Privacy

The short version

Meridian has no accounts and asks for nothing about you. It counts visitors and watches how the games are played, using PostHog. Outside Europe, it does this with one small cookie. In Europe it asks first; if you decline, you are still counted, but only for that day and without a cookie. Your game progress lives in your own browser and never leaves it.

Who runs Meridian

Meridian is an independent, one-person project. Its maker is the data controller for anything described here.

Questions or requests: privacy@playmeridian.games.

What is collected

Game events. When a daily or practice game starts, ends, is completed, restarted or shared, Meridian records which map, the puzzle number, the result, the number of mistakes and how long it took. It never records what you typed.

Page views. Each page you open, the page you came from, your browser and operating system, the type of device and its screen size.

Your IP address. Your browser sends it with every request, as browsers do. For visitors with the cookie, PostHog uses it to work out an approximate location (country, region and city). For visitors without the cookie, PostHog uses it only to build the daily identifier described below, then discards it before anything else looks at it, so no location is recorded. Render, which hosts the site, keeps it in ordinary server logs.

That is the whole list. There are no accounts, no names, no email addresses, no advertising and no session recordings.

Why

To know how many people play, whether they come back, which maps they finish and where they give up. That is what decides which maps get made next. The legal basis is Meridian's legitimate interest in understanding its own game; the cookie described next is set with your consent where the law requires it.

Cookies and storage

One analytics cookie, named ph_phc_qHREWZoJaELED8yTaGrrd7zJz9UgoideMKnrQsDJ7Ttm_posthog, holds a random identifier so that PostHog can tell a returning visitor from a new one. It is set for visitors outside Europe without asking, and for visitors in Europe only if they allow it. PostHog keeps the same identifier in your browser's local storage under the same name; that copy is the durable one, and the cookie is refreshed from it on each visit, so both last a year from your last visit. Safari shortens the cookie to seven days and clears the site's storage after seven days without a visit. PostHog also keeps window bookkeeping in session storage under keys beginning ph_, which lasts until you close the tab.

Without the cookie, PostHog counts you by combining your IP address, your browser's user agent and a value that changes every day into a hash. The hash identifies you for that day only; the next day you are a new visitor. Your IP address is not kept, no location is derived from it, and nothing is stored on your device.

Your answer to the cookie question is kept in your browser's local storage under meridian:analytics-consent, so you are not asked again.

Your game (today's board, whether you finished it, and your streak) is kept in local storage under keys beginning meridian:daily. It is read only by this site, is never sent anywhere, and clearing your browser data erases it.

The old address, meridian-kw2d.onrender.com, was Meridian's home until 12 October 2026. Opening it now brings you here, to the same page. The analytics cookie and answer it may have set are removed on the way. A refusal travels with you: unless you have already answered on this address, no cookie is set here and you are not asked again. A game saved there stays there; it is not copied across.

There are no other cookies, and nothing else is stored.

Visitors in Europe

If your browser's time zone is in the EU, the EEA, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, Meridian asks before setting the cookie. Declining is as easy as allowing and changes nothing about the game. A Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control setting in your browser is treated as declining the cookie: you are still counted for the day, without one, and the switch below is locked while the setting is on. A browser that blocks site storage is treated the same way, since it could keep neither a cookie nor an answer. The time zone is a guess made in your browser; a browser that hides it, as Tor does, is asked too, and if it guesses wrong in either direction the switch below sets the record straight.

Who handles the data

PostHog, Inc. (United States) receives and stores the analytics described above, in its US cloud. PostHog's privacy policy.

Render, Inc. (United States) hosts the site and serves it through a content delivery network operated by Cloudflare. Both see the requests your browser makes, including your IP address, and keep routine logs. Render's privacy policy.

For visitors in Europe this means your data is transferred to the United States, under the safeguards each of these companies publishes for that transfer. No one else receives it, and it is never sold.

How long

Analytics events are retained by PostHog for the period set on the Meridian project, currently one year. Server logs at Render are kept for a short period under Render's own retention. The cookie and its local-storage copy last a year from your last visit; your game data stays in your browser until you clear it.

Your choices

Declining removes the cookie and its identifier from your browser at once, in every tab you have open. You can also block or delete cookies in your browser's settings.

Under European law you may ask what Meridian holds about you, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, object to its use, and complain to your data protection authority. Because there are no accounts, a request can only be matched to the identifier in your cookie, so please include it; data collected without the cookie cannot be tied back to anyone, including you.

Children

Meridian is made for a general audience and knowingly collects no personal information from anyone, of any age.

Changes

When the way Meridian handles data changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top moves. The site is at playmeridian.games.