Pooch Protocol
The Paw-some Mission
Run, jump and fetch every bone in a garden that keeps getting meaner.
Pooch Protocol privacy policy
This is the privacy policy for Pooch Protocol (Android package com.madfoxza.poochprotocol), a game published by Madfox (Pty) Ltd (“Madfox”, “we”, “us”, “our”) on Google Play. It is the policy linked from the game’s store listing and from inside the game. It explains what data the game accesses, collects, uses and shares, and the choices you have.
The short version: Pooch Protocol keeps your progress on your device and sends nothing to us. It shows ads from Google AdMob that are set up for children: no personalised ads, no advertising ID, and only ads rated suitable for all ages. To show ads, Google’s ads software collects a limited amount of technical data, described in section 4.
1. Who we are and how to contact us
| Developer / data controller | Madfox (Pty) Ltd |
|---|---|
| Company registration | 2026/771974/07 (Companies and Intellectual Property Commission) |
| Registered in | South Africa |
| Privacy contact | info@madfox.co.za |
| Store developer name | Madfox |
The developer name on the Google Play listing for Pooch Protocol is “Madfox”, the same entity named here. Questions, requests and complaints about this policy or your data go to the privacy contact above. We answer within 30 days.
2. The short list
Pooch Protocol:
- shows ads from Google AdMob, and needs internet access to fetch them;
- asks Google for child-directed ads on every request, for every player, whatever their age;
- never shows personalised ads and never uses the advertising ID (the game removes the permission that would allow it);
- does not ask you to create an account or sign in to anything;
- does not send any data to us, because we have no servers;
- does not contain analytics or crash-reporting software;
- does not offer in-app purchases;
- does not access your location, contacts, camera, microphone, photos or files;
- does not sell personal or sensitive data, and never will.
3. Data stored on your device
The game keeps a small settings file in its own private storage on your device so that your progress survives closing the game. Nothing in it is sent to us or to Google. It contains:
| Data | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Personal bests (most bones carried, deepest level reached, runs played, total bones) | Your records, and unlocking characters you have earned |
| Local scoreboard (up to six entries: a name, bones, level, difficulty setting, and whether the run used a revive) | The in-game high-score board |
| Last name entered on the scoreboard | Offered again next time so you do not have to retype it |
| Equipped character and chosen difficulty | Restored on the next launch |
| Sound on/off and rumble on/off | Restored on the next launch |
| Ad counters (how many times the game has been opened and how many runs have ended) | Keeping full-screen ads rare: none in your first session or your first few runs, and spaced out after that |
| Reward-video counts for today | The daily limits on reward videos |
About the scoreboard name. When a run earns a place on the board, the game asks for a name to sign it with. You can type anything, including a made-up name, or leave it blank and the last name used is reused. This name is only ever shown on the scoreboard on your own device and is never sent anywhere.
Device backup. If you have turned on your device’s own backup or app-data transfer features at the operating system level, your device may copy this file as part of a backup. That copy is handled by the platform under its own privacy policy, not ours, and you control it in your device settings.
4. Advertising
Pooch Protocol is free and paid for by ads, served by Google AdMob through the Google Mobile Ads SDK, a piece of Google software built into the game. AdMob is on Google Play’s list of ads SDKs self-certified for use in apps for children.
The game shows two kinds of ad:
- An occasional full-screen ad when you leave a finished run, never during play. It is image or text only, with no video, and can be closed after a few seconds. You never see one in your first session or your first few runs, and after that they are spaced out.
- Optional reward videos, always labelled “Watch a video” and never started without a tap: a revive, doubling the bones banked from a run, re-rolling a door, or trying out a locked character for one run. Saying no costs nothing.
How the ads are set up:
- Every ad request is tagged for child-directed treatment and as coming from a user under the age of consent. Google then turns off personalised advertising and remarketing for that request.
- Only ads rated G (suitable for general audiences) are allowed. Our AdMob account blocks everything rated higher.
- The game removes the Android advertising ID permission, so the advertising ID is not available to the game or to Google’s ads software.
- No consent form is shown, because no personalised advertising takes place.
What Google’s ads software collects. To deliver ads, measure them and prevent fraud, the Google Mobile Ads SDK automatically collects the following and sends it to Google, encrypted in transit. This list follows Google’s own disclosure for the SDK:
| Data | Details |
|---|---|
| IP address | Sent with every ad request. Google may use it to estimate the device’s general location, such as the country or city. |
| Interactions with the app and its ads | For example the app being opened, taps on ads and video views. |
| Diagnostic information | App and SDK performance, such as launch time, hang rate and energy use. |
| Device identifiers | The app set ID, an identifier Android gives to apps from the same developer. The advertising ID is not collected, because the game does not have the permission it needs. |
Google uses this data for advertising, analytics and fraud prevention, under Google’s Privacy Policy (policies.google.com/privacy) and as described in “How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services” (policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites). Madfox does not receive this data. We see only totals in our AdMob account, such as how many ads were shown and what they earned, and nothing in those totals identifies you.
5. Permissions
The game requests these Android permissions:
| Permission | Why |
|---|---|
| Vibrate | Rumble feedback when the puppy lands, gets hit or clears a level. You can turn rumble off in the game’s settings. |
| Internet | Fetching ads from Google AdMob. |
| Access network state | Checking that a connection is available before asking for an ad. |
Google’s ads software adds a few more that it needs to work: wake lock and foreground service (to finish its background tasks), read basic phone state (the type of network connection), and a private permission that only the game itself can use. None of them gives access to your calls, messages, contacts, location or files.
None of these permissions shows a prompt, because Android treats them all as low-risk. The game does not request the advertising ID permission (AD_ID); it removes it.
6. Third parties
- Google AdMob (Google LLC) serves the ads and receives the data described in section 4.
- Google Play distributes the game. It processes your download and store account under Google’s own privacy policy.
We share no data with anyone else. From Google Play we receive only the aggregated install and crash statistics that the Play Console shows every developer, and from AdMob only aggregated ad reports. We cannot use either to identify you.
7. How long data is kept, and how to delete it
Everything the game itself stores is on your device and stays until you remove it. To delete it:
- Open your device’s Settings → Apps → Pooch Protocol → Storage → Clear storage. This wipes the records, the scoreboard, the ad counters and your settings.
- Or uninstall the game, which removes the file with it.
Data collected by Google’s ads software is held by Google and kept under Google’s retention policies. We cannot see it or delete it, and it is not linked to your name or account by us. Android resets the app set ID it uses after 13 months in which no app from Madfox has used it.
Because there is no account and nothing is stored with us, there is no account to delete and nothing for us to delete on your behalf. If you contact us with a deletion request anyway, we will confirm that we hold no data about you.
8. Your rights
Depending on where you live (for example the EU/EEA and UK under the GDPR, South Africa under POPIA, or a US state with a privacy law), you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict or port your personal data, to object to processing, and to complain to a data-protection authority. Pooch Protocol holds no personal data about you outside your own device, so for that data these rights are exercised by managing the game’s storage as described in section 7. For data held by Google, see Google’s Privacy Policy. You are welcome to write to the privacy contact in section 1 about any of them.
We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we do not discriminate against anyone for exercising a privacy right.
9. Children
Pooch Protocol is made for players of all ages, including children under 13. Its Google Play target audience includes children, so it follows Google Play’s Families policy.
Because the game does not ask anyone’s age, it treats every player as a child: every ad request, for everyone, is child-directed and limited to G-rated ads, with no personalised advertising and no advertising ID, as described in section 4.
Madfox collects no personal information from children. The scoreboard name a child types stays on the device. There is no chat, no accounts and no purchases. Reward videos only play when a player taps “Watch a video”, and turning one down never costs anything.
A parent or guardian with a question or concern can contact us at the address in section 1. Data held by Google is covered by Google’s Privacy Policy.
10. Security
The game’s settings file is kept in the app’s private storage, which Android protects from other apps. Everything Google’s ads software sends is encrypted in transit.
11. Changes to this policy
If a future version of the game changes what it collects, transmits or shares (for example by adding an in-app purchase to remove ads), we will update this policy before that version is released, update the “Last updated” date, and describe the change clearly. The Data safety section on the Google Play listing is kept consistent with this policy.
This policy is published at a public, non-geofenced URL, linked from the “Privacy policy” field of the Pooch Protocol listing in the Google Play Console and from inside the game.