Last updated 2026-10-06. Ping is made by Nick Saulino. This page describes what the Ping app and website collect.
Your gameplay record: for every daily gauntlet you finish, the taps you spent and the par on each level and the time you finished it; your streak count and the last day that counted towards it; and your arcade wins, losses, current win streak and best win streak. The record also carries a version number and the time it last changed. Alongside it Ping keeps a gauntlet you are part-way through, so you can close the app and come back to it, and your settings: the sound and music levels, vibration, the daily reminder and its time, whether you have seen the how-to-play pages, which board colours and ripple you chose along with which of them you have unlocked, and whether you have bought Remove ads. No contacts, no location, and nothing that names you or your device. What Google's ad service is told in order to choose an ad is separate, is not part of this record, and is described under Ads below.
On your device first. On Android and iOS that is the app's own private storage; in a browser it is local storage belonging to this site, and in a browser that is the only copy there is. Every board is generated on your device from the date, which is how everyone gets the same daily gauntlet without anything being fetched.
The gameplay record stays there. It is not copied to Google Play Games or to Game Center, and Ping has no server that receives it. If your phone backs its apps up to your own Google or Apple account, that backup is made by the operating system, and it is what can bring your record back when you reinstall or move to a new phone.
Ping has no accounts of its own: no sign-up, no email address, no password. On Android it uses the Google Play Games account already on the phone, and on iOS the Game Center account, for two things: achievements and a daily leaderboard. Signing in is optional; if you dismiss the sign-in the game plays exactly the same and stays on the device, and Settings offers the sign-in again.
What leaves the device when you are signed in: the achievements you earn, and for each day's gauntlet you finish, the number of taps it took, sent to Google Play Games or to Game Center under your player identity for that service. Those services show your name (as you set it there) and your score to other players on the leaderboard, according to your own privacy settings in Play Games or Game Center. Ping receives nothing back beyond what it needs to draw the leaderboard and achievements screens, and stores none of it. The web version of Ping has no game service, sends nothing anywhere, and has no leaderboard.
Versus is the one part of Ping that talks to a server of ours. The Daily Gauntlet and the Arcade are played entirely on your device; a versus match cannot be, because the three nodes have to be hidden from both players and somebody has to hold them.
There is no account. The first time you open Versus, the app makes a random number on your device and keeps it there; the server stores only a one-way hash of it, and that is the whole of your identity in Versus. You play under a name. If you are signed in to Play Games or Game Center, the nickname you have there is sent to the server once and offered as your first name; otherwise the server makes one up, two words and two digits. From the Versus screen you can type your own (3 to 20 characters, no spaces) or roll a new one. Names are checked against a blocklist, and another player can report one. No email, no password, and nothing from the rest of the app: your gauntlet record, your streak and your settings never leave the device for this.
What the server keeps: your name, your rating and how many matches you have won and played; which version of Ping you are running and when you were last online; which match you are in and every tap in it; while you are looking for an opponent, that you are looking; and any report made about a name. Your opponent sees the board, your name and your rating, exactly as you see theirs, and the ladder shows names and ratings to anyone who opens it. The server is a Supabase project in the United States, and the matches you have finished stay there so the ladder can be drawn.
If you never open Versus, none of this happens and nothing about you is on that server.
The Android and iOS apps show one ad at a time, supplied by Google AdMob: under the board while you play, and at the bottom of the results screen and of the Versus ladder. There is none on the home screen, and nothing in the game is behind them: every board, modifier, achievement and leaderboard is the same whether you ever see an ad or not. The browser version shows none and contains no ad code at all.
Choosing an ad is Google's, not Ping's. When an ad is requested, Google's Mobile Ads SDK collects what it needs to fill it: on Android, the phone's advertising ID; on both platforms, general information about the device, its settings and its approximate location from the network, and whether an ad was shown, clicked or ignored. Ping receives none of it. Nothing about your play goes with the request: not your record, not your streak, not a single tap. What Google does with it is described in its own policies, at business.safety.google/privacy and policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
On iOS, Ping asks Google for non-personalized ads only, and never shows Apple's tracking prompt, because it does not ask for the identifier that prompt exists to permit. There is no IDFA in an ad request from Ping, and Ping does not track you across other companies' apps or websites.
Where the law requires a choice -- the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, and some US states -- Google's consent form is shown once, before the first ad, and your answer is kept on the device by Google's User Messaging Platform. Where that answer can be changed afterwards, Settings carries a Privacy choices row that opens the same form again.
Remove ads is a one-off purchase of $3.99, or the same tier in your own currency, sold through Google Play on Android and the App Store on iOS. The store takes the payment and keeps the record of it: Ping never sees your card, your name or your address, and has no server that could. All the app keeps is a note on the device that the purchase was made, so it knows not to draw an ad and does not have to ask a store at launch. The purchase itself belongs to your Play or Apple account, which is why Restore purchase in Settings brings it back on a new phone. Buying it stops every ad at once, and the ad SDK is not asked for another.
Ping does no analytics: there is no analytics SDK in the app at all, and nothing counts what you tap, how often you open it or how long you stay. No contacts, no location of its own, no photos, and nothing that names you or your device -- beyond the store game service's own player identity when you choose to sign in to it, and what Google's ad SDK gathers for an ad request as described above.
The pages of this website (ping.nicksaulino.com, not the game at /play) use Google Analytics to count visits: which pages are opened, roughly from which country, and on what kind of device. Google Analytics sets cookies in your browser for this. Google signals and ad personalization are turned off. The Android and iOS apps, and the browser game itself, contain no analytics.
This website, and the game's own files (the page, the code, the graphics engine, the sounds), are served by Vercel, whose standard server logs (IP address, request time) exist for security and are not used to profile you. No ad code is part of that: the browser build does not contain the ad SDK at all, and there is nothing in it to buy.
One thing may come from Google instead: a font file from fonts.gstatic.com, fetched only if the page needs a character the bundled fonts do not cover. Making that request tells Google your IP address and your browser's user agent. It carries no part of your game, your record or your progress, and the Android and iOS apps never make it.
Your gameplay record is on your device, so deleting it means removing it from your device. The achievements and scores you sent to Google Play Games or Game Center are kept by that service, and each lets you delete a game's data from its own settings. If you have played Versus, your name, rating and matches are on our server under a random number only your device holds: email the address below with your Versus name and they will be deleted. There is no Ping account to close. The Remove ads purchase is held by Google Play or the App Store and not by Ping, so uninstalling does not lose it -- Restore purchase brings it back whenever you install again.
On Android and iOS, uninstall Ping. In a browser, clear this site's data for ping.nicksaulino.com in your browser's settings, under cookies and site data. If your phone backs your apps up to your own Google or Apple account, that backup is made by the operating system rather than by Ping, and your device's backup settings control it. Any question about this policy: email nicksaulino@gmail.com.
Ping is not directed at children under 13 and collects no personal information beyond what is described above.