1. Controller
Poodle Chess is the named controller for this product. Current contact availability and its limitations are published on the Contact page.
2. Data needed to provide the service
When you request chess analysis, the service processes the PGN-derived positions and moves necessary to calculate and return your result. Depending on the feature, this can include FEN positions, played moves, candidate moves, engine evaluations, principal variations, selected player color, and review classifications.
When you search for public games by a Lichess or Chess.com username, Poodle Chess sends that username to the selected provider, receives the provider's public game records, and returns up to 100 supported games to your browser. A short-lived, bounded in-memory cache may retain the response for service reliability and abuse protection; it is not written to the product-analytics database.
An account is optional. If you create one, Clerk processes your sign-in method and account profile. Poodle Chess stores a separate internal account identifier and the provider mapping needed to recognize your session. If you choose to save an analysis, Poodle Chess stores its PGN, player names, selected color, summary and analysis result in your private library.
Purpose: find a public game at your request, provide Stockfish analysis, opening classification, Game Review, GM Poodle Coach, practice, and service security. Chess content is not added to the optional product-analytics database.
Operational data: server and edge systems process network information such as IP address, request path, time, response status, and rate-limit state to deliver and protect the service. The application APIs do not intentionally write request bodies to their standard access logs.
3. GM Poodle Coach and AI providers
Deterministic coaching works on Poodle Chess infrastructure. When the AI enhancement is enabled and you request a Coach explanation, a structured package of chess facts can be sent by the backend to the configured language-model API provider.
The package may include positions, moves, verified lines, evaluation changes, and the player's selected side. Poodle Chess does not intentionally include player names, filename, email, or a user account identifier in that provider request.
Provider processing is necessary only for the requested AI-enhanced explanation and is subject to the provider configuration and contractual terms used by Poodle Chess.
4. Optional product analytics
Analytics is disabled until you consent. If enabled, Poodle Chess uses its first-party product analytics and Google Analytics (measurement ID G-7Z4RNVEM9G). Poodle Chess can collect:
- a random browser identifier and random session identifier;
- when you are signed in, a separate random account analytics subject attached by the server only after it verifies the session, allowing aggregate account retention across browsers;
- landing path, referring domain, and allowlisted UTM campaign values;
- allowlisted feature event names, success or error status, and performance timing;
- a broad viewport class: mobile, tablet, or desktop.
The first-party analytics API rejects free text and unsupported fields. Google Analytics receives standard page, browser, device and acquisition data and may set its first-party _ga cookies. Google signals and advertising-personalization signals are disabled. Poodle Chess does not send PGN, FEN, moves, player names, filenames, email, Coach prompts or responses, or payment data to analytics.
Legal basis: consent. You can reject without losing chess-analysis access and withdraw at any time through the button below.
5. Optional email notifications
Signed-in users may separately choose to receive personal Coach insight or weekly recap emails. These emails are disabled by default. When you enable a category, Poodle Chess retrieves the current provider-verified primary email, records the category, consent version and time, and uses Resend to deliver the message.
Email jobs contain an internal account identifier, category and concise derived message text. Product emails do not include raw PGN, FEN, full game records or player names. Resend processes the recipient address, sender, subject, message content and delivery metadata needed to deliver the email and report delivery, bounce, complaint or suppression events.
Legal basis: consent. You can disable each category from account settings or use the unsubscribe link in any product email. A bounce, spam complaint or provider suppression stops further product email delivery.
6. Browser storage and cookies
Poodle Chess uses first-party browser storage for theme, board preferences, privacy choice, the authentication session needed to keep you signed in, and — only after analytics consent — random analytics identifiers, attribution and Google Analytics cookies. Poodle Chess does not use advertising pixels or cross-site advertising. See the Cookie and browser-storage notice.
7. Retention
- First-party product analytics events: up to 90 days, including any random account analytics subject attached to an event.
- Account analytics mapping: retained while the account exists and removed when the account is deleted.
- Google Analytics data: retained according to the configured Google Analytics property settings.
- Consent receipts: retained to record the choice and policy version.
- Browser identifiers: remain until you withdraw consent, clear browser storage, or the implementation changes.
- Chess requests: processed to return the requested response and not inserted into the product-analytics tables. Public-game search responses may be held in a bounded in-memory cache for approximately five minutes. Separate caches may hold engine or opening results without a user identity.
Account, saved analyses and email preferences: retained until you delete the relevant item or account. Notification job and delivery state is retained for operational reliability and audit, without copying a recipient address into the job or delivery-event tables. Account deletion removes the Clerk user and cascades Poodle Chess identity, saved-analysis and email-notification records. Browser-only preferences and unlinked analytics consent are controlled separately on that browser.
8. Recipients
Service data can be processed by infrastructure and network providers needed to operate poodlechess.com, including hosting, Cloudflare edge services, Clerk when you create or use an account, Resend when you enable product emails, Lichess or Chess.com when you select that public-game source, Google Analytics after consent, and the configured AI provider when an AI-enhanced Coach request is made. Poodle Chess does not sell personal data and does not use advertising networks.
9. Your choices and rights
You may reject or withdraw optional analytics and optional product email at any time. Analytics withdrawal stops future event collection. Email withdrawal stops future jobs in that category; already accepted provider delivery may still complete. Clearing browser storage removes the local random analytics identifier. Signed-in users can delete individual saved analyses or permanently delete their account and saved library from the account page.
Depending on applicable law, you may have rights to access, delete, correct, restrict, or object to processing.
10. Changes
Material changes will receive a new policy version and updated effective date. Consent is tied to the displayed policy version.