Privacy Questions

[Hillson]

Hello, trying out the app and got questions right off the bat  

 

Hows privacy for us that deem it important? bonus worry on these gps games.

The app asks for all permissions on phone, i hear that's something of a default but still.

e.g. multimedia, camera, phone call data, etc.

 

The gps centers on your location, which naturally reveals your real location.

I wouldn't pick my own location, i created an account but will wait to go to walk for that first land

In this regard, do you need to be on the spot to do any stuff? Just started here and wondering.

 

Also, no option to move the app to internal storage. Many apps disregard this, but some android tablets don't play nice.

Blame google, facebook, and whatsapp for hoarding out all the free space there is.

 

 

 

[Mr. D]

Hi Hillson!

Great questions!  

First of all, I do agree that privacy is very important and we've done as much as possible to keep your information safe and do not use any features of your phone than the very minimum to allow the game to function.
You are correct, phone call permissions etc. may appear as a default requirement for certain versions of mobile operating systems, but aren't actually used by "Domination: Earth".

Here's a full list of things the game needs (and why):

1) "Location" permission is used to launch native Google Maps and allow it to update the current position marker as a "cursor" for land capture selection.
We do not record or monitor your history of movement and all location data is processed by the native Google Maps app only ("Domination: Earth" doesn't access the GPS chip of your phone or any geolocation features directly).
So using "Domination: Earth" in that aspect is exactly the same as opening "Google Maps" on your phone.
When you capture land or open the "My Lands" tab the game asks "Google Maps" for your current location once, displays relevant land details and that's it. Only the land position remains in the database, so if you don't capture lands around places that you find sensitive (e.g. home) we or other players will never find out where they are.

Still, we have considered that some players may establish their first base at home (on purpose or by accident), which is why we've made the first base visible only to you by default.
That first base only becomes visible for 24 hours if you attack another player (e.g. using an army. Just capturing land won't do that) to provide them with the ability to retaliate, but afterwards it's hidden once again.

On 9/22/2017 at 12:38 AM, Hillson said:

In this regard, do you need to be on the spot to do any stuff? Just started here and wondering.

To collect resources you need to stand within a 30m radius from them, your presence on a base is calculated using a 200m radius and expanding your existing lands operates on a 500m radius from the land center requirement. So your location is fairly approximate, we don't work with exact addresses!  
So yes, you need to be "generally" around something to interact with it on the "Earth View" tab, but construction and unit management (e.g. transferring armies, attacking another player with an army or requesting your missile launcher to fire) can be done remotely from anywhere in the world.

2) "Camera" is used only to scan barcodes and transform items into in-game resources.
It isn't used for anything else, so if you disable the camera permission manually you can still enjoy all aspects of the game apart from item scrapping.
We do not have access to your album and won't store anything on your phone either: during the process of barcode scanning the scanned barcode only remains on our server for 24 hours (without any context) purely to prevent players from scanning the same item again in that time period. After 24 hours this barcode is deleted from our database as if it was never recorded in the first place. This information isn't used for any marketing purposes and scanned barcodes are not shared with any 3rd party.

3) "Multimedia" is used to play sounds upon land capture, construction, combat etc.
We do not access (and do not have access to) any local media files on your phone.

4) "Billing" is only used to launch an in-app purchase user interface during attempts to purchase Unobtainium.
All payment related details are handled purely by Google Play or Apple (iTunes), the only thing our servers receive is the receipt ID used to verify that the purchase actually happened.
Our database does not receive or store details about your payment (name, address or other sensitive information), just the name of the package purchased.

5) "Internet/Wifi" - we do need to communicate with the server to display resource, player and base locations to you.
Your game details aren't stored locally on the phone (which allows to use any device to access the same account) and they are retrieved from the server whenever you open the app.
 

All other permissions that you may see are redundant defaults indeed (e.g. we really don't need Flashlight on your phone for anything, but it's just something that comes with the "Camera" permission ).

In summary:
We do not record any personally identifiable information (email username is used purely for password recovery), which is also why "Domination: Earth" asks to create a brand new account to play - to keep it disconnected from your google play or iTunes account (so any captured land positions are not linked to a real person, only the display name provided during account creation which you can change freely at any moment via "My Profile").

As you may have noticed, the game also doesn't have any form of in-app advertising, so none of your information is used for any marketing purposes or is sold to a 3rd party.

On 9/22/2017 at 12:38 AM, Hillson said:

Also, no option to move the app to internal storage. Many apps disregard this, but some android tablets don't play nice.

Blame google, facebook, and whatsapp for hoarding out all the free space there is.

Apologies, that would be my personal omission.  
I will fix this and the next version of our app will offer the ability to choose the install location yourself.

 

I hope this information helps, but please let me know if you have any follow-up questions!  

P.S. I believe the subject of in-game privacy and phone permissions deserves its own thread, which is why I moved it.