Privacy policy

What stays in your browser

Some things are kept only on your device, in your browser's local storage. They never reach our servers unless you move them (below), and clearing your browser data (or “Clear my data” on the You page) removes them:

• brackets in progress, so you can jump back in after a reload;
• your champions (the binder), your Daily streak, today's argument vote and finished Dailies;
• settings such as light or dark theme and play mode.

We don't use cookies for any of this, and there are no advertising or tracking cookies.

Moving to another device. When you make a move code, these things are sent to our server and kept under a random one-time code for at most 15 minutes, then deleted the moment the code is used. Big Screen settings and saved shows go only if you tick them; room codes and voters never do. Nothing about you is stored with it. A backup file is saved straight to your device and never touches our server.

What we store on our servers

• Finished brackets. When you finish a bracket, its result (the entrants, your picks and the final order) is saved under a random id so the result link works. Results expire after a year. They are not tied to a person, an account or an IP address.
• Community counts. Every finished bracket adds to anonymous totals for that bracket: wins, losses, titles and how often each pair of entrants split. Today's argument adds one vote to that day's tally. These are counts only.
• Custom brackets. If you make a bracket, its title and entrants are stored so the link works, for a year after it was last played. Don't put private information in one: anyone with the link can see it.
• Reports. If you report a custom bracket, we keep the reason, your note and the time. To tell different people apart, a report about a private person also keeps a code made from your IP address and a random value that is deleted after a day, so the code can't be traced back. The code is kept for a week. Your IP address itself is never stored.

This data is kept in an Upstash Redis database.

Big Screen and Twitch or Kick chat

In stream mode, Big Screen reads your channel's public Twitch or Kick chat from your own browser so viewers can vote by typing 1 or 2. It connects anonymously and read-only: it can't post, and it doesn't log in as you. Messages are counted as votes in your browser and then dropped. No chat messages, usernames or viewer data are stored, by us or anywhere else. Results from a stream are kept apart from the global community numbers.

Analytics

We use Vercel Web Analytics to count page views and a few events (such as a bracket being started, finished or shared) by page, referrer, country and device type. It doesn't use cookies and doesn't identify you across sites.

Error reports

When something breaks, Sentry receives an error report: what went wrong, the page address (without its query string), the browser and the operating system. We switch off Sentry's personal-data collection, session replays and performance tracing, and strip cookies, headers and request bodies before a report is sent.

Hosting

The site runs on Vercel. Like any web server, it handles your IP address and browser details to deliver pages, and keeps short-lived request logs to run the service; we don't use them to identify anyone. Pictures of entrants load from their sources (such as TMDB and Wikimedia Commons), which receive a normal image request from your browser.

The iPhone and Android apps

The apps keep the same things on your phone that the site keeps in your browser: your results history, Daily streak, runs in progress and settings. They send the site the same things the site does: a finished bracket's picks, a result you save or share, a challenge you create, question answers and the Daily's argument and champion. Nothing identifies you. The apps have no analytics or crash-reporting code.

The Daily reminder is off until you turn it on. It is scheduled on your phone, so no notification token is sent anywhere. “Save image” asks only to add pictures to your photo library, never to read it. Pictures of entrants load from their sources, as on the site.

Children

BracketRanker is built to be classroom-safe and collects nothing that identifies a player, of any age.

Questions

Write to us from the contact page. If it's about a result or a custom bracket, include its link so we can find it.