Pooch Protocol

Pooch Protocol privacy policy

Developer: Madfox · Effective: 3 November 2026 · Last updated: 3 November 2026

This is the privacy policy for Pooch Protocol (Android package com.madfoxza.poochprotocol), a game published by Madfox (Pty) Ltd (“Madfox”, “we”, “us”, “our”) on Google Play. It is the policy linked from the game’s store listing and from inside the game. It explains what data the game accesses, collects, uses and shares, and the choices you have.

The short version: Pooch Protocol keeps your progress on your device and sends nothing to us. It shows ads from Google AdMob set up for children, with no personalised ads and no advertising ID. If your phone is signed in to Google Play Games, your best scores and Play Games name appear on the world leaderboards. One optional purchase, Remove Ads, is paid through Google Play’s own checkout, and we never see card details.

1. Who we are and how to contact us

The developer name on the Google Play listing for Pooch Protocol is “Madfox”, the same entity named here. Questions, requests and complaints about this policy or your data go to the privacy contact above. We answer within 30 days.

2. The short list

Pooch Protocol:

• shows ads from Google AdMob, and needs internet access to fetch them;
• asks Google for child-directed ads on every request, for every player, whatever their age;
• never shows personalised ads and never uses the advertising ID (the game removes the permission that would allow it);
• posts your best scores to world leaderboards run by Google Play Games, if your phone is signed in to Play Games (section 5);
• offers one optional in-app purchase, Remove Ads, paid through Google Play’s own checkout (section 6);
• does not ask you to create an account with us;
• does not send any data to us, because we have no servers (Google Play sends us a record of each purchase, described in section 6);
• does not contain analytics or crash-reporting software of its own;
• does not access your location, contacts, camera, microphone, photos or files;
• does not sell personal or sensitive data, and never will.

3. Data stored on your device

The game keeps a small settings file in its own private storage on your device so that your progress survives closing the game. Nothing in it is sent to us. It contains:

Backup copy. The game also keeps the previous version of this file beside it, so that a save cut short (for example if the phone switches off while the game is saving) can be recovered from it. A file that cannot be read is set aside next to it rather than deleted. These copies hold the same data as the file itself, never leave your device, and are removed the same way (section 9).

About the scoreboard name. When a run earns a place on the local board, the game asks for a name to sign it with. You can type anything, including a made-up name, or leave it blank and the last name used is reused. This name is only ever shown on the scoreboard on your own device and is never sent anywhere. It is not the name shown on the world leaderboards (section 5).

Device backup. If you have turned on your device’s own backup or app-data transfer features at the operating system level, your device may copy this file as part of a backup. That copy is handled by the platform under its own privacy policy, not ours, and you control it in your device settings.

4. Advertising

Pooch Protocol is free and paid for by ads, served by Google AdMob through the Google Mobile Ads SDK, a piece of Google software built into the game. AdMob is on Google Play’s list of ads SDKs self-certified for use in apps for children.

The game shows one kind of ad: an occasional full-screen ad when you leave a finished run, never during play. It is image or text only, with no video, and can be closed within five seconds. You never see one in your first session or your first few runs, and after that they are spaced out. Players who buy Remove Ads (section 6) never see these. There are no reward videos: the revive, the double bones and the try-out of a locked character are free, with daily or per-run limits, and involve no ad.

How the ads are set up:

• Every ad request is tagged for child-directed treatment and as coming from a user under the age of consent. Google then turns off personalised advertising and remarketing for that request.
• Only ads rated G (suitable for general audiences) are allowed. Our AdMob account blocks everything rated higher.
• The game removes the Android advertising ID permission, so the advertising ID is not available to the game or to Google’s ads software.
• No consent form is shown, because no personalised advertising takes place.

What Google’s ads software collects. To deliver ads, measure them and prevent fraud, the Google Mobile Ads SDK automatically collects the following and sends it to Google, encrypted in transit. This list follows Google’s own disclosure for the SDK:

Google uses this data for advertising, analytics and fraud prevention, under Google’s Privacy Policy (policies.google.com/privacy) and as described in “How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services” (policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites). Madfox does not receive this data. We see only totals in our AdMob account, such as how many ads were shown and what they earned, and nothing in those totals identifies you.

5. World leaderboards (Google Play Games)

Pooch Protocol has seven world leaderboards, run by Google Play Games Services, a Google service built into the game: the best run in bones on each difficulty and on all difficulties together, and the deepest level reached on each difficulty. They sit beside the local scoreboard in section 3, which does not change.

• Signing in. If your phone has Google Play Games set up, Play Games signs you in to the game automatically when it starts, and may briefly show that you are signed in. If it does not, or you are not signed in, the game plays exactly the same and the leaderboards wait. A button on the HIGH SCORES screen can sign you in, and opens Google’s own leaderboard screens.
• What the game sends. When a run beats one of your bests, the game sends that score (a number of bones, or a level number) to Google Play Games for that leaderboard. Each player has one score per leaderboard: their best. Runs continued with a revive never count.
• What the game receives. Google Play Games makes your Play Games gamer name and avatar available to the game, as it does for every game you play with it. Pooch Protocol does not read or store them: they appear only on Google’s own leaderboard screens.
• Who can see your scores. Your scores appear on the leaderboards with your Play Games gamer name and avatar, to the people your Play Games profile settings allow: everyone, friends only, or only you. You change this in your Play Games profile.

What Google Play Games collects. Following Google’s own disclosure for Play Games Services: your Play Games identity (gamer name and avatar) when you create or update your Play Games profile; the scores and progress the game sends; and analytics and diagnostic data that Google uses to keep the service stable and improve it. It is encrypted in transit and held by Google under Google’s Privacy Policy (policies.google.com/privacy).

What Madfox can see. Only what the leaderboards show to anyone allowed to see them, and totals in the Play Console. Through Play Games we do not receive your email address, your Google account details or your friends list.

Turning it off and deleting it. You can sign out of Play Games, make your profile visible to only you, or delete your Play Games data for this game or for all games from your Play Games profile (play.google.com/games/profile) or your Google Account (myaccount.google.com).

6. In-app purchase: Remove Ads

Remove Ads is the only thing the game sells. It is a one-time purchase that turns off the full-screen ads between runs for good, and adds two extras: two spare lives to use when the last life goes (one comes back every 30 minutes, up to two), and a SUPPORTER tag beside the player’s runs on the local scoreboard. It gives no bones and no characters. It is offered only from the SETTINGS screen, never after an ad and never unprompted, and its screen is marked as a real-money purchase through Google Play, with the price shown before checkout.

• Checkout. BUY opens Google Play’s own payment screen, which applies Google Play’s purchase checks: your password or fingerprint, as set in the Play Store on your device, and a parent’s approval for supervised accounts through Family Link. On a phone a child uses, we recommend turning on “Require authentication for purchases” in the Play Store settings.
• Payment. The purchase is made and paid through Google Play, under the Google Play Terms of Service and the Google Payments Privacy Notice. Your card, bank or other payment details go to Google and never to the game or to us.
• What the game keeps. Only whether Remove Ads is owned and the spare-life count (section 3). Each time it starts, and each time you come back to it, the game asks Google Play what this Google account owns, so that a purchase made on another phone with the same account turns up, and a refunded one is taken away.
• What we receive. For each purchase, Google Play gives us an order record in the Play Console: for example the order number, the product, the price paid, the date and the buyer’s country. Google may share further purchase details with sellers as its Payments Privacy Notice describes. We use these records only for accounting, tax, refunds and handling your questions about a purchase.

Refunds. Refunds are handled by Google Play under its refund policies. You can also contact us at the address in section 1.

7. Permissions

The game requests these Android permissions:

Google’s ads software adds a few more that it needs to work: wake lock and foreground service (to finish its background tasks), read basic phone state (the type of network connection), and a private permission that only the game itself can use. None of them gives access to your calls, messages, contacts, location or files.

None of these permissions shows a prompt, because Android treats them all as low-risk. The game does not request the advertising ID permission (AD_ID); it removes it.

8. Third parties

• Google AdMob (Google LLC) serves the ads and receives the data described in section 4.
• Google Play Games Services (Google LLC) runs the world leaderboards and handles the data described in section 5.
• Google Play (Google LLC) distributes the game and processes Remove Ads purchases and payments, as described in section 6. It processes your download and store account under Google’s own privacy policy.

We share no data with anyone else. From Google we receive only the aggregated install and crash statistics that the Play Console shows every developer, aggregated ad reports from AdMob, the leaderboards themselves, and the purchase records in section 6.

9. How long data is kept, and how to delete it

Everything the game itself stores is on your device and stays until you remove it. To delete it:

• Open your device’s Settings → Apps → Pooch Protocol → Storage → Clear storage. This wipes the records, the scoreboard, the ad counters, the world-board bests and your settings. A Remove Ads purchase is not lost: the game asks Google Play again the next time it starts.
• Or uninstall the game, which removes the file with it.

Data collected by Google’s ads software and by Google Play Games is held by Google under Google’s retention policies. Your Play Games scores and profile can be deleted as described in section 5. Android resets the app set ID used by the ads software after 13 months in which no app from Madfox has used it.

Purchase records (section 6) are kept by Google, and by us for as long as accounting and tax law requires (in South Africa, generally five years). Apart from those, nothing about you is stored with us, so there is no account to delete. If you contact us with a deletion request, we will tell you what, if anything, we hold.

10. Your rights

Depending on where you live (for example the EU/EEA and UK under the GDPR, South Africa under POPIA, or a US state with a privacy law), you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict or port your personal data, to object to processing, and to complain to a data-protection authority. For the data on your device, these rights are exercised by managing the game’s storage as described in section 9. For purchase records, write to the privacy contact in section 1. For data held by Google, see Google’s Privacy Policy and your Play Games profile.

We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we do not discriminate against anyone for exercising a privacy right.

11. Children

Pooch Protocol is made for players of all ages, including children under 13. Its Google Play target audience includes children, so it follows Google Play’s Families policy.

Because the game does not ask anyone’s age, it treats every player as a child for advertising: every ad request, for everyone, is child-directed and limited to G-rated ads, with no personalised advertising and no advertising ID, as described in section 4.

World leaderboards. If a child’s device is signed in to Google Play Games, the game posts the child’s best scores and the leaderboards show them with the child’s Play Games gamer name and avatar, as described in section 5. The game does not ask for or create that name. A parent or guardian can sign the device out of Play Games, set the Play Games profile so that only the player can see it, or delete the child’s Play Games data from the Play Games profile or Google Account. Accounts for younger children are managed by parents through Google Family Link.

Purchases. Remove Ads is offered only where a player goes looking for it, never after an ad and never with a countdown or pressure. Google Play’s payment screen applies its own purchase checks and, for supervised accounts, the parent’s approval. Parents can require a password for every purchase in the Play Store settings.

Madfox itself collects no personal information from children. The scoreboard name a child types stays on the device. There is no chat, and no ad ever has to be watched to get anything in the game.

A parent or guardian with a question or concern can contact us at the address in section 1. Data held by Google is covered by Google’s Privacy Policy.

12. Security

The game’s settings file is kept in the app’s private storage, which Android protects from other apps. Everything the game and Google’s software send to Google, including scores and purchase requests, is encrypted in transit. Payments are handled entirely by Google Play.

13. Changes to this policy

If a future version of the game changes what it collects, transmits or shares, we will update this policy before that version is released, update the “Last updated” date, and describe the change clearly. The Data safety section on the Google Play listing is kept consistent with this policy.

This policy is published at a public, non-geofenced URL, linked from the “Privacy policy” field of the Pooch Protocol listing in the Google Play Console and from inside the game.