Last updated 5 November 2026.
I'm Rob Hausdorf, and I develop MechNode on my own. This covers the game, on Android and in the browser at mechnode.fun, the shop and this website. I've written it to be read rather than to cover myself, so if something here isn't clear, email me and I'll fix the wording.
The short version
No ads, no analytics, no tracking. I don't sell or share anything with anyone. You don't need an account to play: the game makes a pilot for you the first time it opens. If you choose to back your pilot up with a Google account, the only thing I keep from it is the account identifier and its email address, so the game knows it's you next time. The two things that do leave the game are a crash report, if the Android app crashes, and a payment, which Google Play or Stripe takes so that I never see your card.
What the game holds about you
The first time the game opens it makes a pilot for you on my server, with nothing asked of you. You can play everything that way. If you want your pilot backed up, or want to use the same account on another device, you can add your Google account to it from the settings screen.
- An identifier for your device. The game makes up a long random identifier the first time it opens and keeps it in its own settings file on your phone, or in your browser's storage for this site. My server keeps the same identifier, and that's how it knows which pilot is yours. It isn't your phone's serial number or advertising ID, and it means nothing outside the game. If you haven't added a Google account, it's the only way back to your pilot, so uninstalling the game or clearing the browser's storage loses the pilot for good.
- Your Google account, if you add it. When you choose "Back up with Google" in the settings, Google hands the game a signed token naming your account, and my server keeps the account identifier and the email address from that token so it recognises you on any device. I don't read anything else from your Google account, I never post to it, and I never send anything to that email address.
- A session. The game keeps a session token beside that identifier, so it doesn't have to ask the server who you are every time you open it. If you've added a Google account, signing out from the settings screen removes the session and the identifier from the device.
- A count of new pilots. To stop a script making pilots by the thousand, my server counts how many new pilots have been made from each network address in the current hour. It keeps a scrambled form of the address (a hash), not the address itself, and throws the whole count away when the hour is up.
- A pilot name, and names for your mechs. You choose these. Your pilot name is shown to other players in the lobby, on the ladder and in duels, so don't use your real name if you'd rather not be found by it.
- What you've done in the game. Your mechs and their parts, your credits, how far you've got in the career, your rating, and the duels you've played.
- Who you play with. Friends you add are stored as their account numbers, with the name you knew them by.
- Whether you're online. While the game is open it tells the server it's there every 30 seconds, so other players can see you and challenge you. You can turn that off in the settings, and the record is deleted after a day if your game never comes back.
- A notification token, if you leave turn notifications on. It comes from Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging and its only job is to tell your phone that a turn is waiting. Turn notifications off in the settings and I delete the token.
- What you've bought. On Android, Google Play takes the payment and tells my server that a purchase happened, with an order number; in the browser, Stripe does the same. My server keeps the order number and what it was for against your pilot, so a purchase can be restored on another device or refunded. Neither the game nor my server ever sees your card.
- A crash report, if the Android app crashes. It goes to Google's Firebase Crashlytics and says what the game was doing, the game's version, and your phone's model and Android version. No account number and no name goes with it. The browser version sends none.
What it doesn't hold
No phone number, no real name, no contacts, no photos, no location, no advertising identifier, and no record of anything you do outside MechNode. Stripe asks for an email address at checkout; that stays with Stripe.
Where it's kept
On a server I rent from Vultr in Atlanta, in the United States, running a game server called Nakama. Traffic between your phone and that server is encrypted. I take a backup of the database every night and keep the last fourteen of them on the same machine. A copy of each backup also goes to a second server I rent, where I keep it for up to 60 days.
The game's files on your phone hold your device identifier, your session and a copy of your career. The Android app is set to stay out of Android's own backup, so those files stay on your phone. In the browser the same files live in the browser's storage for mechnode.fun, on your machine.
Who else sees it
- Other players see your pilot name, your mechs' names, their Build Power, your league and your place on the ladder.
- Google handles turn notifications through Firebase Cloud Messaging, and only if you have them switched on, and receives a crash report through Firebase Crashlytics if the Android app crashes.
- Google Play takes payments made in the Android app, and Stripe takes payments made in the browser. Each sees what you give it at its checkout, under its own privacy policy; I see that a purchase happened and what it was for.
- Vultr runs the machine the server sits on.
- Cloudflare sits in front of this website and sees the requests for these pages, which is covered below. It isn't in front of the game.
- Nobody else. I don't sell, rent or hand anything to advertisers or data brokers.
Children
MechNode isn't aimed at children under 13 and I don't knowingly collect anything from them. Pilot names are shown to other players, so they're filtered automatically for abuse before they're accepted. If you think a child's information has ended up here, email me and I'll delete it.
How long it's kept
Your account and everything in it stays while you play. There's one exception: if your account is more than seven days old, you've bought nothing, you haven't played in the last day, and either you've never finished a fight or a duel with it or everything you did with it happened in the first five minutes after you joined, my server deletes it and everything in it. The second case is how I clear out the test devices Google Play runs the game on. If you open the game after that, it makes you a new account.
If you ask me to delete your account, I delete your mechs, your progress and your ladder entry with it, though a copy can sit in a nightly backup for up to another 60 days before the last of those backups is thrown away in its turn.
Deleting your account
Email [email protected] from any address, say you want your MechNode account deleted, and give me your pilot name so I can find it. I'll delete it within 30 days and reply to tell you it's done. Deleting the app by itself doesn't touch the account on the server, so you do have to ask.
Your rights
You can ask me for a copy of what I hold about you, ask me to correct it, or ask me to delete it. Same address as above.
This website
These pages don't set cookies and they run no analytics. The game plays on the front page and keeps its files in the browser's storage, as above, and the shop page keeps your pilot's name in the browser so you don't type it twice. Cloudflare sits in front of the pages, so it sees your IP address when you visit, and it's covered by its own privacy policy. My own server logs the request, but because Cloudflare passes it on, what lands in that log is Cloudflare's address rather than yours. Those logs are kept for fourteen days and then deleted. The game's own server doesn't log requests at all.
Changes
If I change this policy, the date at the top changes with it, and anything that really affects you gets said in the game as well.