Cookie Policy

1. What cookies are

Cookies are small text files a website stores on your device to remember things between page loads - like keeping you signed in. This page lists every cookie and browser-storage item our websites (playyourway.com.au and playyourwayhosting.com) use, run by PLAYYOURWAYHOSTING (ABN 33 985 231 059). The short version: essential cookies always, plus two things you have to switch on yourself - a referral cookie, and product analytics with session replay. There are no ad-network cookies and no social-media pixels: one first-party cookie of our own remembers which of our adverts brought you here, and nothing here follows you to other websites.

2. Your consent

Non-essential storage is opt-in: the cookie banner asks before anything optional is stored, “Essential only” is always offered as prominently as “Accept all”, and you can change your mind at any time - withdrawing consent deletes the optional cookies immediately. There are two optional categories and they are separate switches, so saying yes to one is not saying yes to the other. Use the button below, or the “Cookie settings” link in the footer of any page.

One other button switches the referral category on: “Claim my free month” on a friend's link. Clicking it is saying yes to referral cookies only, so the friend who sent it gets their month. It leaves analytics as it was, and it is recorded like a banner choice.

On 6 September 2026 we added the analytics category. Every choice made before that date was retired and the banner asked again. An older “Accept all” was deliberately not carried over: at the time it was given, this site ran no analytics at all and the banner said so, and treating that as permission for something which did not yet exist would not be consent to anything.

We keep a record of each choice so we can show it was actually made: a random identifier (the same one in your own consent cookie, so you can match it), what you allowed, the version of this notice, and when. No IP address, no device or browser details - see Privacy Policy.

3. Essential cookies

These keep the site working - sign-in, checkout security, chat continuity and your consent choice itself. They cannot be switched off, because the service does not function without them.

4. Optional cookies

Two categories, and neither is stored without your consent. Analytics is the bigger of the two, so it has a section of its own below.

One thing this page cannot cover, mentioned here so it is not a surprise: we also count page views through our network security provider, which sets no cookie and stores nothing on your device at all. It tells us how many people visited a page, not who. We also keep our own daily totals of visits to our game, plan and checkout pages, which likewise set no cookie and store nothing on your device. Because neither stores anything, neither is a cookie and neither has a row in these tables - both are described in our Privacy Policy instead.

5. Session replay, in plain terms

If you switch analytics on, our analytics provider also records a replay of your visit: which pages you moved through, where you clicked and scrolled, and how the interface responded. It is a reconstruction built from those events rather than a video of your screen, and it gives us no access to your device, your files, or anything outside this website. We use it for two things: seeing where the site confuses people, so we can fix it, and working out what went wrong when you ask us for help.

Be clear about what that covers. It is not only the marketing pages - it includes your signed-in dashboard and your server panel, so a replay can show your server list, your console and the pages you moved through as they appeared on screen, and we can watch those replays.

Be equally clear about what is recorded, and what is not. What you type is recorded as you typed it, with one exception: passwords. Anything entered into a password field is replaced with asterisks in your browser before it is sent, so a password never leaves your device in a recording. The passwords the panel can show you on request, such as your SFTP, database and join passwords, are hidden the same way, and two-factor setup is left out of recordings entirely. Card details are handled inside our payment processor’s own frames, which are not recorded at all, and your billing pages are masked in full, so your address, the last four digits of your card and every amount are hidden while the layout still shows. Everything else is recorded as it appeared to you: your account details, your server console, the file manager, database and SFTP screens, startup variables, support tickets and live chat. Your console can include lines about the players on your server. We do not record the contents of network requests or responses, but we do record the messages your browser writes to its developer console, because they often explain an error you never saw.

Replays are stored on servers in Germany, in the European Union, and are deleted after 30 days. Switching analytics off stops any new replay being recorded straight away and deletes the cookies above. If you want the replays we already hold deleted as well, email support@playyourway.com.au and we will delete them.

6. Third parties

Three third parties can store something through this site. Two are strictly necessary and always on: our payment processor (checkout fraud prevention) and our network security provider (bot and attack protection). The third is our analytics and session-replay provider, which only runs if you switch analytics on and processes our analytics data in the European Union. Section 5 of our Privacy Policy covers what each provider does, and we will tell you who they are on request. There are still no advertising networks and no social-media pixels on this site.

7. Browser storage that isn’t a cookie

We also use your browser’s local storage. Most of it is device-side preference that never leaves your browser:

• Appearance and accessibility - theme, contrast, text size and reduced-motion choices.
• Cart - the contents of your cart and its selected billing cycle.
• Remembered login email - only if you tick “remember me” on the login page (30 days).
• Interface state - things like collapsed sidebars and “you’ve seen this tour” flags.
• Review draft - if you start a review and close it before posting, what you wrote stays on this device so nothing is lost. It is deleted when you post.
• Offline shell cache - a service worker caches the site shell so pages load faster.
• Analytics, only if you switched it on - our analytics provider keeps its visitor id and session id in local storage alongside the cookie in the table above, plus four short-lived per-tab entries in session storage. This is the one item here that does leave your browser. Switching analytics off removes all of it.

Clearing your browser’s site data removes all of it. Push notifications are separate and strictly opt-in: if you enable them in your dashboard, your browser’s push service (Google, Mozilla or Apple, depending on your browser) delivers them; disabling them in your account or browser removes the subscription.

8. Managing cookies in your browser

Beyond our banner, every browser lets you view, block and delete cookies: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge. Blocking essential cookies will break sign-in and checkout.

9. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control

There is still no agreed standard behind the Do Not Track header, so we do not act on it. Global Privacy Control is different: it is a deliberate, machine-readable “no”, and several privacy laws treat it as one. If your browser sends it, we take it as a refusal of analytics - the analytics switch starts off, the analytics script is never loaded, and no replay is recorded. You can still turn it on yourself afterwards if you want to.

10. Changes and contact

If our cookies change, this page and its “Last updated” date change with it, and a material change re-opens the consent banner. Adding a new optional category always retires every earlier choice, so you get asked again rather than being opted in by something you agreed to before it existed. Questions: support@playyourway.com.au. See also our Privacy Policy.