which records are yours from an email. If you sign in from the browser you played in, your guest bands move into your account and we can then include them.
- Authorized agents. Someone can make a request for you if you give them signed permission. We may ask you to confirm your identity with us directly.
- What deletion covers. When we delete an account, we delete or de-identify the information connected to it, including your games, songs and their audio files, votes, reports, leaderboard entries, reminder settings, experiment groups and analytics records (including records from guest IDs linked to your account). Your result pages stop working. We keep purchase and credit records needed for accounting, tax and disputes, in a form no longer linked to your email, and a record of your request. We also tell our service providers to delete it. Stripe keeps its own records (section 9). Backups roll off as described in section 12.
- Timing. We confirm we've received your request within 10 business days and tell you what happens next. We reply within one month (EEA and UK), 30 days (Switzerland) or 45 days (US state rights). If a request is complex we may need more time (up to two more months in Europe, or 45 more days in the US); we'll tell you why within the first period.
- Cost. Free, unless a request is clearly unfounded or excessive.
14.5 Appeals and complaints
- Appeals (US). If we decline your request, you can appeal by replying to our decision within 60 days. We'll answer within 45 days (we may extend this by up to 60 days for a complex appeal, and we'll tell you why within the first 45). If we still decline, our answer will tell you how to contact your state Attorney General, for example California, Colorado or Connecticut.
- Complaints (everyone). Tell us first at privacy@goat-band.com. We'll acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it, and tell you the outcome.
- Data protection authorities. In the EEA you can complain to the authority where you live or work. In the UK, contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk). In Switzerland, contact the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (edoeb.admin.ch).
15. Children and teens
GOAT BAND is a general-audience game. It is not directed to children under 13. You must be at least 13 to use GOAT BAND, and at least 18 to generate songs or buy credits.
When you create an account we ask your birth month and year. We use the answer only to apply age-appropriate settings and to enforce our age rules. We never share it or use it for analytics, and we delete it when you delete your account. If you're under 13 you can't create an account, and we store nothing about the attempt on our servers. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child under 13 has given us personal information, email privacy@goat-band.com and we will delete it.
If we know a player is under 18, we don't sell or share their personal information or use it for targeted advertising. We also turn off streak and reminder emails for them. If you're a parent or guardian and want us to apply this to your child's account, email privacy@goat-band.com.
If you're in the EEA or the UK and under the age at which you can consent to online services in your country (13 to 16, depending on the country), please don't turn on reminder emails. In Switzerland, the same applies if you can't yet judge that decision for yourself. We don't have a way to collect a parent's consent. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under that age, we turn off reminder emails.
If you're under 18: we don't show your email to anyone. Your public name is a made-up one, not your real name. Reminder emails are for players 18 and over, and making songs and buying credits for players 18 and over. You can ask us to delete your stuff at privacy@goat-band.com.
We have no actual knowledge of selling or sharing the personal information of consumers under 16.
16. International transfers
We are based in the United States, and we store and process information in the United States (our host's servers are in Dallas, Texas). Our database backups are stored in North America (western region). If you use GOAT BAND from outside the US, your information is processed in the US, where privacy laws may differ from yours. The countries your information goes to are listed in the "Where" column in section 11.
Where European or Swiss law requires a safeguard: Stripe, Cloudflare and Resend are certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (with its UK Extension and the Swiss-US framework) and have also signed the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses; Fly.io is certified under the Data Privacy Framework; Anthropic and ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs is certified under the Data Privacy Framework, and both have the Standard Contractual Clauses in their data processing addenda. You can ask for a copy of these safeguards at privacy@goat-band.com.
17. California and other US state disclosures
Notice at collection
This section is our notice at collection. The table shows the categories of personal information we collect, using the names in California law, where it comes from, why we use it, who receives it, and how long we keep it (section 12 has the detail).
| Category | Examples | Sources | Why we use it | Disclosed for business purposes to | Sold or shared? | How long |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Identifiers | Email address, account name, leaderboard name, account ID, guest ID, tab ID, IP address, hashed email, Stripe payment IDs, game IDs | You; your device; Stripe | Sign-in, saving your game, emails, payments, security, analytics | Fly.io, Cloudflare, Resend, Stripe, Anthropic (the game ID only), ElevenLabs (a number derived from our internal IDs) | No | Account: while it exists. Guest-to-account links: 400 days. IP: about a day. Analytics: 365 days. |
| Customer records (Cal. Civ. Code §1798.80) | Email address | You | Sign-in and emails | Fly.io, Cloudflare, Resend | No | While your account exists |
| Characteristics of protected classifications | Birth month and year (age) | You | Age rules | Fly.io, Cloudflare | No | While your account exists |
| Commercial information | Packs bought, amounts, credit history, ad-free status | You; Stripe | Credits, ad-free, refunds, accounting | Fly.io, Cloudflare, Stripe | No | While your account exists; then 7 years without your email |
| Internet or other electronic network activity | Game events, pages and buttons used, decision times, display settings, shared-link openings, email-link arrivals | Your device | Improving the game, A/B tests, fair play | Fly.io, Cloudflare | No | Analytics: 365 days. Games: while your account exists; guest bands unlinked after 24 months without play. |
| Inferences | Coaching reports and anti-cheat review flags derived from your games | Your games | The game, fair play | Fly.io, Cloudflare | No | As for games. |
| Content you create (not a statutory category) | Bands, AI songs and lyrics, votes, reports | You | The game and the Community | Fly.io, Cloudflare, Anthropic (band data), ElevenLabs (lyrics and style descriptions) | No | Until you delete it or your account. Reports: 3 years after the decision. |
| Preferences | Reminder settings, time zone you choose, privacy choices | You | Reminder emails, your privacy choices | Fly.io, Cloudflare, Resend (the time shown in the email) | No | While your account exists |
Sensitive personal information. The only sensitive personal information we handle is your account log-in: your email address together with the single-use sign-in links and session codes that let you into your account. We use these only to sign you in and keep your account secure, which the law allows, and we don't use or disclose sensitive personal information to infer characteristics about you. We don't collect precise geolocation, government IDs, passwords, financial account numbers, health or biometric data.
Profiling. We analyse how you play to run the game, coach you, keep leaderboards fair and test changes (section 4). We don't use it to infer personal characteristics, sell it or use it for advertising.
Sale, sharing and targeted advertising
We don't sell or share personal information, and we don't use it for targeted advertising.
We have no actual knowledge of selling or sharing the personal information of consumers under 16.
Other disclosures
- Welcome credits. New accounts get 3 free song credits, once per account. An email inbox that deleted its account doesn't get them again. They go only to accounts of players 18 or older. You need an account (an email address) to keep bands across devices, generate songs and buy credits, and the welcome credits come with it. We value them at the price of three one-song credits, $5.97. That is our good-faith estimate of the value of a new account's data to us, based on what the same credits cost to buy. You can play without an account and without giving us any personal information. If you delete your account, unused credits end.
- Ad-free packs. Buying a pack with ad-free status is a normal purchase and is not linked to your privacy choices.
- No discrimination. We won't deny you service, charge you more or give you a worse game for using your rights.
- Do Not Track: see section 6.4.
18. Real musicians named in the game
GOAT BAND is a fantasy game built on real musicians and producers. For each one we hold their name (and any well-known aliases), the acts and decades they are known for, our own editorial ratings, which are game opinions, not facts, and short style descriptions written by us. We use this to run the game. It appears in drafts, result pages and song pages, and we send it to Anthropic when a player generates a song (section 10). We don't hold images, recordings or contact details of musicians.
Simulated careers and songs describe fictional supergroups. The real musicians are not affiliated with GOAT BAND and don't endorse it. We don't give our AI providers any artist's voice or recordings.
If you are a musician or represent one and have a question or request about this information, email privacy@goat-band.com. You have the rights described in section 14, and we will review any request, including a request to stop using a name.
19. Changes to this policy
We'll update this policy when GOAT BAND or the law changes, and at least once a year. The "Last updated" date at the top shows when. For material changes we'll post a notice on the site before they take effect, and where the law requires, we'll email signed-in players or ask for consent again. If a change would use information we already hold in a materially different way, we'll tell you first and, where the law requires, ask for your consent.
20. Contact
d'Anconia Ventures LLC
30 N. Gould St., Ste. R, Sheridan, WY 82801, USA
Email: privacy@goat-band.com