Icesus Privacy Policy

Version 2 · 2026-04-17

1. Who we are

Icesus is a multi-user text game ("MUD") running since 1995. The service is operated by Jää ry, a registered non-profit association.

• Data controller: Jää ry
• Business ID: 3049019-4
• Registered address: Hanhitie 17g B 10, 90150 Oulu, Finland
• Contact for any privacy matter: mud-admins@icesus.org

2. What we collect

When you create and use an Icesus account, we hold the following personal data about you:

• Account (required) — character name and password hash. Used for authentication. Retained until you request deletion.
• Contact (optional) — email address. Used for password recovery, critical account notices and, if you sign up, the letters described in section 5. Retained until deletion, or until you update it in game or ask us to remove it.
• Verification (optional) — real name and phone number. Used for account ownership recovery in disputes. Retained until deletion, or until you update it in game or ask us to remove it.
• Self-disclosure (optional) — homepage URL. Displayed in the finger command. Retained until deletion, or until you update it in game or ask us to remove it.
• Technical — IP address on login and login history. Used for abuse prevention and fraud detection. Raw logs retained for 90 days, aggregated thereafter.
• Gameplay — character save data and public chat channel logs. Used to provide the game service. Retained indefinitely; removed on request.
• Consent — policy version you accepted, timestamp, and IP at acceptance. Retained as proof of consent under GDPR Art. 7, until you request deletion.

3. Why we hold it — lawful bases

• Contract: Account data and gameplay saves are necessary to provide the service you have asked for.
• Legitimate interest: IP logging for abuse prevention.
• Consent: Optional fields (email, real name, phone, homepage) are held only if you voluntarily provide them. You may update them in game with chfn (or your email alone with privacy email), and you may ask us to remove them at any time.
• Legal obligation: We retain your consent record to demonstrate compliance.

4. Who we share your data with

We do not sell or rent your personal data. If you use features that connect to third-party services, information you choose to send through those features may also be shared with those services, such as Discord. The service runs on infrastructure we operate ourselves. Analytics on our public web properties are performed with self-hosted, cookieless software on the same infrastructure — no data leaves our servers. The one exception is Google’s advertising tag, which we load on icesus.org and on the browser game client at play.icesus.org so we can measure our Google Ad Grants campaigns. It sets a cookie. It reports to Google in two cases: when you log a character in on the browser client, and when you open one of our client setup guides under /guides/clients/. It carries no character name, account details, or game data, and simply browsing the rest of the site reports nothing.

Our email runs on Google Workspace. When you email an icesus.org address, or we email you, Google processes that message as our data processor, under Google’s data processing terms, which also cover any processing outside the EU. Copies of automated letters we send you, and of any delivery-failure reports, are deleted from our mailbox after 30 days.

5. Letters by email

We offer two kinds of letters by email: a starter tutorial for new players, and occasional newsletters. Both are optional.

• Signing up — Accepting this policy does not sign you up for the letters. When you create a character, the address you type is both your recovery address and your sign-up. Later, you can sign up with privacy newsletter on. An address added later with privacy email or chfn never signs you up. If you already get the letters, a new address takes them over once you confirm it, and clearing your address stops them. Typing privacy newsletter off stops the letters and keeps the address for account recovery alone.
• What we send — First, an email asking you to confirm your address. Nothing else is sent until you confirm. The starter tutorial by email, for new characters, is five letters, plus a few reminders if you stay away from the game. Only one character at a time can have the starter tutorial at an address; other characters there can have the newsletters. Occasional newsletters follow, a few times a year. If you signed up for the newsletters only, you get just the confirmation and the newsletters.
• What the game shares — While you want the letters, the game tells our own sending service your character name and address, where you are on the new-player path, your guild, when you were last active, whether you are online, and which bonus items you have earned and collected, so it can choose your next letter. If you say no or stop the letters, it shares only your character name and address, your latest choice and when you made it, and which letters and bonus items you already had, so the service can cancel anything queued and send nothing more. It never shares chat logs, passwords or real names. The starter letters carry watchwords, short phrases you say in the game to collect bonus items; we treat them as personal data linked to you.
• What we keep — The game and the sending service both run on our own server. They keep your address, a record of your latest choice (which offer you answered, when, and from which IP address), a record of each letter sent, a do-not-mail list of addresses that unsubscribed or bounced, and the confirm and unsubscribe links made for you, with when you used them. We do not track whether you open a letter, and we do not rewrite the links in it.
• Who delivers them — Google Workspace sends the letters for us, as described in section 4. Google sees each letter and the address it goes to. We give Google no player profile and upload no subscriber list.
• Stopping them — Use the unsubscribe link in any letter, or type privacy newsletter off in the game. The link stops the letters for every character at that address; privacy newsletter off stops them for one character. The items stay yours.
• Deleting your character — This is separate from unsubscribing. Unsubscribing stops the letters but keeps your record, so you can turn them back on. Deleting a character deletes that record. Afterwards the game keeps only a hash of its address, not the address itself, for about two weeks, so no new character can restart the starter tutorial on it. If you move your letters to a new address, the game keeps a hash of the old address in the same way, for about two weeks. The sending service keeps its record of the letters sent to that address, but not the character's name, and not the address unless another character still uses it.
• Lawful basis — We send the letters on the basis of your consent (GDPR Art. 6(1)(a)). You may withdraw it at any time.
• Earlier addresses — Addresses given to us before the letters existed were not added to the list, and we do not write to them about the letters.

Questions about the letters go to mud-admins@icesus.org.

6. Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

• Access: see what we hold about you
• Rectification: correct inaccurate data
• Erasure ("right to be forgotten"): have your account and data deleted
• Portability: receive an export of your data
• Restriction (Art. 18): require us to pause processing while a dispute about accuracy, lawfulness, or objection is being resolved
• Objection (Art. 21): object to processing that relies on our legitimate interest — for example, the IP logging we perform for abuse prevention
• Withdraw consent for any optional field at any time

7. How to exercise your rights

• In game, type privacy view to see a summary of the data we hold about you.
• In game, type privacy policy to re-read this document.
• For correction, deletion, export, or any question, email mud-admins@icesus.org. We respond within 30 days.

8. Age

The age limit to play Icesus is 16 years. We do not knowingly collect data from users under 16. See help rules for the full game rules.

9. Changes to this policy

When this policy changes in a material way, the version number above is incremented. Your next login after a version bump will display the updated policy and require you to accept it before continuing to play.

10. Controller and jurisdiction

The data controller is Jää ry (Business ID 3049019-4), registered at Hanhitie 17g B 10, 90150 Oulu, Finland. Questions, complaints, and enquiries: mud-admins@icesus.org.

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