Privacy Policy

1. Our Commitment to Your Privacy

At PuzzleSecret (operated by Dan Herlehy), we believe websites should respect your privacy. Our website is designed for solvers of all ages, including children and families. We do not sell your personal data, we do not track you across the web, and we do not use invasive advertising trackers.

2. Your Secret Words & Your Progress

Your progress through the 3D Vault Crawl and your unlocked passport badges are stored locally on your own browser device using standard browser LocalStorage. Our website keeps no record of your vault solutions; the only copy that leaves your device is the word you speak, inside the private note to the author described below. Your progress on a daily puzzle, and display choices such as highlighting matching numbers, are kept the same way. A word you decode on a daily puzzle page is held only in that browser tab (SessionStorage) so the front door can remind you of it, and it is gone when the tab closes. We never sell or share any of it.

So that the author knows the vault is being enjoyed — and can see where people get stuck — the site does send him a short note when something happens on it: you arrive, a word is spoken (right or wrong), a door opens, a tile is picked up, a page is read, a piece of a guest room’s torn note is found or its pinboard is checked or its position copied (just how many of the four pieces, never the position itself), a reward is opened or downloaded, the hints page is opened, the vault word on a daily puzzle page is spelled out (and only whether its digits came from solving, revealing the answer or typing them in), a visitor who came in with a guest word is shown the note that the other words are in the book, a free puzzle is solved, the guided first puzzle on the how-to-play page is started, reached a third of the way or finished, an Amazon link is clicked, a few minutes pass with nothing happening in a room, or a visit ends. Each note contains a random 4-character tag for this browser, your country (and, for U.S. and Canadian visitors, a two-letter state or province — never a city or street), whether you are on a phone or a desktop, your browser’s language setting (such as “en-GB”), how many times this browser has visited and how many days since its last visit (a counter and a date kept on your own device, which clearing site data resets), how many vaults it has opened (just a number), which of our pages you visit, the name of the site that linked you here (just a name such as “pinterest” or “email”, or the name of a blog that has written about the book, or the campaign tag in the link you followed; for any other site, only its country ending such as “.uk” — never its name, and never the page you came from), how long you stayed, and the name of the thing that happened. The only typed text it ever carries is a word you speak at a vault door, right or wrong, reduced to bare letters; it never contains your name, your email, your IP address, or anything else you type. The note for an arrival also carries the author’s own best guess at how you found the site, worked out from the facts above and his list of places that have written about the book. The notes go to the author's own private message inbox — not to an advertising network or a data broker. Clearing this browser's storage resets the tag.

If you open the first vault with a guest word (one printed with a puzzle on Pinterest or by a magazine, rather than one from the book), this browser remembers that on your own device, so the vault can tell you where the other words are. Speaking a word from the book clears it; clearing site data removes it. It is never sent anywhere.

The site also uses Vercel's built-in web analytics, which counts page views in aggregate without cookies and without identifying individual visitors.

3. Self-Hosted Fonts & Assets

To ensure child safety and eliminate third-party tracking calls, all typography fonts (Cinzel and Cormorant Garamond) are self-hosted directly on our own domain servers. When you browse PuzzleSecret, no IP addresses or browser fingerprints are sent to Google Fonts or third-party font networks.

4. Optional Email Dispatch

If you choose to subscribe to The Keeper's Dispatch newsletter, we collect only your email address, and which sign-up box you used (the newsletter page or the one on a daily puzzle page). Email registration is strictly optional and is never required to unlock or download any vault reward PDFs. You may unsubscribe at any time via the single-click link in any dispatch email.

5. External Links

Our website contains links to external sites such as Amazon.com for book purchases. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of external third-party sites once you navigate away from PuzzleSecret.com.

6. Contact Us

If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, you may contact us at privacy@puzzlesecret.com.