Privacy at Deuce Ladder

1. What is public, and when you find out

1.1 A Deuce ladder has a public standings page. It is readable by anyone, with no account and no login, and it is indexed by search engines. That is a platform commitment stated on the about page and it is the reason players can find a ladder at all.

1.2 These things about you are public on that page: your display name, your rung, your level band, and your current status. So are your played matches, your wins and losses, your walkovers given and received, and the date of your last played match.

1.3 Your results are public in the recent results list: the date, the scoreline, who won, and the rung movement.

1.4 These things are never public: your email address, your phone number, your street address, your exact location, your availability, your date of birth, and your guardian's contact details if you are a minor.

1.5 You are told this before your first match, not in this document. Signup shows you your standings row as it will appear, names what is public, and offers the search opt-out in section 5, in plain language, on the screen. A privacy commitment a player only discovers by reading a policy page is not a commitment. It is a defense.

1.6 Your display name is yours to choose and to change. A shortened form is offered at signup, for example a first name plus a surname initial.

2. What we collect and why

Each row exists because a specific part of a ladder stops working without it.

2.1 We do not require a photograph, a date of birth beyond an age confirmation, a home address, or a phone number to play in a ladder.

2.2 We do not build a profile of you for advertising and we do not run third-party advertising trackers on this site.

3. What we never collect

This is the same commitment made to clubs on the clubs page, stated here so a player can hold us to it too.

3.1 No payment card numbers. Card data goes to the payment processor and never touches our systems.

3.2 No identity documents. No passport, no driver's license, no club membership card image.

3.3 No health data. Not injury detail, not fitness data, not anything from a wearable. A player declaring an absence never has to say why, under rule 11.1, and that is a privacy decision as much as a courtesy.

3.4 No precise location tracking. City-level detection for finding ladders, and nothing that follows you.

3.5 We do not sell, rent, or license your personal data. Not to advertisers, not to equipment brands, not to coaches, and not to your own club.

4. What your opponent can see

4.1 An opponent sees what the standings page shows, plus the match thread you share.

4.2 Contact between opponents runs through an in-app message thread. Your email address and your phone number are not shown to the other player, whatever their status in the ladder.

4.3 If you choose to give an opponent your number in the thread so you can text about a court, that is your decision and we are not in it. We do not put it there for you.

4.4 For players under 18, an in-app thread is the only channel and it cannot be switched to direct contact. See section 6.

4.5 Your organizer's published contact address is a Deuce-routed relay by default, not their personal email. Organizers are volunteers and their inbox is not ours to spend.

5. The search opt-out

5.1 Any player may opt out of appearing in search engines, at any time, for any reason. It is a single setting.

5.2 Turning it on does two things. It sets noindex on your player record inside that ladder, and it replaces your display name in the public standings with an initial plus a surname.

5.3 Your row stays in the standings. It has to, because removing a row would break the rung numbering for every other player in the ladder and make the standings wrong for everyone. That is the honest limit of this setting and we would rather state it than let you discover it.

5.4 Your results still appear, attributed to the shortened name.

5.5 The opt-out is explained in plain language before your first match, on the signup screen and again in the joiner email, not buried in this policy. That is a build requirement, written into the ladder page specification, and it exists because an opt-out nobody knows about is not a choice.

5.6 Search engines take time to drop a page they have already crawled. We request removal and we cannot promise a date. Anyone who promises you a date does not control the crawler either.

6. Players under 18

6.1 A player under 18 may join only where the organizer has enabled minors for that ladder. It is off by default under rule 1.5 in the rules.

6.2 Where it is enabled, a guardian email address is required at signup. The guardian receives a notice that the account exists, what is public, and how to close it.

6.3 Contact between a minor and an opponent is limited to the in-app message thread. A phone number is never shown, on either side, and there is no setting that reveals one.

6.4 A guardian may request access to their child's data, correction of it, the search opt-out, or deletion of the account, by writing to {{PRIVACY_EMAIL}}.

6.5 We do not knowingly hold data for a player under {{MIN_AGE}}. An account found to belong to one is closed and its personal data deleted.

6.6 We do not market to minors and we do not send a minor a promotional email of any kind. Notifications about their own matches only.

7. What your organizer and your club can see

7.1 Your organizer sees your display name, your contact email for ladder administration, your level input, your full match record, your match threads in their ladder, and your absence dates. They need those to run the ladder and to resolve a dispute under section 18 of the rules.

7.2 Your organizer does not see your payment details, your data from other ladders, or your activity on the rest of the site.

7.3 A club can export its own ladder's roster and full match history at any time, without asking us. That is a commitment on the clubs page and it is deliberate: if a club leaves, it leaves with its data.

7.4 Every organizer adjustment, removal, and dispute resolution is written to that ladder's public activity log with the organizer's name and the stated reason, under rules 2.5, 15.5, and 18.4. Transparency runs in both directions.

7.5 A club that runs a ladder is a separate controller of the data it exports. What that club then does with your email address is governed by the club's own policy, not by ours. Ask them.

8. How long we keep things

8.1 After a closed season, the standings page stays live at the same URL permanently and nothing is deleted. That is part of what an organizer is buying under the terms, and it is also a retention decision, so it belongs here as well.

9. Export

9.1 You can export your own data yourself, without asking, in a format a spreadsheet will open.

9.2 Your export contains your profile, your level inputs, every match you played with its scoreline and provenance tier, your rating history, your absences, and your match threads.

9.3 An organizer can export a whole ladder: roster plus full match history.

9.4 Export is self-serve, not a support request. If it ever stops being self-serve, that is a bug and this line is the standard it is measured against.

10. Deletion, and its one honest limit

10.1 You can delete your account. Your profile, your email address, your level inputs, your absence records, and your match threads go.

10.2 What cannot simply vanish is the result of a match somebody else played. Your opponent's record, their rung, and their season depend on it. Deleting the match would rewrite their history without their consent.

10.3 So on deletion, your played matches remain in the record with your name replaced by a non-identifying label, for example "former player". The scoreline and the date stay. There is nothing left in the row that identifies you.

10.4 That is the only place where a deletion request does not produce a total erasure, and we are naming it in plain sight. If it is not acceptable to you, the right time to know is before you join.

10.5 If you want your name off a public page faster than a full deletion allows, the search opt-out in section 5 takes effect immediately on our side.

10.6 Deletion requests go through the account settings, or to {{PRIVACY_EMAIL}} if you cannot reach the settings. We act within {{DELETION_SLA_DAYS}} days and we tell you when it is done.

11. Who else processes your data

11.1 We use a small number of vendors to run the service. Each one gets the minimum it needs to do its job, under contract, and none of them may use your data for their own purposes.

11.2 The categories, with the current vendor named in each, are published in the list below and kept current.

11.3 When a vendor on this list changes, the list changes, and the version number on this page changes with it. We are not going to describe our vendors as "trusted partners" and leave you to guess who they are. Naming them is the same discipline as the rest of our commitments.

12. Where your data is held

12.1 Deuce is English-first and global at launch, so your data may be processed in a country other than the one you live in. Primary hosting is in {{DATA_REGION}}.

12.2 Where data moves out of the UK, the European Economic Area, or Switzerland, the transfer runs on {{TRANSFER_MECHANISM}}, for example standard contractual clauses with the additional measures the relevant regulator expects.

12.3 You can ask us for a copy of the transfer terms that apply to you.

13. Legal bases and your rights

13.1 We process your data on four bases. Performance of a contract, meaning running the ladder you joined. Legitimate interests, meaning security, abuse prevention, and keeping the standings accurate. Consent, for optional emails and nothing else. Legal obligation, for tax and accounting records.

13.2 You have the right to access your data, correct it, export it, delete it, object to processing based on legitimate interests, and withdraw consent you gave.

13.3 Exercise any of them at {{PRIVACY_EMAIL}} or through account settings. We do not require a form, a reason, or an account in good standing.

13.4 If we get it wrong you can complain to your data protection authority. We would rather you told us first, at the same address.

14. Regional sections

14.1 European Economic Area and Switzerland (GDPR). {{GDPR_SECTION}}. It covers the controller identity, the legal bases in section 13, the retention schedule in section 8, and the international transfers in section 12. It also covers the right to complain to a supervisory authority, plus the representative and data protection officer contacts if we are required to appoint them.

14.2 United Kingdom (UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act). {{UK_GDPR_SECTION}}. Substantially the same obligations as 14.1, with the Information Commissioner's Office as the supervisory authority and a separate transfer mechanism. Relevant at launch, because Deuce is English-first and global and a material share of club ladder activity is in Britain.

14.3 California (CCPA and CPRA). {{CCPA_SECTION}}. Covers the categories of personal information collected, the categories disclosed for a business purpose, the right to know, delete, and correct, and the right to opt out of sale or sharing. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined, which is stated in section 3.5, and the notice still has to say so in the required form.

14.4 Other jurisdictions. {{OTHER_JURISDICTIONS_SECTION}}. Added as launch markets are confirmed. We are not going to list every privacy statute in the world to look thorough.

15. Changes to this policy

15.1 When this policy changes materially, we email every account holder before the change takes effect and we say what changed in one sentence at the top of the page.

15.2 Every version is numbered and dated, and the previous versions stay available.

15.3 We will not change this policy to permit selling your data. If that ever becomes the plan, the honest thing is a new company, not a version number.

Related

The terms of service sit alongside this page and cover the agreement itself, payments, and liability. The ruleset covers what is public inside a ladder and how minors are handled. How results are recorded and weighted. How we count active players and ladders. Common questions. To ask us anything about your data, contact us.

You can see exactly what a public standings page shows before you join one: browse ladders. Signing in does not change what is public: the sign-in page.