Overview
CartridgeCove is a small, editorially-run archive site. This policy explains what data is collected when you use the site, by us and by the third-party services we rely on (advertising, analytics and embedded game emulators). We do not sell your data.
What we collect
- Contact form / email. If you email us or use the Contact page, we keep your message and address only to respond to it — corrections, rights-holder requests, or general questions. See our Sourcing & Preservation Policy for how rights requests are handled specifically.
- Standard server logs. Like any website, our hosting provider logs basic technical data (IP address, browser user agent, requested page, timestamp) for security and reliability.
- Game preferences (your device only). For homebrew titles that run on our self-hosted EmulatorJS player, save states, button-mapping and display preferences are stored locally in your browser (localStorage), never uploaded to our servers.
Advertising and analytics
CartridgeCove is free to use and is supported by advertising. We work with third-party ad networks, including Google AdSense and Adsterra, which may show ads on our pages, including game pages.
- Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites.
- Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to this site and/or other sites on the Internet.
- You may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google’s Ads Settings. You can also opt out of some third-party vendors’ use of cookies for personalized advertising at www.aboutads.info.
- Learn more about how Google uses data from sites that use its services at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
We also use Google Analytics to understand how visitors use the site (for example, which pages are popular). Google Analytics uses cookies and collects data such as pages visited, approximate location and device type. You can opt out with the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.
Cookies
We use cookies that are necessary for the site to function, plus cookies set by our advertising and analytics partners described above. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings; the site will still work, but ads may be less relevant.
Embedded content
Most classic games on CartridgeCove are played through emulators embedded from third-party sites (for example, retrogamesnexus.com and megadrive-emulator.com). Guide and article pages may also embed content such as videos. Embedded content behaves as if you visited that third-party site directly: it may set its own cookies, collect data and show its own ads, and is subject to that site’s own privacy policy, not ours.
What we do not do
- We do not require an account or registration to play games or read guides.
- We do not sell or rent your personal data.
Your rights
You can ask what data we hold about you (typically: past correspondence, if any) and request its deletion, by emailing hello@cartridgecove.com. We will respond within a reasonable timeframe.
Changes to this policy
If our data practices change, we will update this page.
Contact
Questions about this policy: hello@cartridgecove.com. Rights-holder or legal requests: legal@cartridgecove.com. See also the Contact page.