Privacy & Terms

Privacy policy

Playing as a guest

You don’t need an account to play. As a guest, your score and streak live only in the open page and are gone when you close it. We do not store your answers.

To upgrade a word with a human recording, pronunciation, or a better definition, your browser sends the word being practised to our server. Like any web server, ours also receives your IP address and browser details with each request. These requests are logged by our host, Google Cloud, and those logs are kept for a limited period (30 days by default) for running and debugging the service.

If you sign in

Signing in is optional and uses your Google account through Google Firebase Authentication. We never see your Google password.

• Account details: Firebase Authentication holds your email address, name, profile photo link, and a user ID. We save your name, photo link, user ID, when you joined, and when you last signed in to your profile. We do not copy your email address into our database.
• Practice history: for each word you practise while signed in, we save the word, whether you got it right, revealed it, or skipped it, how many tries it took, what you typed, how long you took, the difficulty setting, and when it happened. This powers your progress page.

This data is stored in Google Cloud Firestore in the United States. Access rules allow only you to read your own profile and history; no other user can see it. We, as the site operator, can access it to run and maintain the service.

Analytics

The main game page uses Google Analytics to count visits and understand how the site is used. Google Analytics sets cookies and receives information such as your IP address, device, browser, and the pages you view. Your progress page and this page do not load Google Analytics. You can block it with your browser’s privacy settings or Google’s opt-out add-on.

Other services your browser contacts

• Wikimedia Commons — human pronunciation recordings play directly from Wikimedia’s servers.
• Google (gstatic.com) — the sign-in software is loaded from Google’s servers.
• Buy Me a Coffee — the donation button image is loaded from their servers. Donating is handled entirely by them.
• Your browser’s voice — the “Computer voice” button uses your device’s built-in speech. Some browsers use online voices, in which case the word is sent to your browser’s maker.

Behind the scenes, our server looks words up with dictionaryapi.dev, Wikimedia Commons, and Google Text-to-Speech. Only the word itself is sent, never anything about you.

Each of these services has its own privacy policy.

Storage on your device

Besides the analytics cookies above, the site keeps a few small values in your browser: how often to show the “save your progress” prompt, a practice-session ID, when you last signed in, and your sign-in session (stored by Firebase). None of these are used for advertising. Clearing your browser’s site data removes them.

What we don’t do

• We don’t sell or rent your information.
• We don’t show ads or share your data with advertisers.
• We don’t use your practice history for anything except showing it to you and running the site.

Keeping and deleting your data

Account data and practice history are kept until you ask us to delete them. To delete your account and everything saved with it, or to get a copy of your data, email botanybrands@gmail.com from the email address on your Google account. Depending on where you live, you may have further rights over your data, such as to correct it or object to how it is used; contact us and we will help.

Children

Anyone can play as a guest. Accounts are intended for people aged 13 or over. If you are a parent and believe your child under 13 has created an account, email us and we will delete it.

Changes

If this policy changes, we will update it here and change the date at the top.

Terms of use

By using Spelling Wizard, you agree to these terms.

The service

Spelling Wizard is free to use for personal and educational purposes, including in classrooms. We may change, pause, or stop any part of it at any time.

Word content

Definitions, example sentences, and recordings come from public and community-edited sources. Some words may be missing, outdated, or have inaccurate or inappropriate definitions. Please treat the content as a learning aid, not an authority, and let us know about anything wrong.

Definitions from Wiktionary and recordings from Wikimedia Commons belong to their authors and are used under their licences (mostly Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike). Credits appear next to each recording and definition.

Your account

You are responsible for activity on your account. We may suspend or remove accounts that misuse the service.

Acceptable use

Please don’t:

• scrape the site or send automated or bulk requests to its server;
• try to access other people’s data, or disrupt or overload the service;
• use the site for anything unlawful.

Donations

Donations through Buy Me a Coffee are voluntary, don’t unlock anything, and are handled under Buy Me a Coffee’s own terms.

No warranty

The site is provided “as is”, without warranties of any kind. We don’t guarantee that it will always be available, error-free, or that saved progress will never be lost.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, Botany Brands is not liable for any indirect or consequential loss arising from your use of the site. Nothing in these terms limits rights you have under law that cannot be waived.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the updated terms.

Contact

Questions, feedback, or data requests: botanybrands@gmail.com