Privacy

Information we use

• Account details: your email address and password to create and protect your account, plus confirmation, password-reset and optional sign-in-code emails.
• Profile and friends: the username, display name, bio, images, favourite shows and connections you choose.
• Games: moves and guesses to check play, and completed results, ratings and statistics to provide history and rankings. Signed-in Daily guesses are saved privately so you can continue the same round on another device.
• Room chat: text you send in Prime Time Panic is stored temporarily and shown to other participants in that room.
• Contact messages: the reason, email address and message you submit are used to respond to your request.
• Technical information: requests may include your IP address, browser details, requested page and time. We use this to deliver the site, investigate problems and prevent abuse.
• Site performance: we use combined speed measurements to find delays and failures. These measurements do not retain account or match identifiers, IP addresses, search text or individual game activity, and do not add tracking cookies.

We do not currently run advertising, payments or marketing analytics.

What others can see

Your profile details, chosen images, favourite shows, rating and game statistics can appear publicly. Only upload information and images you are comfortable sharing, including any metadata embedded in a file. Avoid publishing contact details or sensitive personal information.

Your recent completed Battles can also appear on profiles, including opponents, results, rating changes and the shows and connections played. Private room access information and moderation records are not included.

Your accepted friends are visible on your public profile. Pending friend requests, your email address and private Daily guess history are not public. Friends comparisons use accepted friendships. Players in a Battle or Arcade room can see the names, moves and results needed for that game. Guess Race keeps each player’s guesses private from their opponent until the round ends. Guests do not receive a public profile or account rating.

Guest play

You can play without an account. Your browser remembers Daily progress and history. Daily attempts are checked and saved with a temporary browser session before counting towards worldwide statistics. Guest results do not appear as named leaderboard entries. Room chat uses your temporary player name when you play as a guest.

Online Battle and Arcade games keep room information and recognise participants for the match. Rooms and their messages are temporary and expire automatically, although expiry does not guarantee immediate deletion of every stored copy. Temporary guest names last for the tab or browser session.

See Cookies & local storage for browser-data lifetimes and controls.

Reports and fair play

Reports include your account, the reported player, your selected reason and any details you provide. They are shared privately with our moderation inbox for review. Do not include passwords, sign-in codes or sensitive personal information.

Reports about incorrect TV information include the selected show, category, your explanation and your account. They are reviewed privately to help correct the game’s information.

Online Battles record move times and when the game tab loses or regains focus. An away indicator appears during the active player’s turn, and staying away for five continuous seconds during that turn automatically forfeits the Battle. A match report can include that match and up to five recent matches for the reported account. Private review summaries can include earlier reports, tab activity during either player’s turn, and the time between starting to enter a show and submitting it. We do not record keystrokes or search drafts for these summaries. Tab activity and timing can be incomplete and do not establish cheating by themselves.

Other services

Hosting, account, storage, email and security providers process the requests, files and messages needed to run Channel Surf. They may process information in other countries.

Proposed profile images are sent to OpenAI for automated moderation before publication. Rejected files are not published. A private record helps prevent repeated uploads of rejected files.

The Movie Database (TMDB) provides TV information and artwork. Search text is sent to TMDB through our server. Posters may load directly from its image service, which receives browser-request information such as your IP address.

How long we keep information

Account, profile and game records are kept while needed for those features. Some records may need to remain to investigate abuse, prevent duplicate results or preserve completed games. There is no single retention period for every record. Arcade chat is removed with its expired room; account deletion also removes messages linked to that account.

Temporary account and guest Daily guess lists support resuming recent rounds and are scheduled for cleanup after seven days. Your completed results and statistics remain saved to your account. Detailed online Battle activity is scheduled for deletion after 30 days. Private match summaries and player reports are scheduled for deletion after 90 days. Show-data reports are kept while needed to review or correct the information. Notification emails in our moderation inbox may be retained longer when needed to follow up a report or resolve a dispute.

Profiles show up to ten recent completed Battles. Older matches leave that profile’s history; a replay can remain on the other participant’s profile while it is still among their recent ten. Deleting either registered participant’s account removes the linked public replay. Combined speed measurements are kept for up to seven days.

Replaced profile images are scheduled for cleanup; browser caches, delivery caches and backups may retain copies longer. Records used to block rejected uploads may also remain. Browser-local Daily data has no automatic expiry and stays until you or your browser clear it.