Privacy policy

In short

Camera

If you choose Hand or Paddle controls, the game asks your browser for the camera. Each frame is analysed in the page, on your device (hand tracking uses Google’s MediaPipe library running locally; paddle tracking is plain colour matching), and then thrown away. Frames are never sent over the network, recorded or saved. The only thing kept is the paddle colour you lock, as a colour value in your settings. You can revoke camera access at any time in your browser’s site settings.

Data saved on your device

Palm Court saves your settings (name, controls, graphics, sensitivity) and your progress (level, XP, Fuzz, unlocks, match history and stats) in your browser’s storage (IndexedDB, or local storage as a fallback). It stays in that browser on that device. Clearing the site’s data in your browser deletes it.

Online backup and leaderboards

Palm Court backs up your progress online, so it isn’t lost if you clear your browser, and it runs leaderboards. This is on by default. You can turn it off in Settings (Gameplay, “Online backup & leaderboards”); it takes effect after you reload the page.

When it is on, your browser creates an anonymous account with our database provider, Supabase. It has a random player ID: no email, password or camera data. A copy of your progress (the same data as above) is stored under that ID and synchronised as you play, and your best scores (level, World Tour ranking points, longest win streak and fastest serve) are stored for the leaderboards. If you choose a leaderboard name, that name and your scores are visible to every player, so please don’t use your real name or other personal details. The backup belongs to the browser it was made in; it can’t follow you to another device. To have your stored data deleted, contact us (see Contact) and include your leaderboard name if you set one.

Online play and the phone racket

To connect two browsers (a friend’s game, or your phone as a racket), the game uses the PeerJS public broker, which briefly sees both devices’ IP addresses to introduce them. After that the devices talk directly (WebRTC). Only game data is sent: swings, ball positions, scores and your display name. As with any direct connection, the other device can see your IP address.

Advertising and cookies

The free web version shows ads: on the pages of this website (Google AdSense) and, in the game, between matches or when you choose to watch a rewarded ad (Google’s ads for games). Ads never appear during a point. If you play Palm Court on a game portal, that portal and its ad partners serve the ads under their own privacy policies.

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites.
• Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to this site and/or other sites on the Internet.
• You may opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings. You can also opt out of some third-party vendors’ use of cookies for personalised advertising at aboutads.info.
• Ad partners may collect your IP address, browser and device information, cookies or similar identifiers, and how you interact with ads, to serve, cap, measure and (with your consent where the law requires it) personalise ads, and to prevent fraud. Read how Google uses information from sites that use its services.

Your consent. Visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are asked for consent by Google’s consent tool before personalised ads or advertising cookies are used; if you decline, only limited or non-personalised ads are shown. Where US state privacy laws apply, you can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data for targeted advertising through the same tool.

In the game, where Palm Court asks for your ad choice itself, you can change your answer under Ad choices in the main menu, or here: Reset my in-game ad choice

The Steam version has no ads.

Other requests your browser makes

Like any web page, Palm Court downloads its libraries and fonts from content networks (jsDelivr, Google Fonts, and Google’s storage for the hand-tracking model), and the website is delivered by its hosting provider (GitHub Pages or Cloudflare). Those services see your IP address and browser details when they deliver the files, and may keep them in server logs for security. Palm Court uses no analytics or tracking of its own.

Children

Palm Court doesn’t ask for or knowingly collect personal information from anyone, children included. Ads on this site are served by Google under its policies. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

Your choices and rights

Your progress is stored on your device, and, unless you turn it off in Settings, as a backup copy online: clear the site’s data to delete the copy on your device, and contact us to delete the online copy. Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR in the EU and UK, or the CCPA in California), you have the right to access, correct or delete personal data held about you and to object to its use. For data held by an ad partner, use their privacy tools or contact them. For anything held by Palm Court (such as a cloud save), contact us.

Contact and changes

Questions about this policy or your data: palmcourt.game@gmail.com. If this policy changes, the new version is posted on this page with a new date.