1. What are Cookies?

Cookies are small text files placed on your computer or mobile device by websites you visit. They are widely used to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the site owners. Cookies help us improve your experience by remembering your preferences and analyzing website traffic.

2. How We Use Cookies

PlayGames uses both first-party cookies (set by us) and third-party cookies (set by our partners and service providers). We categorize our cookies as follows:

A. Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are essential to enable you to navigate the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas. Without these cookies, services you have asked for, like logging into your account, cannot be provided.

• Purpose: Account and session management.
• Example: Firebase Authentication cookies that keep you logged in.
• Retention: Typically for the duration of your session or until you log out.

B. Performance and Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information about how visitors use a website, for instance, which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous.

• Provider: Google Analytics.
• Example Cookies: `_ga`, `_gid`, `_gat`.
• Purpose: Helps us understand website traffic, count visitors, and analyze how users navigate the site to improve the user experience.
• Retention: Varies from 1 minute (`_gat`) to 2 years (`_ga`).

C. Advertising Cookies

These cookies are used to make advertising more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. They are usually placed by advertising networks with the website operator’s permission.

• Provider: Google AdSense.
• Example Cookies: `_gads`, `_gac`, `IDE`.
• Purpose: To display personalized and non-personalized ads, and to measure the performance of these ads.
• Retention: Varies, but can be retained for up to 13 months in the European Economic Area.

D. Third-Party Cookies (Game and Content Partners)

Many of the games on PlayGames are provided by our partners (such as GameDistribution, GamePix, GameMonetize) and are loaded in an `iframe` on our website. When you play a game, you are interacting directly with this third-party content. These partners may set their own cookies and tracking technologies to measure game performance, display in-game advertising, or for other analytical purposes.

We do not control these third-party cookies. We strongly advise you to check the privacy and cookie policies of these partners for more information about their data practices.

3. Use of Local Storage

In addition to cookies, we also use the browser's `localStorage` to store an anonymous, unique identifier (`deviceId`). This helps us anonymously handle game reports and distinguish unique devices without collecting personally identifiable information. This information does not leave your device and is stored locally.

4. How to Manage Cookies

You have the right to decide whether to accept or reject cookies. You can exercise your cookie rights by setting your preferences in your web browser. If you choose to reject cookies, you may still use our website though your access to some functionality and areas of our website may be restricted.

Most web browsers provide instructions on how to manage cookies in their 'Help' section, 'Tools', or 'Edit' menu. You can also visit www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/ for detailed information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers.

5. Changes to This Cookie Policy

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to the cookies we use or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons. Please therefore re-visit this Cookie Policy regularly to stay informed about our use of cookies and related technologies.