Privacy policy
Last updated: 17 August 2026
This is the privacy policy for τotal Addressable Universe, the browser game at totaladdressableuniverse.ai.
Who is responsible
This site is a hobby project run by one person, and there is no company behind it. Everything in this policy is handled at privacy@totaladdressableuniverse.ai, which reaches the person responsible directly — questions, data requests and complaints alike.
What the game stores on your device
The game saves your progress using your browser's local storage. This is storage on your own computer or phone. It is not a cookie, and no copy of it is transmitted to us or to anyone else.
The save contains only the state of your game: your funding, which producers and upgrades you own, which achievements you have earned, your Almost Singularity upgrades, the state of your probe fleet, and the timestamp the simulation was last advanced to. It contains no name, no email address and no identifier.
This storage is strictly necessary to provide the game you asked for, so under the ePrivacy rules it does not require your consent. Clearing your browser's site data for this domain deletes it permanently, and there is nothing left anywhere for us to delete on your behalf. You can also copy the save out as a plain text string from the Stats tab and keep it yourself.
What we collect about you
Nothing that identifies you. There is no account system, no login, no email capture and no contact form, and nothing you do in the game is reported anywhere.
What the hosting provider sees
The site is served as static files by Cloudflare. Like every web server, theirs records ordinary technical information when your browser requests a page: your IP address, the time of the request, which file was requested, your browser's user-agent string, and the page that referred you. It also produces aggregate traffic counts, which contain no identifier.
This happens at the network level before any of our code runs, it is necessary to deliver the page to you at all, and it is what protects the site from abuse. Cloudflare may set a strictly necessary cookie of its own as part of that protection, distinguishing a browser from a bot; it is not ours, we cannot read it, and it is the only cookie this site causes to exist — the advertising frame described below sets none either.
We rely on our legitimate interests in delivering and securing the site (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR) for this processing.
Advertising
One advertising banner is shown at the bottom of the game, supplied by AADS. What this site loads for it is a single embedded frame and nothing else: no advertising script runs on this page, and nothing is written to or read from your device for it. AADS states that its banners contain no scripts and set no cookies. Your save is not visible to it — it sits in your browser's storage for this site, which an embedded frame from another origin cannot reach.
Like any embedded resource, the request your browser makes for it tells the advertising provider your IP address, your browser's user-agent string and the address of the page the frame is on. That is the same technical information every server on the internet receives when it is asked for a file, and it is the whole of what leaves your browser. Nothing identifies you, nothing is combined with anything else we hold — we hold nothing — and there is no profiling and no behavioural targeting: the banner does not know what you have done in the game, or on any other site.
Because nothing is stored on or read from your device, there is no consent banner to click. We rely on our legitimate interests in covering the running costs of a free game (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR). If you would rather not see it, the × at the right-hand end of the banner dismisses it for the rest of your visit, and any ad blocker will remove it entirely — the game works exactly the same either way.
AADS is operated by Alpha Communication Services Limited, registered in Hong Kong. Their own privacy policy governs what they do with the request once it reaches them.
International transfers
Cloudflare is based in the United States and operates a global network, so the technical data described above may be handled outside your country. Cloudflare relies on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses for those transfers.
AADS is registered in Hong Kong, which the European Commission has not declared adequate, so the request your browser makes for the advertising frame reaches a country outside the EEA. That request carries the technical information described under Advertising above and nothing else. If you would rather it were not made at all, dismissing the banner or blocking it stops it.
Your save is never transferred anywhere, because it never leaves your device.
How long anything is kept
- Your save: on your device, until you delete it. We never hold a copy.
- Server logs and aggregate counts: held by Cloudflare under their own retention schedule, typically days to a few weeks.
- The advertising request: held by AADS under their own retention schedule. We receive no copy of it and keep no record that it happened.
We operate no database and retain no personal data ourselves.
Your rights
If the GDPR or UK GDPR applies to you, you have the right to request access to your personal data, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to its processing, and to receive it in a portable format.
Since we hold no personal data and operate no server, there is normally nothing for us to give you or delete. The one thing that is yours is your save, and it is already entirely in your hands: exportable from the Stats tab, and deleted for good by clearing this site's data.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your data protection supervisory authority. In the UK that is the Information Commissioner's Office; in the EEA it is the authority in your country of residence.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes materially, the date at the top changes with it, and the current version is always the one published here.