Privacy & data
Last updated 24 September 2026
Launch ETA tracks upcoming game releases. This page says who runs it, what it keeps about you, how long, and how to get a copy or have it erased. See also our Terms of Service.
Who runs Launch ETA
Launch ETA is built and operated by Marcus Janson, an independent developer, from the United States. It is a solo project, not a company. Questions, data requests, and takedown notices all go to the same place: [email protected]. Expect a reply from a person, usually within a few days.
What we store about you
- Your account — the email address you sign in with, a display name if you set one, and either a password (stored only as a scrypt hash — we never hold the password itself) or a link to your Google account if you signed in that way. Alongside it: whether your email is verified, when you last signed in, whether you want the weekly digest, and whether you've seen the product tour.
- What you save in the app — your watchlist, preorder marks, private notes, follows, saved filters, and your calendar-feed link if you create one. Any previously saved list or planning data remains part of your account until deleted.
- Sign-in sessions — a session record per device you're signed in on, which you can end by logging out.
- Referrals — if you arrived through someone's invite link, we record which account gets the credit.
- How you're getting on with Launch ETA — the date you first did each of a short list of things (watched your first game, added your first follow, turned the digest on), and which calendar days you used the site at all. That's the whole record: dates, not activity. It does not include what you searched for, which games or pages you looked at, or what time of day you were here. We keep the day list for four months.
We also keep anonymous daily counts that aren't connected to you or to any account: things like how many people browsed without signing in that day (the count itself holds no address — your address is used to count you once, and appears only in the routine request logs described below), which tabs they opened and where they were asked to sign in, how many searches returned nothing that day, how many times a store link was opened — which store, never which game — or how long the app took to load and how much memory it used. Speed readings are sorted into broad ranges before they're stored — "somewhere between a quarter and half a second", never an exact figure, and never tied to a particular visit. They tell us the app is slow on real phones; they can't tell us anything about who was using it. These are stored as running totals in a separate database with no user identifier in it, so they can't be traced back to a person — not by us either.
Most wanted uses rankings from store listings, not private watchlist activity. We no longer collect daily community-interest snapshots for popularity scoring. Retained historical aggregates contain no usernames and only include counts where at least three accounts expressed interest; they are not used in Most wanted.
We use all of this to answer one question: which parts of Launch ETA are actually worth using. We don't run advertising or third-party tracking scripts, we load no analytics services, and no data goes to anyone else. We don't sell or share your data, and we don't email you anything you didn't ask for: sign-in and account emails only, plus the weekly digest if you turn it on (every digest carries a one-click unsubscribe link).
Deleting your account deletes your milestone dates and active-day list along with everything else. Exporting your data includes them.
Deleting your account also removes its watchlist activity immediately. Historical snapshots contain thresholded counts only, with no account identifier that could be selectively removed or exported.
Cookies and local storage
Launch ETA sets no advertising cookies, and loads no third-party analytics scripts. What it does set:
launcheta_session— keeps you signed in. Required for the app to work at all.launcheta_ref— remembers which invite link brought you here, for up to 30 days, so a signup can be credited. It names the referrer, not you.launcheta_oauth_state— a short-lived security nonce, set only while you're signing in with Google.- In your browser's local storage:
launcheta-state(your filters and view preferences),launcheta-card-size(card size),launcheta-clips(autoplay),launcheta-install-hint(install prompt),launcheta-active-ping(activity ping timing), andlauncheta-invite-nudged. These never leave your device. Your light/dark theme is saved with your account so it stays consistent across devices.
Existing browser settings under rr-* and cookies named
gr_session, rr_ref, or rr_oauth_state
remain readable during the naming transition.
The site is served through Cloudflare, and sign-up and password-reset forms use Cloudflare Turnstile to keep bots out. Cloudflare sets its own cookies to do that work — they're theirs, governed by their privacy policy. Our transactional email (verification, password reset, the digest) is sent through an email delivery provider, which necessarily processes your address to deliver the message.
Game data
The release catalog — titles, covers, dates, publishers — is collected from public game listings. Your activity never changes those catalog facts; the thresholded community-interest history described above is kept separately as an aggregate about games.
Getting a copy of your data, or deleting it
Both are self-service, from Account settings in the app:
- Download a copy — export everything we hold for your account as a JSON file (your watchlist, follows, filters, and other saved account data).
- Delete your account — erase your account and everything in it. This is permanent. Any lists you published are removed. If you performed admin curation, those decisions are kept but your name is removed from them.
Both also work from a link we can email you, which is handy if you sign in with Google. Prefer to ask a human? Email [email protected] from your account's address and we'll do it by hand and confirm when it's done.
How long we keep things
| Data | When you delete your account | Backups & logs |
|---|---|---|
| Account, watchlist, follows, filters, and any retained list or planning data | Erased immediately. | Backup copies age out on a short rotation (about a week of daily copies plus a few weekly ones); used only to recover the service. |
| Admin curation you performed | Your name is removed immediately; the decision itself is kept. | Same as above. |
| Milestone dates and active days | Erased immediately. | Active days are deleted after four months in any case; milestone dates are kept while the account exists. |
| Anonymous daily counts | Nothing to erase — no account is named in them. | Search and lookup terms are deleted after 90 days; the plain counts after about 13 months. |
| Thresholded community-interest snapshots | Your account is absent from the next daily calculation. Historical rows contain counts only and name no account. | Deleted after about 13 months. |
| Server logs | Not selectively edited. | Routine request logs rotate away after about 30 days; sign-in links and other credentials are stripped before anything is written. |
Children
Launch ETA isn't directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly create accounts for them. If you believe a child has signed up, email [email protected] and we'll remove the account.
Changes to this page
When this changes, the "last updated" date at the top changes with it. A change that materially affects your data will be announced to signed-in users rather than made quietly.
This notice is written to be accurate and readable rather than exhaustive. If something here is unclear or looks wrong, please say so: [email protected].