Privacy Policy — Meld
Meld is a scorekeeping app for the card game pinochle, published by Heritage Times LLC. This policy explains what it stores, what leaves your device, and what does not.
The short version
Meld is built to work on your own device, and everything that leaves it is something you turn on: sharing a table, backing up to the cloud, creating an account, or writing to support — plus a crash report if Meld breaks, which you can switch off. You can score every game you ever play without any of them. There is no advertising, no analytics, and nothing is sold to anyone.
What is stored on your device
Games, scores, hands, house rules, honors and the names you enter for players are saved locally. This is the app’s normal state and it stays on the device. Uninstalling deletes it.
The camera
Meld can read the meld laid out on the table and score it for you. Doing that needs the camera, so the app asks for camera permission the first time you turn the feature on. Until then it never asks, and if you say no the rest of Meld works exactly as before — every score can still be entered by hand.
While it is running, the camera looks at the table and works out which cards are showing. All of that happens on your phone. No photograph, no video and no part of the camera view is saved to your device, and none of it is sent to us or to anyone else. Nothing about what the camera sees leaves the phone.
The camera only runs while you are on that screen with the feature switched on. Close the screen or switch it off and the camera stops.
What leaves your device, and when
Nothing below happens unless you do the thing that causes it.
Sharing or joining a table
When you share a table, or join someone else’s, the game travels through Google Firebase so everyone can follow it on their own phone:
- The scores, bids, meld, tricks and hands of the game being shared
- The names entered for the players at that table
- The display name you type when you ask to join
- A randomly generated anonymous identifier for your installation
- The four-digit table code
Tables are temporary. Abandoned ones expire after about 12 hours.
Cloud backup
If you have Meld Premium and create an account, the app keeps a backup of your history in Firebase so it can follow you to a new phone. That backup contains your whole local record: every game, every hand, your house rules, your settings, your honors, and every name on your roster. It is stored under your account and readable only by you.
Backup is optional and off until you make an account. Without one, your history never leaves the device.
Your account
If you create an account, Firebase Authentication stores your email address and a securely hashed password. The email is used to sign you in and to reach your backup. It is not used for marketing and you will not be emailed except in reply to something you send us.
Your badge
If you have Premium, are signed in, and are seated at a shared table, Meld publishes a small badge — your display name and your honors rank letter — so the other people at that table can see it beside your name. Nothing about the games behind that rank is published; the arithmetic stays on your device. A badge can only be fetched by someone who already knows your account identifier, which in practice means someone at a table with you. Deleting your account deletes the badge.
Writing to support
The Support page in Settings sends your message to us through FormSubmit (formsubmit.co), a third-party form service that forwards it to our inbox. What goes with it: your message, the app version, whether you are on Android, iOS or the web, and — only if you choose to give one — an email address so we can reply. Nothing from your games is attached: no names, no scores, no history.
Crash reports
When Meld hits an error, it sends a report to Sentry, our crash reporting provider, so the fault can be found and fixed. A report contains what went wrong and where in the code, your phone model, its operating system version, the app version, and a random identifier for the report itself.
It does not contain what you were scoring. Player names and table codes are removed on your device before anything is sent, and no game, score, hand or roster ever forms part of a report.
This is on by default and can be switched off at any time in Settings → Support, where the switch takes effect immediately rather than at the next launch. Meld still works exactly the same with it off; we simply stop hearing when it breaks.
Purchases
Meld is free to score with. An optional one-time purchase unlocks history, statistics, honors and cloud backup. Purchases are handled by Google Play and by RevenueCat, our billing provider. Meld never sees or stores your payment details. RevenueCat receives a purchase receipt and an anonymous identifier so your purchase can be restored on a new device; it is not given your name or email address.
Exporting a spreadsheet
Exporting writes a file on your device and hands it to your phone’s share sheet. Where it goes after that is entirely your choice — we never receive it.
The anonymous identifier
To make shared tables work, Meld signs in to Firebase anonymously. This creates a random identifier tied to your installation. On its own it is not linked to your name, phone number, Google account or advertising ID. If you later create an account, that identifier becomes associated with your email address, because it is the same account gaining a way to sign in. Uninstalling the app ends an anonymous identifier permanently; deleting your account ends a named one.
Player names
Names are typed in by whoever sets up the game and are usually first names or nicknames. Meld does not verify them, does not connect them to real identities, and never reads your contacts. If you would rather not use a real name, use any label you like — the app does not care.
Bear in mind that names you enter do travel with a shared table and with a cloud backup, because they are part of the score.
Because a name you choose is shown to other people at a table, the app refuses obviously offensive ones, the scorekeeper decides who is let in and can remove anyone, and you can report a name to us from Settings → Support. This is set out in the Terms of Use.
What Meld does not do
- No advertising, and no advertising identifiers
- No usage analytics: we do not track which screens you open, which features you use, or how often. Crash reports tell us what broke, never what you did
- No selling of data, and no sharing for anyone else’s marketing
- No location data, contacts, microphone, or access to your photo library
- The camera is used only to read cards on the table, only while you have that turned on, and nothing it sees is stored or sent anywhere
- No tracking across other apps or websites
- No phone numbers
Deleting your data
- Everything on this device: uninstall the app, or clear its storage in your phone’s settings.
- Your account, your cloud backup and your badge: Settings → Account & backup → Delete account, in the app, which happens immediately. You can also ask us at meldscore.app/delete-account, and we complete those requests within 30 days. Either way the backup goes first and then the account, and it cannot be undone.
- A shared table: leaving a table removes your entry from it. Whoever started the table can end it, which removes it entirely. Abandoned tables expire on their own after about 12 hours.
- A support message: ask through the contact form and we will delete it from our inbox.
- Crash reports: switch them off in Settings → Support, or ask through the contact form and we will delete any already received.
Children
Meld is intended for a general audience aged 13 and over. It is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect data from children under 13.
Changes to this policy
If what Meld collects ever changes, this policy will be updated before that change is released, and the date at the top will change with it.
Contact
Questions about this policy or your data: use the contact form.