Privacy Policy

Effective October 8, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how Mazin Submersible Technology, Inc. ("Company," "we," or "us") processes information when you use Darkstar Duel™, DarkStarDuel.com, and related online services (collectively, the "Service"). We built the Service to work with as little information as possible: there is no advertising, analytics, session recording, or tracking of any kind, and we do not ask for your name, email address, phone number, or location.

1. Playing without an account

Games against the AI, hotseat games, AI exhibitions, and replays run entirely in your browser. Nothing about those games is sent to us. A replay you save is a file on your own device; it contains the two fleets, the match seed, each side's control inputs, and ship deployment choices. Replays never contain chat messages, gamertags, or account information.

2. Accounts and optional features

Accounts are optional and available only to players 13 and older. If you create one through Google or Discord, we store the provider, the stable account identifier supplied by that provider, your chosen gamertag, saved control preferences, account status, and essential session records. We request only the minimum sign-in scope from each provider, and we do not store your name, email address, profile picture, password, or provider access or refresh tokens. You may link both providers to one Darkstar Duel account.

For ranked play, we store season, rating, win and loss totals, match participants, deterministic protocol and seed, outcome, final frame, state and replay hashes, rating changes, disconnect state, and reports needed to agree on or review a result. A replay hash is a fingerprint of the match inputs, not the replay itself. Your gamertag, rating, and record may appear publicly on the leaderboard after you complete the required number of games.

3. Information processed automatically

When you visit the Service, our hosting and security provider, Cloudflare, automatically processes technical information such as your IP address, browser and device information, requested URLs, request time, referring page, approximate network location, and security or diagnostic events. This information is used only to deliver the Service, prevent abuse, diagnose failures, and maintain security and reliability.

When you request an online match, the matchmaking service processes your IP address (to limit connection attempts and enforce temporary restrictions), whether a signed-in account is restricted, a random identifier created for each matchmaking session, game protocol version, transient match identifier, connection status, and WebRTC offer and answer data. Matchmaking data is used to pair compatible players and establish the WebRTC connection. The matchmaker does not receive the subsequent game or chat stream, but it may issue short-lived relay credentials to the participating browsers. For ranked games, the matchmaker also authenticates the account, keeps a result channel open, and processes the limited result and disconnect data described above.

Authorized administrators can review account status, ratings, recent match records, gamertag reports, and moderation history. We record moderation actions and reasons, and may store an IP address and an expiration date for a temporary matchmaking restriction. These records are used for abuse prevention and review, not public player profiles.

4. Peer-to-peer multiplayer and chat

After matchmaking, online gameplay uses WebRTC. Traffic passes directly between the two players' browsers when their networks permit it; otherwise it passes through a Cloudflare TURN relay. A direct connection may reveal network addressing information to the other player's browser. A relayed connection sends gameplay traffic through Cloudflare and hides your address from the other player. Players under 13 are always connected through the relay.

Optional match chat is sent over the same peer connection and never passes through our servers. The game keeps the last 30 messages in browser memory until you leave the match; chat is not stored on any server and is never written into replay files. The recipient can independently copy or record messages, so do not send information you do not want your opponent to receive. Chat is turned off for players under 13. For players 13 to 17 it starts off and stays off until they turn it on; until then the game neither shows nor sends messages.

5. Cookies, local storage, and tracking

The Service uses only these items, all of them strictly necessary or set by your own choices:

• an HTTP-only session cookie, set only after you sign in to an account;
• a cookie lasting up to 10 minutes during sign-in that ties the Google or Discord callback to the browser that started it;
• security cookies that Cloudflare may set, such as __cf_bm, which expires after 30 minutes and helps tell people from automated attacks;
• local storage holding your music on/off choice, your chat on/off choice, the age group from the age question (under 13, 13 to 17, or 18 and older) and, for players under 18, the month that group ends, and a pending ranked result until the server confirms it; and
• session storage noting that you have seen the install guide.

Local and session storage stay in your browser and are not sent to us. We do not use analytics, advertising, pixels, session recording, device fingerprinting, or persistent device identifiers, and we do not allow any third party to collect information about your activity on the Service or across other websites. Every script, font, image, and sound is served from our own domain. Because nothing tracks you, the Service behaves the same whether or not your browser sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal, and we treat every visitor as opted out of any sale or sharing of personal information.

6. How information is used

We process the information described above to:

• serve the game and establish multiplayer sessions;
• operate, secure, debug, and improve the Service;
• detect attacks, abuse, cheating, or technical failures;
• enforce our Terms of Service; and
• comply with applicable law and protect legal rights.

We do not use information to build advertising profiles, and we do not send marketing email.

7. Service providers and disclosure

Cloudflare provides content delivery, DNS, security, serverless computing, databases, logging, WebSocket matchmaking, and STUN/TURN connectivity for the Service and processes technical information on our behalf. Our databases are reachable only by our own server code, not directly from the Internet. During a direct match, network information and gameplay traffic are disclosed to the matched opponent as described above. During a relayed match, Cloudflare carries the encrypted WebRTC transport traffic.

Google and Discord provide the optional identity login. Their processing is also governed by their respective privacy policies.

We may also disclose information when reasonably necessary to comply with law, respond to valid legal process, protect users or the Service, investigate fraud or security incidents, or complete a corporate transaction. We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

8. Retention

• Matchmaking state lasts only as long as needed to establish or recover a connection.
• Sign-in state expires after 10 minutes. Account sessions expire after 30 days, or sooner when you sign out. A daily job deletes expired records.
• Cloudflare request and error logs for our server code are kept for up to 7 days.
• The IP address in a temporary matchmaking restriction is erased 90 days after the restriction ends. The rest of the record (reason, operator, and dates) stays in the moderation audit log.
• Account, rating, and match records are kept while the account exists.

Deleting your account removes your linked identities, sessions, gamertag, and saved controls right away. An inert account identifier, with no link to you, remains with past match and rating records so that other players' histories stay consistent, along with moderation records needed for abuse prevention and dispute resolution. We keep information longer only when the law requires it or to resolve a specific incident.

9. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards designed to protect the Service and the information it processes, including encrypted connections, hashed session tokens, and databases that are not exposed to the Internet. No Internet transmission or storage system can be guaranteed completely secure.

10. Children

Before any online feature, the game asks for a birth month and year. The answer stays in the browser. Players under 13 can play against the AI, hotseat, LAN, Direct Connect, and Quick Match, but cannot create an account, play ranked, or use chat, and their Quick Match connections always go through the relay so the opponent never receives their network address. If a device answers that its player is under 13 while an account is signed in, the game signs that account out.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 beyond what is needed to support the internal operations of the Service. For these players, Cloudflare and the matchmaker process an IP address, any Cloudflare security cookie, and a random identifier that lasts one matchmaking session. They are used only to deliver the game's pages and files, set up and relay the match connection, limit connection attempts, and enforce temporary restrictions against abuse. They are not used to contact anyone, build profiles, or show advertising. The site loads no analytics, advertising, or other third-party code (our Content Security Policy blocks it), logs are deleted within 7 days, and no account or other record is created. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child under 13 created an account or otherwise provided personal information, email us and we will delete it.

Registered users under 18 may remove their gamertag, the only content the Service publishes, by changing it or deleting their account. Removal from public view does not guarantee that copies made by others are deleted.

11. Your choices and rights

You can play without an account, and single-player and same-device modes make no multiplayer connection at all. If you have an account, you can change your gamertag, unlink an identity after linking another provider, and delete your account yourself under Account → Delete Account.

Depending on where you live, including California, you may have rights to know what personal information we hold about you, to obtain a copy, and to correct or delete it. Email us to make a request; we will verify it through your signed-in account and respond as required by law. We will not treat you differently for exercising these rights.

12. International use and changes

The Company is based in California, United States. Information may be processed in the United States and other locations where Cloudflare or participating peer devices operate, subject to applicable safeguards.

We may update this policy as the Service or applicable law changes. The revised policy will identify its effective date. We will provide additional notice when required by law.

13. Contact

Mazin Submersible Technology, Inc.
Santa Barbara, California 93111, United States
(626) 449-1960
privacy@darkstarduel.com

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