What the game stores about you, why it needs it, how long it stays, and how to make it go away.
Tennis Lob · Last updated 23 August 2026
Draft — not yet in force
This document is complete in substance but is still missing the operator's own details (operator, address, registration, jurisdiction, supervisoryAuthority). Until they are filled in — in apps/web/src/lib/legal.ts — it should be treated as a draft rather than as a binding notice.
Tennis Lob is operated by [operator not set], [address not set] (registration [registration number not set]). Under the UK and EU General Data Protection Regulation we are the data controller for the personal data described here — meaning we decide what is collected and why, and we are the ones answerable for it.
Questions about anything on this page, and any request to see or delete your data, go to [email protected].
You can play a practice or exhibition match without an account, and nothing about you is stored on our servers when you do — your preferences stay in your own browser. Everything below applies once you create an account, which is what online play, ranked matches, the locker and career saves need.
| Data | Where it comes from | Why it exists |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | You, at sign-up — or from Google if you use the Google button | It identifies the account, confirms it is yours, and is the only way to recover it. |
| Display name | You, at sign-up or in Settings | Shown on the scoreboard, to your opponent, and on the leaderboard. |
| Password | You | Stored only as a hash produced by a one-way function. We cannot read it and neither can anyone who obtains the database. |
| Country code | You, optionally, in Settings | Drawn beside your name on the scoreboard and the leaderboard. |
| Sign-in sessions | Automatic when you sign in | A session token, its expiry, and the IP address and browser user-agent it was created from — so a session can be recognised, expired, and shown to you if you ever ask what is signed in. |
| Google account link | Google, only if you use the Google button | Your Google account identifier and the tokens that prove the sign-in, so the button works next time. We do not read your Gmail, contacts, or anything else in your Google account, and we ask Google for nothing beyond your name, email address and profile picture. |
| Game preferences | You, as you play | Difficulty, sound, match length, and the kits you assemble in the locker — kept on the account so they follow you to another machine. |
| Ace Points, items and achievements | Earned by playing | The in-game balance, what it has been spent on, and what you have achieved. |
| Ranked rating and match record | Produced by the match server | Your rating, peak, and won/lost record, plus one row per rated match holding both players' ratings before and after it — which is what lets the ladder answer why you are where you are, and what lets us find and undo a bad result. |
| Career saves | Produced as you play career mode | A single-player world, private to you. It is never compared with another player's. |
| Match traffic | Automatic while an online match is running | Where your player stands and what leaves your racket, exchanged with your opponent and checked by our match server for plausibility. It is used to run the match and to reject impossible shots, and it is not written to the database. |
There is no advertising here, no analytics or tracking product, no profiling that produces decisions about you, and nothing is sold or rented to anybody. The one number computed about your play is your ranked rating, which exists so matchmaking can find you a fair opponent.
The GDPR requires a stated ground for every use of personal data. Ours are these, and nothing is used for a purpose outside them.
| Purpose | Legal basis | In practice |
|---|---|---|
| Running your account and the game | Performance of a contract | You asked for an account so you could play; the account cannot exist without an email address, and online play cannot work without your name reaching your opponent. |
| Confirming your email address | Performance of a contract, and our legitimate interest in a usable service | An unconfirmed address means an account nobody can recover and a way to sign somebody else up. |
| Ranked ratings and the leaderboard | Performance of a contract | Ranked play is a feature you choose to use, and a ladder that does not record results is not one. |
| Fair play and abuse prevention | Legitimate interests | Rejecting impossible shots, expiring sessions, and acting on cheating. The interest is a game that is worth playing; the impact on an honest player is close to nothing. |
| Security and keeping the service up | Legitimate interests | Server logs, rate limits, and being able to investigate an incident. |
| Answering you when you write to us | Legitimate interests | We keep the correspondence long enough to deal with it. |
Where we rely on legitimate interests you have the right to object — see your rights. We do not currently rely on consent for anything, because we send no marketing and set no optional cookies; if that ever changes, you will be asked first and able to say no.
Some of an account is deliberately public, because a competitive game with anonymous results is not competitive. Specifically:
Your display name is yours to change in Settings at any time, and changing it changes what appears in all of the above.
This is the complete list for this build of the game.
| Who | What reaches them | When |
|---|---|---|
| Our hosting provider | Everything the service stores, because the servers and database run on their machines | Continuously. They act on our instructions only. |
| Google Fonts | Your IP address and browser details, because the site's three typefaces are requested from Google's servers | On every page load, whether or not you have an account. |
| Google (sign-in) | The fact that you are signing in to this game, and your Google account identity coming back | Only if you press “Continue with Google”. If you never do, Google's sign-in service receives nothing about you from us. |
| Our email provider | Your email address and the contents of the message | When we send you a confirmation link or reply to you. |
Each is a processor acting on our instructions, other than Google, which is an independent controller for the font request and for the sign-in you initiate with it — their handling of that is governed by Google's own privacy policy. We may also disclose data if the law requires it, or to establish or defend a legal claim; if the service is ever sold or transferred, accounts would move with it and you would be told first.
If you are in the UK or the EU you have the rights below, and we apply them to everyone regardless of where they are. Write to [email protected] from the address on the account, and we will answer within one month.
There is no charge for any of this, and using a right will never cost you your ranking, your items or your saves.
Email [email protected] from the account's own address and ask. We will confirm it is you, delete the account within 30 days, and tell you when it is done. There is not yet a button in Settings that does this; until there is, the request is handled by hand and the outcome is the same.
Deleting removes your email address, name, password, sessions, preferences, locker, Ace Points, achievements, ratings and career saves. Two things deliberately survive:
Deletion is final. An account cannot be restored afterwards, and nothing bought with Ace Points survives it.
Passwords are stored only as one-way hashes. Traffic to the site and to the match server is encrypted in transit. The session cookie is HttpOnly and SameSite, which blunts the two usual ways a session is stolen. Sign-in requires a confirmed email address, so an account cannot be created against an address that is not yours.
None of that is a guarantee, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Use a password you do not use anywhere else. If you believe your account has been reached by somebody else, or you have found a security flaw in the game, write to [email protected] — we would much rather hear about it than not.
Accounts are for players aged 16 and over. Younger players are welcome to play as guests — practice and exhibition matches need no account and store nothing — but we do not knowingly create accounts for under-16s, and where local law sets a lower age for online services we still apply 16 to accounts here for simplicity.
If you believe a child has created an account, tell us at [email protected] and we will remove it.
The game's servers and database are hosted in [jurisdiction not set]. Two of the services in section 5 — Google, for fonts and optional sign-in, and our email provider — may process data outside your country, including in the United States. Where that happens, it is done under the transfer safeguards those providers offer, such as the European Commission's standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision covering the receiving country.
The date at the top says when this text last changed. If a change matters — a new recipient of your data, a new purpose, anything that widens what is collected — we will say so on the site before it takes effect rather than quietly editing the page. Continuing to play after a change means the current version applies to you.
Privacy and data requests: [email protected]. Everything else: [email protected]. By post: [operator not set], [address not set].
The rules of the game itself — accounts, fair play, Ace Points and what happens if you cheat — are in the terms of service.