Privacy

Last updated 17 October 2026

History of the World works without an account. Everything you do (your Pinpoints days, the hotspots you save or have opened, how far you got in a tour) is kept in your own browser, and nowhere else, unless you sign in.

Without an account

Your progress stays in your browser’s storage. Clearing your browser’s data clears it.
When you finish a day of Pinpoints, your score is sent with a random number your browser makes up, so a day counts once in everyone’s average. It says nothing about who you are, and is kept for two weeks.
When you open a hotspot, a state or a tour, the site counts that it was opened and how (from the map, a search, a tour), nothing about who opened it.
No cookies are set, and there are no adverts or trackers.

With an account

What we keep: your email address; the name you choose to show your friends, if any; your progress (Pinpoints scores by day, saved hotspots, hotspots opened, tour progress); and who your friends are.
Why: only to keep your progress the same on all your devices and to show your scores to your friends. Nothing is sold or shared, and we never email you except the sign-in links you ask for. When you invite a friend by email, we send them one email with your link and your name, and keep nothing about them.
Signing in: with a link sent to your email (sent through Resend), or with Google, which tells us your email address and nothing else.
The cookie: signing in sets one cookie that keeps you signed in. It is strictly necessary for the account to work, so it needs no consent. Signing out removes it.
Who sees what: your friends (people who opened your link, or whose link you opened) see your name and your Pinpoints score for each day. Nobody else sees anything of yours.
Where: the data is kept in a database at our host, Railway.

Feedback and problems

When you send feedback, we keep what you wrote, the address of the page you were on, your screen’s size and browser, and, if you leave it ticked, a picture of the page as you saw it. If you are signed in, it is linked to your account.
If the page stops and starts over (a browser can do this when a phone runs short of memory), the next time you open the site it sends us a short record of what the map was doing in the minute or two before: the address it opened on, where the map was and at what year, how smoothly it was drawing and how much memory it used, and your browser and screen size. It is used only to find and fix the problem. If you are signed in, it is linked to your account.

Deleting your account

Open the account button on the map and choose Delete account. Your account, your progress on the server, your scores and your friends list are deleted at once and for good; feedback and problem records you sent are kept, no longer linked to you. What is kept in your browser stays there until you clear it.

Questions

Use the Feedback button on the map, or ask on the project’s GitHub page.