Privacy notice

Summary

Top10Earth has no user accounts. You can read every ranking and play every quiz without telling us who you are. We keep a small amount of technical data to run the site, understand which pages are useful and prevent abuse. We do not sell data and we do not use third-party advertising trackers in the current version of the site.

What we collect

• A session cookie (t10_sid): a random identifier set by your browser on your first visit, kept for 180 days. We store only a keyed hash of it, never the identifier itself, so it cannot be linked back to you by us or anyone else.
• Usage events: which pages were viewed, whether a ranking was expanded, a chart opened, a share button pressed, a quiz started or finished, with the page type and coarse device class. No IP address is stored with events.
• Quiz plays: your guesses (normalised to lower-case letters), whether each matched, your score and time. Not linked to your identity.
• Affiliate clicks: when you follow an affiliate link we record which offer and page it came from, with the hashed session.
• Server logs: request paths, timings and errors, which may include your IP address for security, kept for no more than 30 days.
• Local storage: your personal best quiz scores and the time of your last visit stay in your browser and are never sent to us except as a “returning visitor” flag.
• Contact messages: what you write to us and, if you give it, your email address, kept until the matter is closed and for up to 12 months after.

Why we collect it

To serve the site, to see which rankings and quizzes are used so we can improve them, to detect abuse such as automated quiz play or click fraud, and to be paid for affiliate referrals. Our basis is our legitimate interest in running the service; the session cookie is strictly necessary for the quiz and abuse controls.

Who else sees it

Our hosting and database providers process the data on our behalf. When you follow an affiliate link, the retailer or vendor receives your visit under their own privacy terms. If advertising is switched on in future, the ad network and the consent choices it requires will be described here first.

Your choices

Clearing your cookies and site data removes the session identifier and your local scores. You can block the session cookie; rankings still work, the quiz may not. To ask what we hold under your session or to have it deleted, send the identifier shown in your browser's cookie for this site through the contact page.

Retention

Usage events and quiz plays are kept in detail for 13 months and as aggregates thereafter. Affiliate click records are kept for 24 months for accounting. Server logs for 30 days. Ranking data itself contains no personal information and is kept permanently.

Contact

Questions about this notice go through the contact page.