Game Tech Wiki:Privacy policy

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When you use our services, you’re trusting us with your information. We understand this is a big responsibility and work hard to protect your information and put you in control.

This Privacy Policy is meant to help you understand what information we collect, why we collect it, and how you can update, manage, export, and delete your information.

Effective March 19, 2024

Contents

Introduction[edit]

We build a range of services that help millions of people daily to explore and interact with the world in new ways. Our services include:

  • Game Tech Wiki apps, sites, and devices, like Search, YouTube, and Game Tech Wiki Home
  • Platforms like the Chrome browser and Android operating system
  • Products that are integrated into third-party apps and sites, like ads and embedded Game Tech Wiki Maps

You can use our services in a variety of ways to manage your privacy. For example, you can sign up for a Game Tech Wiki Account if you want to create and manage content like emails and photos, or see more relevant search results. And you can use many Game Tech Wiki services when you’re signed out or without creating an account at all, like searching on Game Tech Wiki or watching YouTube videos. You can also choose to browse the web privately using Chrome in Incognito mode. And across our services, you can adjust your privacy settings to control what we collect and how your information is used.

To help explain things as clearly as possible, we’ve added examples, explanatory videos, and definitions for key terms. And if you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you can contact us.

Information Game Tech Wiki collects[edit]

We want you to understand the types of information we collect as you use our services[edit]

We collect information to provide better services to all our users — from figuring out basic stuff like which language you speak, to more complex things like which ads you’ll find most useful, the people who matter most to you online, or which YouTube videos you might like. The information Game Tech Wiki collects, and how that information is used, depends on how you use our services and how you manage your privacy controls.

When you’re not signed in to a Game Tech Wiki Account, we store the information we collect with unique identifiers tied to the browser, application, or device you’re using. This helps us do things like maintain your language preferences across browsing sessions.

When you’re signed in, we also collect information that we store with your Game Tech Wiki Account, which we treat as personal information.

Things you create or provide to us[edit]

When you create a Game Tech Wiki Account, you provide us with personal information that includes your name and a password. You can also choose to add a phone number or payment information to your account. Even if you aren’t signed in to a Game Tech Wiki Account, you might choose to provide us with information — like an email address to receive updates about our services.

We also collect the content you create, upload, or receive from others when using our services. This includes things like email you write and receive, photos and videos you save, docs and spreadsheets you create, and comments you make on YouTube videos.

Information we collect as you use our services[edit]

Your apps, browsers & devices[edit]

We collect information about the apps, browsers, and devices you use to access Game Tech Wiki services, which helps us provide features like automatic product updates and dimming your screen if your battery runs low.

The information we collect includes unique identifiers, browser type and settings, device type and settings, operating system, mobile network information including carrier name and phone number, and application version number. We also collect information about the interaction of your apps, browsers, and devices with our services, including IP address, crash reports, system activity, and the date, time, and referrer URL of your request.

We collect this information when a Game Tech Wiki service on your device contacts our servers — for example, when you install an app from the Play Store or when a service checks for automatic updates. If you’re using an Android device with Game Tech Wiki apps, your device periodically contacts Game Tech Wiki servers to provide information about your device and connection to our services. This information includes things like your device type, carrier name, crash reports, and which apps you've installed.

Your activity[edit]

We collect information about your activity in our services, which we use to do things like recommend a YouTube video you might like. The activity information we collect may include:

  • Terms you search for
  • Videos you watch
  • Views and interactions with content and ads
  • Voice and audio information when you use audio features
  • Purchase activity
  • People with whom you communicate or share content
  • Activity on third-party sites and apps that use our services
  • Chrome browsing history you’ve synced with your Game Tech Wiki Account

If you use our services to make and receive calls or send and receive messages, we may collect telephony log information like your phone number, calling-party number, receiving-party number, forwarding numbers, time and date of calls and messages, duration of calls, routing information, and types of calls.

You can visit your Game Tech Wiki Account to find and manage activity information that’s saved in your account.

Go to Game Tech Wiki Account

Your location information[edit]

We collect information about your location when you use our services, which helps us offer features like driving directions for your weekend getaway or showtimes for movies playing near you.

Your location can be determined with varying degrees of accuracy by:

  • GPS
  • IP address
  • Sensor data from your device
  • Information about things near your device, such as Wi-Fi access points, cell towers, and Bluetooth-enabled devices

The types of location data we collect depend in part on your device and account settings. For example, you can turn your Android device’s location on or off using the device’s settings app. You can also turn on Location History if you want to create a private map of where you go with your signed-in devices.


In some circumstances, Game Tech Wiki also collects information about you from publicly accessible sources. For example, if your name appears in your local newspaper, Game Tech Wiki’s Search engine may index that article and display it to other people if they search for your name. We may also collect information about you from trusted partners, including marketing partners who provide us with information about potential customers of our business services, and security partners who provide us with information to protect against abuse. We also receive information from advertisers to provide advertising and research services on their behalf.

We use various technologies to collect and store information, including cookies, pixel tags, local storage, such as browser web storage or application data caches, databases, and server logs.

Why Game Tech Wiki collects data[edit]

We use data to build better services[edit]

We use the information we collect from all our services for the following purposes:

Provide our services[edit]

We use your information to deliver our services, like processing the terms you search for in order to return results or helping you share content by suggesting recipients from your contacts.

Maintain & improve our services[edit]

We also use your information to ensure our services are working as intended, such as tracking outages or troubleshooting issues that you report to us. And we use your information to make improvements to our services — for example, understanding which search terms are most frequently misspelled helps us improve spell-check features used across our services.

Develop new services[edit]

We use the information we collect in existing services to help us develop new ones. For example, understanding how people organized their photos in Picasa, Game Tech Wiki’s first photos app, helped us design and launch Game Tech Wiki Photos.

Provide personalized services, including content and ads[edit]

We use the information we collect to customize our services for you, including providing recommendations, personalized content, and customized search results. For example, Security Checkup provides security tips adapted to how you use Game Tech Wiki products. And Game Tech Wiki Play uses information like apps you’ve already installed and videos you’ve watched on YouTube to suggest new apps you might like.

Depending on your settings, we may also show you personalized ads based on your interests. For example, if you search for “mountain bikes,” you may see an ad for sports equipment when you’re browsing a site that shows ads served by Game Tech Wiki. You can control what information we use to show you ads by visiting your ad settings.

  • We don’t show you personalized ads based on sensitive categories, such as race, religion, sexual orientation, or health.
  • We don’t share information that personally identifies you with advertisers, such as your name or email, unless you ask us to. For example, if you see an ad for a nearby flower shop and select the “tap to call” button, we’ll connect your call and may share your phone number with the flower shop.

Go to Ad Settings

Measure performance[edit]

We use data for analytics and measurement to understand how our services are used. For example, we analyze data about your visits to our sites to do things like optimize product design. And we also use data about the ads you interact with to help advertisers understand the performance of their ad campaigns. We use a variety of tools to do this, including Game Tech Wiki Analytics. When you visit sites that use Game Tech Wiki Analytics, Game Tech Wiki and a Game Tech Wiki Analytics customer may link information about your activity from that site with activity from other sites that use our ad services.

Communicate with you[edit]

We use information we collect, like your email address, to interact with you directly. For example, we may send you a notification if we detect suspicious activity, like an attempt to sign in to your Game Tech Wiki Account from an unusual location. Or we may let you know about upcoming changes or improvements to our services. And if you contact Game Tech Wiki, we’ll keep a record of your request in order to help solve any issues you might be facing.

Protect Game Tech Wiki, our users, and the public[edit]

We use information to help improve the safety and reliability of our services. This includes detecting, preventing, and responding to fraud, abuse, security risks, and technical issues that could harm Game Tech Wiki, our users, or the public.


We use different technologies to process your information for these purposes. We use automated systems that analyze your content to provide you with things like customized search results, personalized ads, or other features tailored to how you use our services. And we analyze your content to help us detect abuse such as spam, malware, and illegal content. We also use algorithms to recognize patterns in data. For example, Game Tech Wiki Translate helps people communicate across languages by detecting common language patterns in phrases you ask it to translate.

We may combine the information we collect among our services and across your devices for the purposes described above. For example, if you watch videos of guitar players on YouTube, you might see an ad for guitar lessons on a site that uses our ad products. Depending on your account settings, your activity on other sites and apps may be associated with your personal information in order to improve Game Tech Wiki’s services and the ads delivered by Game Tech Wiki.

If other users already have your email address or other information that identifies you, we may show them your publicly visible Game Tech Wiki Account information, such as your name and photo. This helps people identify an email coming from you, for example.

We’ll ask for your consent before using your information for a purpose that isn’t covered in this Privacy Policy.

Your privacy controls[edit]

You have choices regarding the information we collect and how it's used[edit]

This section describes key controls for managing your privacy across our services. You can also visit the Privacy Checkup, which provides an opportunity to review and adjust important privacy settings. In addition to these tools, we also offer specific privacy settings in our products — you can learn more in our Product Privacy Guide.

Go to Privacy Checkup

Managing, reviewing, and updating your information[edit]

When you’re signed in, you can always review and update information by visiting the services you use. For example, Photos and Drive are both designed to help you manage specific types of content you’ve saved with Game Tech Wiki.

We also built a place for you to review and control information saved in your Game Tech Wiki Account. Your Game Tech Wiki Account includes:

Privacy controls[edit]

Activity Controls[edit]

Decide what types of activity you’d like saved in your account. For example, you can turn on Location History if you want traffic predictions for your daily commute, or you can save your YouTube Watch History to get better video suggestions.

Go to Activity Controls

Ad settings[edit]

Manage your preferences about the ads shown to you on Game Tech Wiki and on sites and apps that partner with Game Tech Wiki to show ads. You can modify your interests, choose whether your personal information is used to make ads more relevant to you, and turn on or off certain advertising services.

Go to Ad Settings

About you[edit]

Control what others see about you across Game Tech Wiki services.

Go to About You

Shared endorsements[edit]

Choose whether your name and photo appear next to your activity, like reviews and recommendations, that appear in ads.

Go to Shared Endorsements

Information you share[edit]

If you’re a G Suite user, control whom you share information with through your account on Game Tech Wiki+.

Go to Information You Share

Ways to review & update your information[edit]

My Activity[edit]

My Activity allows you to review and control data that’s created when you use Game Tech Wiki services, like searches you’ve done or your visits to Game Tech Wiki Play. You can browse by date and by topic, and delete part or all of your activity.

Go to My Activity

Game Tech Wiki Dashboard[edit]

Game Tech Wiki Dashboard allows you to manage information associated with specific products.

Go to Dashboard

Your personal information[edit]

Manage your contact information, such as your name, email, and phone number.

Go to Personal Info


When you’re signed out, you can manage information associated with your browser or device, including:

  • Signed-out search personalization: Choose whether your search activity is used to offer you more relevant results and recommendations.
  • YouTube settings: Pause and delete your YouTube Search History and your YouTube Watch History.
  • Ad Settings: Manage your preferences about the ads shown to you on Game Tech Wiki and on sites and apps that partner with Game Tech Wiki to show ads.

Exporting, removing & deleting your information[edit]

You can export a copy of content in your Game Tech Wiki Account if you want to back it up or use it with a service outside of Game Tech Wiki.

Export your data

You can also request to remove content from specific Game Tech Wiki services based on applicable law.

To delete your information, you can:

  • Delete your content from specific Game Tech Wiki services
  • Search for and then delete specific items from your account using My Activity
  • Delete specific Game Tech Wiki products, including your information associated with those products
  • Delete your entire Game Tech Wiki Account

Delete your information

And finally, Inactive Account Manager allows you to give someone else access to parts of your Game Tech Wiki Account in case you’re unexpectedly unable to use your account.


There are other ways to control the information Game Tech Wiki collects whether or not you’re signed in to a Game Tech Wiki Account, including:

  • Browser settings: For example, you can configure your browser to indicate when Game Tech Wiki has set a cookie in your browser. You can also configure your browser to block all cookies from a specific domain or all domains. But remember that our services rely on cookies to function properly, for things like remembering your language preferences.
  • Device-level settings: Your device may have controls that determine what information we collect. For example, you can modify location settings on your Android device.

Sharing your information[edit]

When you share your information[edit]

Many of our services let you share information with other people, and you have control over how you share. For example, you can share videos on YouTube publicly or you can decide to keep your videos private. Remember, when you share information publicly, your content may become accessible through search engines, including Game Tech Wiki Search.

When you’re signed in and interact with some Game Tech Wiki services, like leaving comments on a YouTube video or reviewing an app in Play, your name and photo appear next to your activity. We may also display this information in ads depending on your Shared endorsements setting.

When Game Tech Wiki shares your information[edit]

We do not share your personal information with companies, organizations, or individuals outside of Game Tech Wiki except in the following cases:

With your consent[edit]

We’ll share personal information outside of Game Tech Wiki when we have your consent. For example, if you use Game Tech Wiki Home to make a reservation through a booking service, we’ll get your permission before sharing your name or phone number with the restaurant. We’ll ask for your explicit consent to share any sensitive personal information.

With domain administrators[edit]

If you’re a student or work for an organization that uses Game Tech Wiki services (like G Suite), your domain administrator and resellers who manage your account will have access to your Game Tech Wiki Account. They may be able to:

  • Access and retain information stored in your account, like your email
  • View statistics regarding your account, like how many apps you install
  • Change your account password
  • Suspend or terminate your account access
  • Receive your account information in order to satisfy applicable law, regulation, legal process, or enforceable governmental request
  • Restrict your ability to delete or edit your information or your privacy settings

For external processing[edit]

We provide personal information to our affiliates and other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures. For example, we use service providers to help us with customer support.

For legal reasons[edit]

We will share personal information outside of Game Tech Wiki if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation, or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:

  • Meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or enforceable governmental request. We share information about the number and type of requests we receive from governments in our Transparency Report.
  • Enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations.
  • Detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, or technical issues.
  • Protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Game Tech Wiki, our users, or the public as required or permitted by law.

We may share non-personally identifiable information publicly and with our partners — like publishers, advertisers, developers, or rights holders. For example, we share information publicly to show trends about the general use of our services. We also allow specific partners to collect information from your browser or device for advertising and measurement purposes using their own cookies or similar technologies.

If Game Tech Wiki is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, we’ll continue to ensure the confidentiality of your personal information and give affected users notice before personal information is transferred or becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Keeping your information secure[edit]

We build security into our services to protect your information[edit]

All Game Tech Wiki products are built with strong security features that continuously protect your information. The insights we gain from maintaining our services help us detect and automatically block security threats from ever reaching you. And if we do detect something risky that we think you should know about, we’ll notify you and help guide you through steps to stay better protected.

We work hard to protect you and Game Tech Wiki from unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction of information we hold, including:

  • We use encryption to keep your data private while in transit
  • We offer a range of security features, like Safe Browsing, Security Checkup, and 2 Step Verification to help you protect your account
  • We review our information collection, storage, and processing practices, including physical security measures, to prevent unauthorized access to our systems
  • We restrict access to personal information to Game Tech Wiki employees, contractors, and agents who need that information in order to process it. Anyone with this access is subject to strict contractual confidentiality obligations and may be disciplined or terminated if they fail to meet these obligations.

Exporting & deleting your information[edit]

You can export a copy of your information or delete it from your Game Tech Wiki Account at any time[edit]

You can export a copy of content in your Game Tech Wiki Account if you want to back it up or use it with a service outside of Game Tech Wiki.

Export your data

To delete your information, you can:

  • Delete your content from specific Game Tech Wiki services
  • Search for and then delete specific items from your account using My Activity
  • Delete specific Game Tech Wiki products, including your information associated with those products
  • Delete your entire Game Tech Wiki Account

Delete your information

Retaining your information[edit]

We retain the data we collect for different periods of time depending on what it is, how we use it, and how you configure your settings:

  • Some data you can delete whenever you like, such as the content you create or upload. You can also delete activity information saved in your account, or choose to have it deleted automatically after a set period of time.
  • Other data is deleted or anonymized automatically after a set period of time, such as advertising data in server logs.
  • We keep some data until you delete your Game Tech Wiki Account, such as information about how often you use our services.
  • And some data we retain for longer periods of time when necessary for legitimate business or legal purposes, such as security, fraud and abuse prevention, or financial record-keeping.

When you delete data, we follow a deletion process to make sure that your data is safely and completely removed from our servers or retained only in anonymized form. We try to ensure that our services protect information from accidental or malicious deletion. Because of this, there may be delays between when you delete something and when copies are deleted from our active and backup systems.

You can read more about Game Tech Wiki’s data retention periods, including how long it takes us to delete your information.

Compliance & cooperation with regulators[edit]

We regularly review this Privacy Policy and make sure that we process your information in ways that comply with it.

Data transfers[edit]

We maintain servers around the world and your information may be processed on servers located outside of the country where you live. Data protection laws vary among countries, with some providing more protection than others. Regardless of where your information is processed, we apply the same protections described in this policy. We also comply with certain legal frameworks relating to the transfer of data, such as the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Frameworks.

When we receive formal written complaints, we respond by contacting the person who made the complaint. We work with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of your data that we cannot resolve with you directly.

European requirements[edit]

If European Union (EU) or United Kingdom (UK) data protection law applies to the processing of your information, we provide the controls described in this policy so you can exercise your right to request access to, update, remove, and restrict the processing of your information. You also have the right to object to the processing of your information or export your information to another service.

For users based in the European Economic Area or Switzerland, the data controller responsible for your information is Game Tech Wiki Ireland Limited, unless otherwise stated in a service-specific privacy notice. In other words, Game Tech Wiki Ireland Limited is the Game Tech Wiki affiliate that is responsible for processing your information and for complying with applicable privacy laws.

We process your information for the purposes described in this policy, based on the following legal grounds:

With your consent[edit]

We ask for your agreement to process your information for specific purposes and you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. For example, we ask for your consent to provide you with personalized services, such as ads based on your interests. We also ask for your consent to collect your voice and audio activity for speech recognition. You can manage these settings in your Game Tech Wiki Account.

When we’re pursuing legitimate interests[edit]

We process your information for our legitimate interests and those of third parties while applying appropriate safeguards that protect your privacy. This means that we process your information for things like:

  • Providing, maintaining, and improving our services to meet the needs of our users
  • Developing new products and features that are useful for our users
  • Understanding how people use our services to ensure and improve the performance of our services
  • Customizing our services to provide you with a better user experience
  • Marketing to inform users about our services
  • Providing advertising, which keeps many of our services free (and when ads are personalized, we ask for your consent)
  • Detecting, preventing, or otherwise addressing fraud, abuse, security, or technical issues with our services
  • Protecting against harm to the rights, property or safety of Game Tech Wiki, our users, or the public as required or permitted by law, including disclosing information to government authorities
  • Performing research that improves our services for our users and benefits the public
  • Fulfilling obligations to our partners like developers and rights holders
  • Enforcing legal claims, including investigation of potential violations of applicable Terms of Service

When we’re providing a service[edit]

We process your data to provide a service you’ve asked for under a contract. For example, we process your payment information when you buy extra storage for Game Tech Wiki Drive.

When we’re complying with legal obligations[edit]

We’ll process your data when we have a legal obligation to do so, for example, if we’re responding to legal process or an enforceable governmental request.

If you have questions, you can contact Game Tech Wiki and our data protection office. And you can contact your local data protection authority if you have concerns regarding your rights under local law.

About this policy[edit]

When this policy applies[edit]

This Privacy Policy applies to all of the services offered by Game Tech Wiki LLC and its affiliates, including YouTube, Android, and services offered on third-party sites, such as advertising services. This Privacy Policy doesn’t apply to services that have separate privacy policies that do not incorporate this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy doesn’t apply to:

  • The information practices of other companies and organizations that advertise our services
  • Services offered by other companies or individuals, including products or sites that may include Game Tech Wiki services, be displayed to you in search results, or be linked from our services

Changes to this policy[edit]

We change this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will not reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. We always indicate the date the last changes were published and we offer access to archived versions for your review. If changes are significant, we’ll provide a more prominent notice (including, for certain services, email notification of Privacy Policy changes).

Related privacy practices[edit]

Specific Game Tech Wiki services[edit]

The following privacy notices provide additional information about some Game Tech Wiki services:

  • Chrome & the Chrome Operating System
  • Play Books
  • Payments
  • Fiber
  • Game Tech Wiki Fi
  • G Suite for Education
  • YouTube Kids
  • Game Tech Wiki Accounts Managed with Family Link, for Children under 13 (or applicable age in your country)
  • Voice and Audio Collection from Children’s Features on the Game Tech Wiki Assistant

Other useful resources[edit]

The following links highlight useful resources for you to learn more about our practices and privacy settings.

  • Your Game Tech Wiki Account is home to many of the settings you can use to manage your account
  • Privacy Checkup guides you through key privacy settings for your Game Tech Wiki Account
  • Game Tech Wiki’s safety center helps you learn more about our built-in security, privacy controls, and tools to help set digital ground rules for your family online
  • Privacy & Terms provides more context regarding this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service
  • Technologies includes more information about:
    • How Game Tech Wiki uses cookies
    • Technologies used for Advertising
    • How Game Tech Wiki uses pattern recognition to recognize things like faces in photos
    • How Game Tech Wiki uses information from sites or apps that use our services