Privacy Policy

Genuinely Terrible Ideas ("the game," "we," "us") is a party game where players write or pick joke ad pitches and a judge panel reacts to them. The game has three separate judging modes, each with a different data flow — this page explains what each one touches and why.

Local Logic Judge (default, no AI)

By default, judging is done entirely on your device by a rule-based scoring engine. Nothing you type is sent anywhere — no network request is made at all in this mode. This is the mode the game ships with; you have to explicitly turn on AI judging to change that.

AI-enabled judging — two ways to connect one

If you turn on AI judging, you choose how it's powered:

• Use your own API ("BYOA"). You paste in your own Anthropic API key. Round text (names, taglines, ideas) is sent directly from your device to Anthropic's API — it never passes through our server at all. Your key is stored only on your device (in the iOS Keychain on the native app), is never sent to us, and is only ever sent to Anthropic to authenticate your own requests.
• Use our AI ("House"). A $1.99/mo subscription. Round text is sent to our server, which verifies your subscription is active (via RevenueCat, using an anonymous purchase ID) and forwards the request to Anthropic using our own API key. Your in-game display name is included so judges can address entries by name. Billing works differently by platform:
  • In the iOS app: billed and managed entirely by Apple through StoreKit/In-App Purchase — we never see your payment details, and no email or account is involved at all.
  • On the web: billed through Stripe (via RevenueCat Web Billing), since there's no App Store purchase mechanism in a browser. Checkout collects a billing email, which we store — paired only with your anonymous purchase ID, nothing else — so you can restore access on a different browser or device. It's not used for marketing and isn't shared beyond what Stripe/RevenueCat already require to process the payment. See "Web restore" below for exactly what this is used for.

What we don't do

• We don't run a user account database. There's no server-side signup, password, or email, in any mode.
• We don't sell data, run ads, or use third-party trackers or analytics SDKs.
• We don't store your round submissions after they're generated. In House mode, our server relays your request to Anthropic and returns the result; it doesn't keep a copy. In Local and BYOA mode, our server never sees your submissions at all.

Third-party processing

In BYOA and House mode, text you submit during a round is processed by Anthropic to generate AI content, subject to Anthropic's own API data handling terms. In Local mode, no third party is involved. House subscription purchases are processed by RevenueCat, which we use to verify an active subscription — on iOS, by Apple through StoreKit; on the web, by Stripe through RevenueCat's Web Billing. On iOS, RevenueCat receives only an anonymous per-install purchase ID, never your name or email. On the web, Stripe/RevenueCat also receive the billing email you enter at checkout, to process payment and send you receipts.

Web restore (House subscribers on the web only)

The web version has no login or account system, so unlike the iOS app, there's nothing tying your subscription to an Apple ID that survives switching browsers or devices. To let you restore access anyway, we store a minimal mapping of your billing email to your anonymous purchase ID on our own server. Entering that same email on a new browser looks up this mapping and restores access — we don't use it for anything else, and it's created only at the moment of a successful purchase, never independently. If you'd like this record removed, contact us (see below).

Local storage

Your display name, best-line history, local leaderboard, and AI mode preference are stored only in your device's local app storage (not a server). Your BYOA API key, if you save one, is stored in the device's secure Keychain storage rather than plain local storage. All of this stays until you clear the app's data or uninstall it, and we never see it.

Mature content

An optional "After Dark" content pack contains crude, NSFW-themed prompts intended for adult players only. It's off by default and must be manually enabled.

Children's privacy

Genuinely Terrible Ideas is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, we'll update the date at the top of this page.

Contact

Questions about this policy: jaredcarneson@icloud.com