Cookie Notice — Katwars

Katwars uses one functional cookie for the voting loop and kitten ownership (see below). We also display ads through Google AdSense, which may set additional advertising and measurement cookies. Visitors in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland are shown a consent choice (Google’s certified consent message) before personalised ads load. We also use a cookieless, privacy-friendly analytics tool (Umami) that sets no cookies — see the Privacy Policy for what each collects.

The cookie

Name: kw_did
Type: First-party, functional only.
Contents: A random device identifier plus an HMAC signature so the server can verify the cookie was issued by us. No personal information.
Purpose:
- Recognise your kitten as “yours” on this device.
- Deduplicate votes from the same device.
- Power the silent “don’t show me kittens I reported” filter without leaking that filter to other users.
Lifetime: Persistent (no expiry set by the browser policy). You can clear it via your browser’s privacy controls at any time. If you do, your existing kittens will appear “not yours” on this device until you re-claim them with the claim code you received at upload.
Third-party sharing: The kw_did functional cookie is not shared. Separately, Google AdSense and Google’s consent platform (Funding Choices) receive ad-serving and consent data — see the Advertising section of the Privacy Policy.

Advertising cookies (Google AdSense)

When ads are enabled, Google and its partners may set cookies or read device identifiers to serve and measure ads. For personalised ads, EEA/UK/Swiss visitors must first opt in via the consent message described above; you can change your choice at any time, and you can manage Google ad personalisation at adssettings.google.com. See also how Google uses cookies in advertising.

What about local storage / IndexedDB?

We also use the browser’s localStorage and IndexedDB to:

Cache the next 1–3 pairs so the voting loop feels instant.
Queue votes that didn’t send (e.g. you went offline) for retry the next time you load the site.
Persist a recovery copy of your claim codes so you can reclaim a kitten if the device cookie is cleared.

These are not cookies and are not transmitted to our servers unless explicitly used (e.g. when a queued vote is replayed).

Questions

Email privacy@katwars.com. See also the Privacy Policy.

The cookie

Name: kw_did

Type: First-party, functional only.

Contents: A random device identifier plus an HMAC signature so the server can verify the cookie was issued by us. No personal information.

Purpose:

Recognise your kitten as “yours” on this device.
Deduplicate votes from the same device.
Power the silent “don’t show me kittens I reported” filter without leaking that filter to other users.

Lifetime: Persistent (no expiry set by the browser policy). You can clear it via your browser’s privacy controls at any time. If you do, your existing kittens will appear “not yours” on this device until you re-claim them with the claim code you received at upload.

Third-party sharing: The kw_did functional cookie is not shared. Separately, Google AdSense and Google’s consent platform (Funding Choices) receive ad-serving and consent data — see the Advertising section of the Privacy Policy.

Advertising cookies (Google AdSense)

What about local storage / IndexedDB?

We also use the browser’s localStorage and IndexedDB to:

Cache the next 1–3 pairs so the voting loop feels instant.

Queue votes that didn’t send (e.g. you went offline) for retry the next time you load the site.

Persist a recovery copy of your claim codes so you can reclaim a kitten if the device cookie is cleared.

These are not cookies and are not transmitted to our servers unless explicitly used (e.g. when a queued vote is replayed).