Privacy

Controller

Timo Josten
Geibelstr. 76
40235 Düsseldorf
Germany

Email: support@auktionshaussimulator.de

In brief

• The website sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device.
• Fonts, images and the film come from our own server; no content is loaded from third parties.
• Visits are counted with a self-hosted, cookieless tool, without profiles and without recognising you from one day to the next.
• The game needs no account, shows no ads and does not track you across other apps and websites. It can be played entirely offline.
• The game sends anonymous gameplay statistics to our own server and, if it crashes, a crash report without personal data to Sentry; you can switch crash reports off.
• From the “Insider Tip” tier on, the town map also shows other players’ houses. For this the app sends a snapshot of your house, without its name, to our town server; others see it only under a made-up name.
• Game Center, iCloud and the tip jar run through Apple; we never see your payment or account details with Apple.
• We do not pass on any data for advertising.

Part 1: The website

Hosting and server log files

The website runs on a server of DigitalOcean, LLC (101 6th Ave, New York, NY 10011, USA) in a data centre in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. We have a data processing agreement with DigitalOcean under Art. 28 GDPR. DigitalOcean is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework; the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses apply in addition.

When you open a page, your browser necessarily transmits data that the web server briefly records in log files: IP address, date and time, the address requested, the amount of data transferred, the status code, the page you came from (referrer), and your browser and operating system (user agent). We need this data to deliver the site and to keep it secure, for example against attacks. The legal basis is our legitimate interest under Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR. The log files are deleted after 14 days at the latest.

Visitor statistics with Plausible

To see how many people visit the site and where they come from, we use Plausible Analytics. Plausible runs on our own server (analytics.josten.io) at Scaleway SAS (8 rue de la Ville l’Évêque, 75008 Paris, France) in a data centre in Amsterdam; the data does not go to the makers of Plausible or to any other third party.

Plausible sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device. It records the page visited, the referrer, country, browser, operating system and device type. Your IP address is not stored: an identifier is formed from IP address and user agent together with a random value that changes daily, which only allows visits on the same day to be grouped. The random value is deleted after 24 hours, after which the identifier can no longer be linked to anyone. Only aggregated figures are kept.

The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a data-minimising analysis of visits under Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR. As nothing is stored on or read from your device, no consent is required under section 25 of the German Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act (TDDDG). You can object to the measurement; the simplest way is a content blocker in your browser that blocks requests to analytics.josten.io.

Contact by email

If you write to us, we process your address and the content of your message in order to reply. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR where it concerns the game, otherwise Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR. We delete messages once the matter is settled, unless statutory retention periods apply.

Links to the App Store

The buttons for the game lead to the App Store, a service of Apple Inc. Only when you follow such a link do you reach Apple’s pages, where Apple’s privacy policy applies.

Part 2: The game

The game needs no account, doesn’t know your name, shows no ads and does not track you across other apps or websites. Your houses and settings are kept on your device. The game only goes online for the purposes below.

Anonymous gameplay statistics

So that we can see how the game is played and where it is too hard or too easy, the app sends short gameplay events to our own server (auktionshaussimulator.de, at DigitalOcean in Frankfurt am Main, see above). An event describes, for example, a decision at the counter, the result of a mini-game, an auction or the weekly settlement, each with game values such as week, reputation tier, difficulty and amounts in game money, plus the app version, the time and the length of the session.

The events carry a random installation identifier that the app creates on first launch and uses only for these statistics; it is not linked to your Apple Account, your device or your name, and it is removed when you delete the app. We do not send names (not even the name of your house), saved games, contact details, location or advertising identifiers. The statistics application stores no IP addresses; for the web server’s log files, see “Hosting and server log files” above. Events are deleted after 180 days.

The legal basis is our legitimate interest in improving the game and keeping it balanced (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). You can object to this processing (see “Your rights”); without a network connection, the app sends nothing.

Crash reports (Sentry)

If the game crashes or hangs, the app sends a crash report to Sentry, a service of Functional Software, Inc., 45 Fremont Street, 8th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105, USA. The report contains the device model, iOS version, app version, technical details of the error, the last lines of the app’s log and game values such as week, reputation tier, difficulty and stage of the week. It contains no name, no device name, no account, no screenshots and no record of what you type or tap.

You can switch crash reports off at any time: in the game’s Settings, section “Feedback”, switch “Send crash reports”. The data is processed on servers in the USA. Transfers are based on the European Commission’s adequacy decision for the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, to the extent Sentry is certified under it, and otherwise on the Commission’s standard contractual clauses. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a game that works (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

Feedback by email with a diagnostics package

When you tap “Send feedback” in Settings, the game opens your email app (or the iOS share sheet) with a message to support@auktionshaussimulator.de. Attached is a diagnostics package (ZIP file) containing the app version, device model, iOS version, language, region and time zone, display settings (text size, Reduce Motion, VoiceOver), the saved game of the house you have open, including the house name you chose, an overview of your houses, today’s lines from the app’s log and the record of the last auction.

None of this leaves your device until you send the email yourself, and you can remove the attachment first. We use the message and the package only to deal with your request and to find bugs, and delete both once that is done. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR, otherwise Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR.

The town

Once your house reaches the “Insider Tip” tier, you can open the town map in the game. Besides the game’s own houses it shows houses of other players, and your house appears on their maps. For this the app talks to our town server at stadt.auktionshaussimulator.de.

What is sent. When you first open the map, and at most every ten minutes after that, the app sends a daily snapshot of your house: reputation tier, hall size, specialities, game week, the facade and any coat of arms as numbers, the ratio of your highest hammer price in the last game week to a reference value, and up to three lots from your storage as a short record (object type, material, maker, period, condition, estimate range). It also sends a random identifier for the house, a random secret key for the house (the server stores only a hash of it) and the times of your requests. When you admire another house, the app sends which house on which day. Except for friends (see below), the app does not send your house’s name, your avatar, your Game Center or iCloud identifiers, device model, language, location or the identifier of the anonymous gameplay statistics. Other players only see your house under a randomly assigned made-up name from a fixed list of one hundred names; the game never shows you your own made-up name.

Friends. When you open the “Friends” sheet in town, the app sends the name of your auction house to the town server. It is shown only to houses you have befriended with a friend code and is deleted when you change the name, remove the house from the town or it is blocked after a report. Each house has a random nine-digit friend code for this; a friendship applies to both houses and ends as soon as either of them removes it.

App Attest. So that only the unmodified app can talk to the town server, the app uses Apple’s App Attest service. Your device creates a key and Apple confirms once that it belongs to a genuine installation of this app. We receive the key’s identifier and Apple’s confirmation; every request carries a signature. The identifier is random and does not identify you. Apple’s privacy policy applies to Apple’s processing.

Purpose and legal basis. The data is used solely to provide the town in the game, which you open yourself (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). There is no advertising, no tracking and no disclosure to third parties other than our hosting provider as processor.

Hosting. The town server runs on the same DigitalOcean server in Frankfurt am Main as the website (see “Hosting and server log files” above). The town server’s access logs do not store IP addresses and are deleted after 24 hours; the application itself stores no IP addresses.

Retention and deletion. A house that has not sent a snapshot for 180 days is deleted automatically. You can delete your house at any time in the game’s settings with “Take your house out of the town”, and it is also deleted when you delete a saved game. Backups are deleted after 14 days at the latest. As we cannot link the data to a person, we cannot provide information beyond deletion; you can still contact us at any time at the address above.

Without the town. If you never open the map, or your device does not support App Attest, the app never talks to the town server; the map then shows only the game’s own houses.

Game Center and iCloud

If you are signed in to Game Center on your device, the game enters your results on the leaderboards; other players see them under your Game Center name, according to your Game Center settings. If “Back up houses to iCloud” is switched on, the game stores your houses in your own iCloud account. Apple processes both; we have no access to your iCloud data and receive only the leaderboard results from Game Center. Apple’s privacy policy applies. Both are optional and can be switched off in the game’s or the device’s settings.

Tip jar

A tip in the game is an in-app purchase through the App Store. Apple handles payment and billing; we receive no payment or contact details, only the confirmation of the purchase in the app and aggregated sales figures from Apple.

Your rights

You have the right of access to the data we hold about you (Art. 15 GDPR), to rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18) and data portability (Art. 20). Where we process data on the basis of a legitimate interest, you may object at any time on grounds relating to your particular situation (Art. 21). An email to the address above is enough.

You may also lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority, for example the authority responsible for us: Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen, Kavalleriestraße 2–4, 40213 Düsseldorf, Germany, ldi.nrw.de.

Last updated: November 2026