Privacy & Disclosures

What The Shwing Times keeps, why, and for how long — and what the game is and is not.

No account, no signup

You can play without registering. We never ask for your name, e-mail address or payment details, and there is no advertising.

Your game (strictly necessary)

When you start a game, our server creates it and gives your browser an anonymous session cookie (__Host-shwing_game): a random code, readable only by this site, that lets you continue after a reload. Your game — starting bankroll, each decision and its simulated result — is stored on our server under a scrambled (hashed) form of that code. Games inactive for 30 days are deleted. Starting a new game or resetting closes the previous one. The cookie expires after 30 days.

To prevent abuse, the number of new games started from one connection is limited. For this we keep a hashed form of your network address (never the address itself) for at most two days.

Real-data interest requests

If you use the “Play With Real Historical Data?” form on the front page, we store the name, email address and optional message you enter, together with the time of the request, in our Cloudflare database, and a copy is emailed to the site owner through Cloudflare’s email service so that we can reply. We use them only to reply to you about the real-data edition, and we do not share, sell or use these details for marketing or analytics.

Requests in the database are kept for at most 12 months and are deleted automatically after that; the notification email in the owner’s mailbox is deleted by hand when you ask for deletion. You can ask for your request to be deleted at any time by sending the form again with the same email address and asking for deletion in the message. To limit abuse, a scrambled (hashed) form of your network address is used for rate limiting and kept for at most three days. Please do not send PINs, passwords or market-data files through the form.

Analytics (only with your permission)

With your permission only, this site uses Google Analytics (which sets cookies) to count visits and page views. It stays off unless you choose “Accept analytics”, and browsers that send Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track are treated as having declined. Your choice is remembered in your browser, and you can change it at any time under Cookie settings. Your game decisions are never sent to analytics.

Hosting

The site and the game server run on Cloudflare, which processes requests (including network addresses) to deliver and protect the site.

About the game

The Shwing Times currently runs on a simulated market: every company and price is fictional and computer-generated; tickers and names are invented, and any resemblance to real securities is coincidental. Every trade is simulated: no real money is traded and no broker is connected. Charts are shown “blind” (no name or date) until you decide. A stop-loss does not guarantee its price — when a price gaps past the stop, the simulated exit happens at the worse opening price. Past results do not predict future performance, and nothing here is investment advice.