Privacy Policy

Last updated: 17 October 2026

ZooTales is a word puzzle game for iPhone developed by Christoph Weidinger.

ZooTales has no user accounts, no sign-in, and no server of its own. Your puzzle progress and your animals stay on your devices and, if you use iCloud, in your own iCloud storage. The developer receives no personal data about you and has no way to identify you. The one exception is advertising: ZooTales shows ads from Google AdMob, and Google processes some device and ad-interaction data to deliver and measure them. That is described in full below, together with the choices you have over it.

Your game progress

• Puzzle progress, solved and bonus words, coins, hints, treats, keeper meals, your animals, and app settings such as language, appearance, and sound are stored in ZooTales's own storage on your device.
• If you are signed in to iCloud, a copy of your save is kept in Apple's iCloud key-value storage so your progress stays in sync across your Apple devices. This is private to your Apple Account, handled by Apple under Apple's Privacy Policy, and not accessible to the developer. You can turn it off for ZooTales in iOS Settings › [your name] › iCloud.
• None of it is sent to the developer or to any other service.
• Deleting ZooTales removes its data from that device; a copy may remain in your iCloud until you remove it there. Purchases are tied to your Apple Account rather than to the saved game, so they can be restored afterwards.
• Bonus words are checked against the spell-checking dictionary built into iOS, on your device. Nothing you type is looked up over the internet or sent anywhere.

Advertising (Google AdMob)

ZooTales is free to play and funded by ads served through Google AdMob, using the Google Mobile Ads SDK. There are two kinds:

• Interstitials — a full-screen ad that occasionally appears when you start a level, after an initial ad-free grace period.
• Rewarded videos — entirely optional. You choose to watch one in exchange for a free hint or doubled coins, and nothing happens unless you tap it.

To select, deliver, and personalize these ads, to limit how often you see them, to measure their performance, and to protect against fraud and abuse, Google may collect and process information such as:

• your device's advertising identifier (IDFA) — only if you allowed tracking when iOS asked;
• your IP address, and an approximate location derived from it;
• device and app information such as device model, operating system version, language, and the fact that the ad was requested by ZooTales;
• ad interactions: which ads were shown, whether they were viewed, closed, or tapped, and whether a rewarded video was watched to the end.

Third-party ad partners. AdMob does not only sell Google's own ads. To fill ad space it also works with third-party advertising networks, exchanges, and measurement providers, and those companies may likewise receive and process the information above as independent controllers for their own advertising, analytics, and fraud-prevention purposes, each under its own privacy policy. Google publishes the full, current list of these companies as its ad technology providers; where consent is required, the consent form shown in ZooTales lets you review and decide about them individually.

Google itself acts as an independent controller for this data. Its handling is governed by the Google Privacy Policy; see also how Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services.

The developer never receives your personal data from this. AdMob reports only aggregated, anonymous figures — such as how many ads were shown and what they earned — which cannot be traced back to you or your device.

Your choices about ads

• Consent (EEA, UK and Switzerland). On first launch, ZooTales shows Google's consent form, built with Google's certified consent management platform. You decide there whether personalized ads are allowed. If you decline, you still see ads, but non-personalized ones based on context rather than a profile of you.
• Changing your mind. Where this consent applies, ZooTales's Settings screen includes a Privacy options row that reopens the form so you can review or withdraw your choices at any time.
• Apple's tracking prompt. iOS asks separately whether ZooTales may track you across other companies' apps and websites. Declining means no advertising identifier is shared, and ads stay non-personalized. You can change this later in iOS Settings › Privacy & Security › Tracking, or under ZooTales's own entry in iOS Settings.
• Removing ads. The one-time Remove Ads purchase permanently ends interstitials. Optional rewarded videos remain available if you want a free hint, and are never forced on you.
• Attribution. ZooTales includes Apple's SKAdNetwork entries, which let ad campaigns be measured through Apple in a way designed not to identify individual users.

Purchases

• ZooTales offers a one-time Remove Ads purchase and consumable hint packs. There are no subscriptions, so nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel.
• All purchases are handled entirely by Apple through the App Store. ZooTales never sees or stores your payment information.
• ZooTales only learns from Apple whether a valid Remove Ads purchase exists on your Apple Account and which hint packs were bought. It does not receive your name, your Apple Account details, or any payment information.
• Purchase data is processed by Apple under Apple's Privacy Policy. Apple also provides the developer with aggregate, anonymous App Store statistics such as download and sales totals.

What ZooTales does not do

• No accounts, no sign-in, no email address collection.
• No analytics or crash-reporting services of the developer's own.
• No access to your contacts, photos, camera, microphone, health data, or location. ZooTales requests no such permissions.
• No selling or sharing of your data by the developer, who holds none to begin with.

Children

ZooTales is a word game intended for a general audience. It is not directed to children under 13, and the developer does not knowingly collect any information from children. Because the app is ad-supported, parents who prefer a fully ad-free experience can use the one-time Remove Ads purchase for interstitials, and simply not tap the optional rewarded video offers.

Where your data is processed

The developer is based in Austria and operates no servers, so nothing is transferred to the developer at all. The advertising data described above, however, is processed by Google, its ad technology providers, and Apple — all of which operate globally. Your data may therefore be transferred to and processed in countries outside the European Economic Area, including the United States, where data protection law may differ from that of your own country. Those companies are responsible for the safeguards covering such transfers, which they carry out on legal bases such as the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework, the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, or an adequacy decision. Details are in Google's privacy policy and Apple's privacy policy.

Your rights

Under the GDPR and comparable laws you have rights of access, correction, deletion, restriction, and objection regarding personal data about you. Since the developer holds no personal data about you, there is nothing on that side to access or delete beyond the save file on your own devices and in your own iCloud, which you control. For the advertising data described above, the responsible party is Google — requests concerning it should be directed to Google, using the contacts in its privacy policy. Where personalized advertising relies on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time through Privacy options in ZooTales's Settings, with no effect on processing that already took place.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the updated version will be published on this page with a new “last updated” date.

Contact

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, contact christoph.weidinger.work@gmail.com.