Privacy Policy — GameSearch

Last updated: 2026-09-30

GameSearch (the "App") is built to help you find video games across multiple digital storefronts. This document describes — in plain language — what data the App handles, where it goes, and what choices you have.

TL;DR

We don't run analytics or build a profile of you.
Free users see banner ads and occasional sponsored cards served by Google AdMob, with personalized ads turned off. GameSearch Plus subscribers see no ads at all.
We don't have a user account system. There is no sign-in.
Your preferences and favorite games are stored only on your device, with an optional one-tap backup to your own iCloud account (not our servers).
The only data we send to third parties is what's needed to answer your request: the search text you type (to IGDB and Twitch), and a game's Steam ID plus your selected country (to Steam, to show its current price).
When you open a live stream, Twitch's own video player and chat load inside the App, and Twitch's privacy practices apply to them.

1. Information stored on your device

The App uses the operating system's local storage (AsyncStorage) to remember your preferences across launches. The following items live on your device only and never reach our servers (we have no servers):

Item	Purpose
Selected country	Localize store links to your region
Enabled storefronts	Filter search results
Favorite games (name, cover image, release date, store links)	Power the "Favs" tab and each favorite's page
Recently viewed games (last 12 games you opened a store for from search results: name, cover, release date, store links)	Show "Recently viewed" on the Discovery tab; clear any time with its Clear button
Onboarding-seen flag	Skip the welcome screens on subsequent launches
Plus subscription status	Hide ads + unlock Plus features locally
Stream language preferences (Plus)	Filter Twitch search results to the languages you pick

You can delete all of this at any time by uninstalling the App, or selectively by toggling settings inside the App.

2. Information sent to third parties

To do its job, the App must contact a small set of third-party services. The only data sent in each case is what is strictly necessary to answer the request.

IGDB (Twitch Interactive)

What we send: game search queries, anonymous app credentials (Client ID / Bearer token issued to the App, not to you).
What we receive: game metadata (titles, cover art URLs, release dates, store website links, hype/score numbers).
Why: to populate the home page (Anticipated, Trending, Critic Reviews, Coming Soon) and to resolve search results.
Their policy: see https://www.twitch.tv/p/legal/privacy-policy/

Twitch Helix API

What we send: game category lookups + live-streams-for-game queries, using the same anonymous app credentials.
What we receive: lists of live streams (streamer name, title, viewer count, thumbnail URL).
Why: to power the "Videos" tab and the "Live now" streams on a favorite's page.
Their policy: same Twitch privacy policy linked above.

Twitch player and chat (stream page)

When you tap a live stream, the App opens a stream page that loads Twitch's official embedded video player and live chat in a built-in web view. That content comes directly from Twitch: Twitch may set cookies and receive your IP address and device information, as it would on its website. The chat is Twitch's own, including its content and moderation. If you choose to sign in to Twitch there, that sign-in goes to Twitch, not to us. A "Twitch" button hands the stream to the Twitch app or website instead.

Steam Storefront (prices)

What we send: the Steam ID of a game you've favorited and the country you selected in Settings. No identifier of you or your device.
What we receive: that game's current price (and discount, if any) in your country's Steam currency.
Why: to show the Steam price on a favorite's page.
Their policy: see https://store.steampowered.com/privacy_agreement/

Storefronts (Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop, Epic Games Store, GOG, itch.io)

When you tap a store link, the store's page opens in the App's built-in browser (a web view with a banner ad at the top for free users). If that store's official app is installed on your device, GameSearch offers to open the page there instead, and a toolbar button can hand the page to your system browser (Safari/Chrome). We don't communicate with the store apps directly; we just hand the operating system a URL to open. Once you're on a storefront's page, that storefront's own privacy practices apply: they may set cookies, log your IP address, etc. We have no control over and no visibility into their data handling. Consult each storefront's privacy policy directly.

3. Advertising (free tier only)

Free users see a banner ad pinned to the top of each tab (Discovery, Favs including a favorite's page, Videos, Settings), of the built-in store browser, and of the stream page. They also see occasional sponsored cards between search results and between streams on the Videos tab. Ads are served by Google AdMob via the official Google Mobile Ads SDK.

We request non-personalized ads only (every banner and sponsored-card request sets requestNonPersonalizedAdsOnly: true). Your Apple advertising identifier (IDFA) is not shared with AdMob by this app, and the App Tracking Transparency prompt is not invoked.
AdMob may still collect coarse, device-level signals (IP, OS version, approximate region) to deliver and measure non-personalized ads. That collection is governed by Google's privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
GameSearch Plus subscribers see no ads at all. Every banner and sponsored card is removed while a Plus subscription is active.

4. GameSearch Plus subscription

GameSearch Plus is a recurring auto-renewing subscription processed entirely by Apple (App Store) on iOS, or Google (Google Play) on Android. We never see your name, billing address, or payment-card details. The store shares an anonymous receipt with the app to verify your subscription status; we use that only to unlock Plus features (no ads, language filtering for streams) and to keep the local "Plus active" flag in sync. Cancel any time from iOS Settings → your Apple ID → Subscriptions, or on Android from Google Play → Payments & subscriptions.

5. Information we do not collect

We do not collect, store, transmit, sell, or share:

Your name, email address, phone number, or any identifier
Your device's advertising ID (we explicitly opt out of IDFA collection)
Crash logs or telemetry
Location data (GPS, Wi-Fi, etc.)
Contacts, photos, microphone, camera, or any other sensitive permission

The App requests no permissions beyond what iOS / Android grant by default.

6. iCloud Backup (optional)

Settings → iCloud has two opt-in actions:

Back up favorites writes a single JSON file containing your favorite-game list (game IDs, names, cover-image URLs, release strings, and store links) to your own iCloud account. The file is placed in the app-private container (AppData scope) inside your iCloud — it does not appear in the user-visible iCloud Drive folder, and we have no access to it.
Restore favorites reads that file back from your iCloud and, after a confirmation prompt, replaces your local favorites with what it finds.

What we never send to iCloud: recently viewed games, search text, country, enabled stores, or anything else outside the favorites JSON envelope.

Disabling iCloud Drive in iOS Settings, or signing out of iCloud, opts you out entirely — the backup buttons will surface a friendly "iCloud unavailable" message and do nothing.

Apple's iCloud privacy practices apply to the storage itself; see https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/.

7. Children

GameSearch has no accounts, no community features of its own, and no mechanism for collecting personal information from users of any age. The free tier shows non-personalized ads (see section 3). The stream page displays Twitch's live video and chat, which is user-generated content hosted and moderated by Twitch under its own policies and age requirements (see section 2).

8. Changes to this policy

If the App's data handling changes in a material way, this document will be updated and the "Last updated" date at the top will be revised.

9. Contact

For questions about this policy, write to [email protected].

Contact Us

If you have any questions, please contact us:

EEU Apps & HiddenMine

Email: support[at]emiruckan[dot]com — support[at]hiddenmine[dot]com

Website: https://apps.emiruckan.com — https://www.hiddenmine.com