Effective {EFFECTIVE_DATE}

Privacy Policy

This policy covers the iPhone app Word of the Day: Widget, its widgets and this website.

Who we are

Word of the Day is made by Dogan Ekici, an independent developer in Türkiye. In this policy “we” means the developer. Questions: wordoftheday.mail@gmail.com.

The short version

  • We have no accounts and no server of our own. We never ask for your name, email or contacts.
  • Your words, settings, reminders and your own photo stay on your iPhone.
  • Two Google services run in the app: AdMob shows ads, which are never personalised, and Google Analytics for Firebase counts how the app is used. They collect device and usage data as described below.
  • The app does not track you across other companies’ apps and websites, and never asks to.
  • In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, the app asks for your consent first, and you can change your answer at any time in Settings › Privacy Choices.
  • Premium is sold by Apple. We never see your payment details.
  • Ask AI runs on Apple Intelligence on your device. Your chat is not sent to us or saved.

What stays on your device

These are stored only on your iPhone (in the app and in a storage area shared with the app’s widgets), and we cannot see them:

  • the word of the day, the words you have already had, your levels and word lists;
  • your theme, app icon, reminder time, voice and accent;
  • your own photo, if you use one as a theme (Premium). You pick it with Apple’s photo picker, so the app never gets access to your photo library, only to the one photo you choose. The app saves a resized copy for the app and your widgets. It is never uploaded. Choosing another photo replaces it; deleting the app removes it. Like other app data, it is part of your normal iPhone backups;
  • whether you have Premium (a flag the app keeps so it can open quickly; Apple remains the source of truth).

Deleting the app deletes all of this.

Features that run on your device

  • Ask AI uses Apple’s on-device Foundation Models (Apple Intelligence). The word and your messages are processed on your iPhone. We do not receive them, and the conversation is not saved after you close it. It is only offered when Apple Intelligence is available and turned on.
  • Speech (hearing the word) uses the voices built into iOS. The app does not use the microphone.
  • Siri, Shortcuts, Control Center and the widget’s speak button ask the app to say today’s word. Siri requests are handled by Apple under Apple’s Privacy Policy.
  • Daily reminders are local notifications scheduled on your iPhone at the time you choose. We do not use push notifications and do not receive a device token. You can turn them off in the app or in iOS Settings.
  • Widgets read the word and theme from the app’s shared storage on your iPhone. They do not connect to the internet.

What is collected, by whom, and why

Ads: Google AdMob

Free users see full-screen ads: one when the app opens, one now and then before a link to a dictionary, news or translation page, and an optional ad you can watch for a second new word in a day. Premium removes them.

The app asks Google for non-personalised ads only. They are chosen from the app they appear in and your general location, not from a profile of what you do in other apps or on websites.

To show ads, limit how often you see the same one, prevent fraud and measure ads, the Google Mobile Ads SDK collects from your device: identifiers that Google assigns to the app on your device, your approximate location derived from your IP address, the ads you see and tap, how you interact with the app, and performance and crash data about the ads SDK. It loads no ads for Premium users.

The app does not ask for permission to track you (App Tracking Transparency), so iOS does not give the app or Google your device’s advertising identifier (IDFA). We have also turned off the separate app-specific identifier that AdMob could otherwise set for ads (its “publisher first-party ID”).

If you are in the European Economic Area, the UK or Switzerland, the app shows Google’s consent message before any ads load. You can change your choices at any time in the app under Settings › Privacy Choices. If you do not consent, Google may still show limited ads that do not use stored data.

More: Google Privacy Policy · How Google uses information from apps that use its services

Usage statistics: Google Analytics for Firebase

The app uses Google Analytics for Firebase to understand how it is used: app opens and sessions, screens viewed, app and iOS updates, in-app purchase events (product, price, whether it went through), and which features you use: the background theme you choose or preview, when the Premium screen is shown and how a purchase or restore ended, uses of New word and Speak (in the app, the widget, the Control or Siri), taps on the word’s actions, whether a reward ad was watched, Videos searches and Ask AI messages, changes to word lists, levels and reminders, saving your own photo, and which of the app’s widgets and its Control you have placed. These are counts only, never the words, searches, chats or photos themselves. Each install gets a random app-instance ID; Google derives your general location (country, region) from your IP address, and records your device model, iOS version and language. We do not set a user ID, and none of this includes your name, email, photo, the words you look up or your AI chats. We see these numbers only as statistics in the Firebase console.

This data is not used for advertising: ads use of Analytics data, ads personalisation and Google signals are turned off.

In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, Analytics follows your answer to the consent message. Until you agree, the app sends Google only event pings without any identifier, which Google uses for aggregate, modelled statistics. You can change your answer in Settings › Privacy Choices.

More: Firebase privacy and security · Google Privacy Policy

Themes: Firebase (Cloud Firestore and Cloud Storage)

The list of background themes and the theme pictures and videos are downloaded from Google’s Firebase servers. The app only downloads; it never uploads anything about you. Like any internet request, your IP address and basic device information (device model, iOS version, app ID) reach Google’s servers while the download happens.

Purchases: Apple

Premium is an auto-renewing subscription sold through the App Store. Apple handles payment and tells the app only whether you have Premium and when it renews. We never receive your Apple Account, name or payment details. See Apple’s Privacy Policy.

Emails to us

If you email us, we receive your address, your message and, when you write from the app, the app version, iOS version and iPhone model lines it adds. We use them only to answer you, and you can ask us to delete them.

Google and Apple may process this data outside your country, including in the United States, under their own safeguards.

Videos: YouGlish and YouTube

The Videos screen shows real people saying the word, using the YouGlish player, which plays YouTube videos. When you open it, the word you search for, your accent choice, your IP address and browser information are sent to YouGlish and YouTube, and they may store cookies or similar data on your iPhone inside the app. This feature uses YouTube API Services through YouGlish. By using it you agree to the YouTube Terms of Service. See the Google Privacy Policy and YouGlish’s privacy policy.

The dictionary, news and translate buttons open Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, Engoo Daily News and Google Translate inside an in-app Safari view, with the word (and, for Translate, your preferred language) in the address. Those sites are run by others and their own privacy policies apply. The app cannot see what you do there.

This website has no analytics, no cookies and no third-party content. Like any web server, our host (Firebase Hosting, by Google) receives your IP address and browser information to deliver the pages.

What we do not do

  • We do not sell your personal information.
  • We do not track you across other companies’ apps and websites.
  • We do not create accounts, ask for your email, or read your contacts, location services, microphone or photo library.
  • We do not combine the data above with anything else to identify you.

How long data is kept

  • On your device: until you delete the app (your own photo: until you replace it or delete the app).
  • Google Analytics for Firebase: event data is kept for 2 months and then deleted automatically; aggregated reports may remain.
  • AdMob and YouTube: as described in the Google Privacy Policy.

Your choices and rights

  • In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland: change your consent for ads and analytics at any time in Settings › Privacy Choices.
  • Turn off reminders in the app or in iOS Settings › Notifications.
  • Delete the app to remove everything stored on your device and to reset the app-instance ID used by Analytics.
  • Premium removes ads.
  • Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR in the EU and UK, Türkiye’s KVKK or US state laws) you may have the right to access, correct or delete your personal data, or to object to its use. Email wordoftheday.mail@gmail.com. Because we have no accounts, we usually cannot tell which data belongs to you; we will help as far as we can and point you to Google for data it controls. You may also complain to your local data-protection authority.

Where the GDPR applies, we rely on your consent for ads and analytics that store or read information on your device, and on our legitimate interest in keeping the app free and working for the rest (for example limited ads when you do not consent, and theme downloads).

Children

Word of the Day is a general-audience app. It is not made for children and does not knowingly target them.

Security

The app’s own downloads (themes) use encrypted connections (HTTPS). Your own data stays on your device, protected by iOS.

Changes

If this policy changes, we will update it on this page and change the effective date above. If a change affects what the app collects, we will say so in the App Store release notes.

Contact

Dogan Ekici, Türkiye · wordoftheday.mail@gmail.com