Privacy policy

Who we are

Franchise Empire is a mobile game made and run by YaghyDev, which is who “we”, “us” and “our” mean here. This policy covers the Franchise Empire app for iPhone and Android, the servers it talks to, and this website, franchiseempire.app. Questions about it go to [email protected].

What we keep, and why

Everybody who plays Franchise Empire has an account, so what follows is kept for every player. We keep it to run the game: to save your company, to keep your gems and purchases safe, to show the leaderboards, to send the notifications you allow, and to keep the game fair.

Your account

You sign in with Apple or with Google, through Firebase Authentication, a Google service. Firebase checks the sign-in and gives the app a token that proves who you are. Our server keeps:

• the account ID Firebase gives you, and a random ID of our own that everything else about you is filed under;
• your email address (if you used Apple’s Hide My Email, this is the private relay address Apple made for you);
• whether you signed in with Apple or Google;
• when you joined and when you were last seen in the game.

Your username and company

The first time you sign in you choose a username, and in the game you name your company and your brand and pick its colour. These are public: they appear on the leaderboards and anywhere other players can see you.

Your game

The simulation runs on your phone, and the app sends your save to our server so it is backed up and follows you to any device. The save is your whole company: your restaurants, staff, menus, cities, franchises, headquarters, brands, cash, debt, valuation, milestones and settings in the game. Our server also keeps the last few versions of your save, so a save that goes wrong can be restored. It checks each save against the server’s clock and against what is possible in the game, and keeps a note (a “flag”) when a save looks implausible.

Gems and purchases

Gems, the game’s premium currency, are kept only on our server. We keep your balance and a ledger of every change to it: when, how many, and why (a purchase, a milestone, a rewarded ad, a speed-up, a cosmetic, a correction by support).

Purchases are made through Apple’s App Store or Google Play. They take the payment: we never receive your card details, billing address, or your Apple or Google password. The app sends our server the store’s record of the purchase, which our server checks with Apple or Google before giving you what you bought. For each purchase we keep what was bought, when, its price, which store, the store’s transaction ID, and whether it was later refunded.

Rewarded ads

When you choose to watch a rewarded video, our server records the reward (which kind, and when) so it can apply the daily limits. What the ad network itself collects is described in Rewarded ads below.

Notifications

If you allow notifications, the app gives our server a push token for your device, together with the device’s platform, language and time-zone offset, so that reminders arrive at a sensible hour. We keep up to ten devices per account, and your choices about which notifications you want (reminders, events, news). Timers such as “construction finished” are scheduled on your phone itself and never pass through our server. Signing out removes the device’s token.

On your phone

The app keeps some things on your phone: your sign-in, a copy of your save (so you can keep playing between saves), and your settings such as sound and notifications. Deleting the app deletes them.

Technical information

Like every internet service, our server sees the IP address your phone connects from, and writes logs as it runs (requests, errors, and events such as a purchase being credited to an account ID). We use them only to keep the game working and secure, and to stop abuse.

Rewarded ads (Google AdMob)

Franchise Empire shows video ads only when you tap to watch one in exchange for a reward. Those ads are served by Google AdMob (Google LLC). When an ad is requested or shown, the Google Mobile Ads SDK in the app collects information such as your device’s advertising identifier (IDFA on iPhone, Advertising ID on Android) where available, your IP address, device and app information, and how you interact with the ad. Google uses it to serve and measure ads, limit how often you see the same one, and prevent fraud, and, where you allow it, to show ads more relevant to you.

• On iPhone, the advertising identifier is only shared with AdMob if you allow it when iOS asks whether the app may track you. If you say no, ads are still shown, without it.
• In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, the app asks for your consent before ads are personalised, and you can change your choice later from the app’s settings.
• On Android you can reset or delete your Advertising ID, or opt out of personalised ads, in your device’s Google settings.

We don’t receive what AdMob collects about you, except reports of how many ads were shown in total. Read how Google uses information from apps that use its services. If you’ve bought the Ad Pass, you get ad rewards without watching ads, so no ads are requested.

What we don’t do

• We do not sell or rent your personal information, and we don’t share it with anyone for their own marketing.
• There are no banner ads and no ads that interrupt play; ads only play when you choose to watch one.
• The app never asks for your location, contacts, photos, camera or microphone.
• We don’t send marketing email. Your email address is how we know your account, and how we answer when you write to us.
• There is no chat between players.

Who can see what

• Other players see your username, your company name and colour, and, on the leaderboards, your company’s valuation, number of restaurants and number of countries.
• Our support staff can see your account and save to help you, correct a balance or restore a save, and every such change is recorded in an audit log.
• Nobody else sees your email address or your account IDs, apart from the services below, each for its own part.
• We may disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect players, the game or others from fraud or harm.

Services we use

• Firebase Authentication (Google LLC) signs you in with Apple or Google, and keeps its own record of your sign-in. Firebase and privacy.
• Sign in with Apple (Apple Inc.) and Google Sign-In (Google LLC): Apple’s privacy policy, Google’s privacy policy.
• Google AdMob (Google LLC) serves rewarded ads, as described above.
• The App Store (Apple Inc.) and Google Play (Google LLC) take payment for purchases; our server checks purchases with them.
• Expo push notifications (650 Industries, Inc.) pass notifications from our server to Apple’s and Google’s push services, which deliver them to your phone.

These companies are mostly in the United States, and handle what they receive under their own privacy policies.

Legal bases

Where the law asks us to name a legal basis (for example in the EU and the UK), we use:

• Contract: your account, username, save, gems and purchases are needed to give you the game you signed up for.
• Legitimate interests: logs, save checks and fraud prevention keep the game working, fair and secure.
• Consent: personalised ads, tracking on iPhone, and push notifications only happen if you allow them, and you can change your mind at any time.
• Legal obligation: we keep records of purchases for our accounts and taxes.

Where it’s kept, and security

Our server and its database run on machines we operate. The app reaches it at api.franchiseempire.app over encrypted connections (HTTPS), and access to it is limited to us. If you live outside the country where our servers or service providers are, your information is transferred there, with the safeguards the law requires. No system is perfectly secure, but we take care that this one is.

How long we keep it

Your account, save, gems and push tokens are kept for as long as you have the account, and deleted when you delete it. Only the most recent few versions of your save are kept. Server logs are kept for a limited time and then deleted. Purchase records are kept as long as our accounting and tax obligations require, without anything that identifies you (see below).

Deleting your account

In the app, open Settings, then Account, and tap Delete account. That deletes your account from our server at once: your profile, username and email address, your saves and their history, your gem balance and its ledger, your push tokens, and your place on the leaderboards. Your username becomes free for someone else. It can’t be undone, and gems, purchases and progress go with it, without a refund.

Purchase records are financial records we must keep: they stay, with your account ID and username removed, so nothing in them points back to you. Apple and Google keep their own records of your purchases.

If you can’t get into the app, write to [email protected] from the email address you signed in with, and tell us your username: we’ll delete it for you. Deleting the app from your phone does not delete your account. The account deletion page has the steps.

Your choices and rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us for a copy of the information we have about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, by writing to [email protected]. Depending on where you live (in the EU, the UK, or US states such as California, for example) the law gives you these rights and others, such as objecting to how we use your information, restricting it, taking it elsewhere, or complaining to your data protection authority. We will answer within the time the law allows, and won’t treat you differently for asking.

You can turn notifications off in the app’s settings or your phone’s settings, change your ad choices as described above, and sign out at any time.

Children

Franchise Empire is made for a general audience and is not directed at children under 13 (or the minimum age for consent where you live). We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children. If you are a parent and believe your child has an account, write to [email protected] and we will delete it. Purchases go through Apple and Google, so parents can approve or block them with Ask to Buy, Screen Time or Google Play’s parental controls.

This website

This website uses no cookies, no analytics and no advertising. The 3D restaurant on its home page runs entirely in your browser and sends nothing to us, and its fonts are served from this site itself. The server that hosts it sees your IP address when your browser asks for a page, as every web server does. The App Store and Google Play buttons take you to Apple’s and Google’s own sites.

Changes to this policy

If what the game does with your information changes, we will update this page and the date at the top before the change reaches the game, and tell you in the game if the change is significant.

Contact

YaghyDev
[email protected]