Privacy policy
Short version: the game is free and paid for by ads; we collect almost nothing, keep your lists in your own browser, and rooms clean up after themselves. The long version is below.
In short: Random Duck Race is free for everyone, and advertising is what keeps it that way. You never need an account to play, and racing asks for no personal information. Your lists, settings and race history are kept in your own browser. A room keeps only what it needs to run — names, ducks and chat — and deletes all of it when the room ends. Ads come from Google and sit in their own spaces beside the game; whether they may use cookies, and whether they may be based on your interests, is your choice, which you can change any time in Cookie settings. We don’t sell your data.
1. Who we are
Random Duck Race (“we”, “us”) runs the free duck race game at randomduckrace.com. For any question about this policy or your data, write to support@randomduckrace.com.
2. What stays in your own browser
Most of what you do never leaves your device. The game keeps the following in your browser’s local storage, so it is there the next time you visit:
- your current race setup — the names, ducks and settings;
- the rosters you save and your race history (your last 100 races);
- your preferences — language, sound, graphics, keyboard shortcuts, lobby theme;
- for rooms: the name and duck you play with, and the rooms you have joined, so a reload takes you straight back in;
- your cookie choice (see section 8), so we don’t ask again on every visit.
We can’t see any of this. Clearing your browser’s data for randomduckrace.com removes all of it. The site also keeps a copy of its own files (a “service worker” cache) so it opens faster next time; it contains no personal data.
3. Share links
When you share a race, the setup — including the names — goes into the link. To keep that link short, the site stores the setup on its server (Cloudflare) under a short code such as /s/Ab3dE9xY, for up to a year after it was last shared; anyone with the link can open it. So only share names you are happy to share. To have a short link removed sooner, write to us with the link.
4. Rooms
When you create or join a room, our room server (run on Cloudflare) handles the room for as long as it is open. It keeps:
- each player’s chosen name, duck and card style, and a random player ID (no email, no account);
- the room’s chat — the most recent 40 messages — with the emoji answers and reactions sent;
- the race field and results, and the room’s settings;
- a lobby background picture, if the host uploads one.
Everyone in the room can see the names, ducks and chat. A room ends when the host closes it, about 30 seconds after the host leaves, or after 6 hours without activity — and everything in it is deleted. The host can also delete messages and remove players at any time.
5. Accounts (optional)
You can sign in with your Google account, but you never have to: every feature of the game works without one. When you do, Google tells us your account’s ID, your email address, your name and your profile picture, and we keep them in our database (Cloudflare D1) to know it’s you next time. We never see your Google password. Signing in sets a cookie that keeps you signed in for up to 30 days; the database keeps only a scrambled (hashed) form of it. Signing out ends it at once. To delete your account and everything linked to it, write to support@randomduckrace.com.
6. Messages you send us
When you use the contact or feedback form, what you write — and your name and email, if you give them — is stored in our database (Cloudflare D1) so we can read and answer it. To stop spam, we also store a scrambled (salted hash) form of the address your message came from, which can’t be turned back into the address, and count how many messages it sends. We delete messages once they are no longer needed. If the form can’t send, your email app opens instead and your message reaches us as an ordinary email.
7. Your camera
The “Scan the QR code” button uses your camera only after you press it and allow it. The picture is read on your own device to find the room code; it is never recorded, stored or sent to us. You can also pick a photo of the code instead, which is read on your device in the same way.
8. Cookies and your consent
On your first visit, a small banner asks how we may use cookies and similar storage. You can accept all, reject everything optional, or choose category by category. Rejecting changes nothing about the game: every feature keeps working.
| Category | What it is for | Can you turn it off? |
|---|---|---|
| Necessary | What the game needs to work and to remember you asked it to: your setup, saved lists, settings, rooms and this cookie choice (in your browser’s local storage), and, if you sign in, the sign-in cookie. Never shared. | No — always on |
| Analytics | Counting visits and which features are used, so we know what to improve. | Yes — off unless you allow it |
| Advertising | Showing ads that keep Random Duck Race free, and measuring how they perform. | Yes — off unless you allow it |
We pass your choice on to Google through Google’s Consent Mode, so Google’s services only use cookies in the categories you allowed. Advertising is described in full in section 9. We use no third-party analytics service that sets cookies.
Counting visits. We use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which counts page views without cookies and without following you from site to site: which page, the referring site, the country and the kind of device, in aggregate. Our own server also counts, anonymously, how the game is used — races started, rooms opened, short links made and opened, and the address of a site the game is embedded on. None of this uses cookies or stores anything in your browser, and none of it can be tied to you.
Your choice is kept in your browser (under the name rdr_consent, with the date you made it). You can change it whenever you like: open Cookie settings at the bottom of any page or in the game’s menu, or use the button below. Clearing your browser’s data for randomduckrace.com removes it, and the banner will ask again.
9. Advertising that keeps the game free
Random Duck Race costs nothing to use and has no paid plan. To pay for running it, the site shows ads from Google AdSense. (Ads are being introduced: until the first ones go live, no advertising script loads at all.) This is how we do it:
- Ads stay out of the way. They sit in fixed spaces at the side or the bottom of the game page, never over the race, the setup or a button, and never as pop-ups between screens. There are no ads inside the race a phone follows in a room, on the join screen, or in the game embedded on another website.
- Google and its partners may use cookies. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your earlier visits to this site or other websites. Google’s advertising cookies let it and its partners serve ads based on your visits here and elsewhere on the internet.
- Your choice decides. If you allow Advertising in Cookie settings, ads may be personalised. If you don’t, Google shows ads that are not based on your interests and uses only the limited data it needs to show an ad at all, count it and fight fraud. In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, Google’s own consent message asks you before any ad uses cookies.
- Turn off personalised ads everywhere in Google’s Ads Settings, or opt out of many other vendors’ personalised ads at aboutads.info (in Europe: youronlinechoices.eu). How Google uses data from sites that show its ads: policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
- Suitable for a classroom. Because the game is used in schools, we block categories of ads that are not suitable for a general audience (for example gambling, dating and alcohol). If you see an ad that shouldn’t be here, please tell us at support@randomduckrace.com with what it showed.
We never give advertisers your names, lists, messages, account or anything you type into the game. The ads are chosen and delivered by Google.
10. Services we rely on
Like most websites, the site loads a few files from trusted providers. When your browser fetches them, the provider receives the technical information any web request carries (such as your IP address and browser type). We send them nothing else.
| Provider | What for |
|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Hosting the website, the room server, the database (accounts and messages) and short links; delivering the 3D engine, QR code and Excel libraries (cdnjs); the anti-spam check on the forms (Turnstile) |
| Google Fonts | The fonts used on the site |
| Sign-in, only when you choose “Continue with Google”; ads (Google AdSense), as described in section 9 | |
| jsDelivr | The confetti animation |
When you choose to share to WhatsApp, Telegram, Teams, Facebook, X or email, you leave our site and that service’s own privacy policy applies.
11. Children and classrooms
Random Duck Race is used in classrooms every day. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children: nobody needs an account, an email address or a profile to play, and accounts are meant for teachers and hosts. Teachers can let players in one by one, switch the chat off, delete messages and remove players. We suggest students play with a first name or a nickname. Ads are limited to ones suitable for a general audience (see section 9); on a shared classroom computer, choosing Reject in the cookie banner keeps ads from being personalised.
12. Your choices and rights
- Delete your data: clear your browser’s site data for randomduckrace.com.
- Change your cookie choice: open Cookie settings at any time.
- Turn off personalised ads: in Cookie settings here, and across sites in Google’s Ads Settings.
- Leave a room: press Leave, and your duck is taken out of the room.
- Ask us anything: email support@randomduckrace.com. Wherever you live — including under the GDPR and the CCPA — you can ask what we hold about you and have it deleted. Outside an open room, we only hold your account if you made one, the messages and feedback you sent us, and the setups you shared as short links.
We do not sell or rent personal information, and we never have.
13. Changes to this policy
If we change how we handle data, we will update this page and the date at the top. Important changes will be announced in the changelog.