Privacy policy

As of 18 September 2026. Applies to this website and to the game „Sternenreich".

This is a translation for convenience. The German version is the authoritative one; where the two differ, the German text applies.

Controller: Andreas Amon, amonandi@hotmail.com. Sternenreich is a private project. There is no advertising, there are no payment functions, and there is no analysis of your behaviour.

1. This website

These pages embed no third-party content and use no analytics tool. Fonts, images and stylesheet are on the same server — so no request goes to Google, to a content delivery network or to anyone else.

Cookies

On the information pages (start page, guide, rules, this page, imprint) no cookie is set.

In the game under /spiel there are exactly three, all needed for operation and neither for observation:

sr_sitzung — keeps you signed in. Readable only by the server (HttpOnly), SameSite=Lax. Without this cookie there is no signing in.
sr_sprache — remembers whether you read the pages in German or English. Content: de or en, for one year. There is nothing else in it, and it goes to nobody else.
sr_runde — remembers which round you last had open, so the menu can lead you back to your planets from any page. Content: only the round's identifier, for six months, readable only by the server (HttpOnly).

All three are technically necessary or pure display settings (Art. 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR); no consent banner is required for them. There is no cookie for recognising you across websites.

As with any web server, the web server logs the access itself: IP address, time, address requested, status code and the identifier reported by the browser. This serves troubleshooting and the prevention of abuse (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR, legitimate interest in secure operation) and is not combined with other data.

When it loads, the start page asks once for the operating state of the game server (/api/health). This request goes to the same server and transmits nothing about you beyond what is in any page request anyway.

2. The game without an account

The practice round against computer opponents runs entirely on your device. The saved game and settings are in the app's private storage area and are not transmitted anywhere. Without an account, not a single record about you is created on the server.

3. The account and the game server

Signing in

Signing in goes through Google Sign-In. The app receives a signed assertion from Google and sends it to my server, which verifies it with Google. Neither the app nor the server sees your Google password. The legal basis is the performance of the user relationship (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR) — without an account there is no multiplayer.

In the PC version on Steam you sign in with your Steam account: the game fetches a sign-in ticket from the Steam client, my server has it verified by Valve and receives your SteamID and your Steam profile name. Neither the game nor the server sees your Steam password. If you already play on your phone, you can link both sign-ins with a code from the app and then play the same empire on the PC. Legal basis as above.

What is stored on the server

Data	Where from	What for
Google identifier („sub")	from Google on signing in	recognising your account
SteamID (only when signing in through Steam)	from Valve when the sign-in ticket is verified	recognising your account on the PC
Linking code (six digits)	created in the app at your request	assigning phone and Steam sign-in to the same account; valid for ten minutes
Display name	pre-filled from the Google or Steam profile on the first sign-in	the name you appear under in the universe
Sessions	created on signing in	staying signed in. Only a hash of the token is stored, not the token itself
Rounds you sit in	when you create or join a round	mapping account → seat
The round's game state: planets, buildings, fleets, events, points	from your moves	the game itself
Intermediate states of the round	automatically every few ticks	being able to roll a round back if a calculation error damages it
Device tokens for push notifications and the language setting („de"/„en")	from Firebase, if you allow notifications	waking you on attack, battle and end of round
Feedback and reports: your text, the time, your account, plus round, tick and app version	when you use the feedback button	fixing bugs; checking reports about other players
Messages: your text, the time, your account and the room (round board, alliance room, corporation room, direct conversation or the public radio); plus whom you have muted and how far you have read a room. What you write on the radio is shown publicly on the front page with your display name — to visitors without an account as well. The server also posts to the radio itself, and since 7 September 2026 with your display name: when you join a round, conquer a planet, are eliminated or name an alliance. The display name is chosen by you and is listed in the standings of every open round anyway. A declaration of war, a shared scan and a claimed target are stored like messages (round, alliance, account, time, text).	when you write, mute or read in the game	letting players talk to each other; checking reports about messages
Corporations (“Konzerne”): name, tag, motto, description, emblem choice or an uploaded corporation picture (scaled to 256 pixels, stored without metadata) and pinned text of the corporation; your membership with role and join date; applications and invitations with your text	when you found a corporation, apply, are invited or join	communities across rounds; members see each other in the member list, including when you were last in the game

What is expressly not stored

Your e-mail address and your Google profile picture do not go into the database. The server needs neither for anything: there is no mail sending and no member list with faces. What is not stored cannot leak. The address is checked with Google exactly once on signing in (it has to be verified) and then discarded.

What other players see of you

Your display name and what you do in the game — that is planets, fleets and battles, as far as their own reconnaissance reaches. Not your e-mail address, not your Google account, not your other rounds.

4. Push notifications

Push notifications run through Firebase Cloud Messaging by Google. The message itself carries no game data, only a prompt („take a look") and the identifier of the round — it does appear on a locked screen, after all. You are only woken on radar contact, battle, invasion and end of round. You can turn notifications off at any time in your device settings; the game then carries on unchanged.

4a. Feedback and reports

Using the feedback button you can describe a bug — or report another player who is misbehaving. Along with your text, the context is sent: which round, which tick, which app version. Without that, „does not work" cannot be placed two weeks later.

Only I read it, the developer — not other players, and not the person you reported. The legal basis is your consent, given by sending it (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), and for reports additionally the legitimate interest in a usable game (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

Entries are deleted once they are dealt with. If you delete your account, the text stays but loses its link to you. That is deliberate: a report about a rule violation should not disappear just because the person reported deletes their account.

5. Who else processes the data

Hetzner Online GmbH operates the machine on which the server and website run. The location is a data centre in Helsinki, Finland — that is, within the EU. Hetzner is a processor and sees the data only in so far as it technically resides on the machine. A data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR has been in place since 31 August 2026; it obliges Hetzner to carry out processing exclusively in the EU or the EEA.
Google Ireland Ltd. / Google LLC for signing in (Google Sign-In) and push notifications (Firebase). In doing so Google learns that you sign in to this game. Data may be transferred to the USA in the process. Google LLC is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework; the European Commission has issued an adequacy decision under Art. 45 GDPR for that framework.
Valve Corporation (USA), only if you play the PC version through Steam: my server sends the sign-in ticket to Valve for verification and asks for your Steam profile name. In doing so Valve learns that you sign in to this game — as the operator of Steam, Valve knows your account anyway. Data is transferred to the USA in the process. This happens because you yourself choose to sign in through Steam, which is not possible without this check (Art. 49(1)(b) GDPR).

Beyond that no data is passed on. There is no sale, no advertising networks and no transfer to third parties for their own purposes.

6. How long it is stored

Account: until you delete it.
Sessions: they expire by themselves; deleted immediately on signing out.
Linking codes: invalid after ten minutes, deleted as soon as they are used.
Rounds and intermediate states: until the round has ended and for a while afterwards, so that it can be looked up how it turned out.
Feedback and reports: until they are dealt with. On account deletion the link to the person falls away immediately.
Corporations: your membership until you leave or delete your account. A corporation without members counts as dissolved; its name stays for the hall of fame, its picture is deleted. A corporation picture stays until an officer replaces or removes it; the operator removes offensive pictures. Applications and invitations until they are decided.
Messages: round boards and alliance rooms are deleted 90 days after the round ends, direct conversations, corporation rooms and the public radio one year after the message — all automatically on the server. You can withdraw a radio post of your own at any time; it then disappears from the front page. On account deletion the link to the person falls away immediately; the text stays readable for the others in the conversation, as “deleted account”.
Device tokens: until you remove the app or Firebase reports the token as dead — then it is deleted automatically.
Server logs: deleted automatically after 14 days at the latest. Until then they serve troubleshooting and the prevention of abuse.

7. Your rights

You have the right to information, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability and objection. An informal message to amonandi@hotmail.com is enough.

For deleting your account there is a page of its own: delete account.

If you think something is wrong with the processing, you can complain to the supervisory authority — in Austria to the Austrian Data Protection Authority.

8. Changes

If a feature is added that needs new data, this policy is changed beforehand. The date at the top tells you which version you are reading.