The short version
The wheel runs entirely inside your browser. The names and options you type are never sent to us, never stored on a server and never written to a log, because no server is involved in spinning at all. We could not show you your own list if you asked us to. Two outside services run on the site: Google Analytics, which counts visits and how pages are used, and Google AdSense, which shows ads. Both are described below, as is Cloudflare, the company that hosts the site.
What we do not collect
We do not collect the entries you put on a wheel, your spin results or any account details — there are no accounts — and we learn your name and email address only if you email us, as described under Email below. There is no contact form on this site, deliberately: a form would mean collecting data we have just told you we do not want. If you need to reach us, you email us directly.
This claim is checked mechanically before each release rather than simply asserted. The build scans the JavaScript files it is about to ship for the standard ways of opening a connection, and every page for resources loaded from another origin. The allowed exceptions are the Google Analytics tag, loaded from www.googletagmanager.com, and the Google AdSense tag, loaded from pagead2.googlesyndication.com, each allowed only while it is switched on. A way to open a connection in the site’s own code, or anything else loaded from another origin, fails the build. Once loaded, each tag makes requests of its own to Google, which is what it is for.
What is stored in your browser
Your light or dark theme choice, two analytics cookies, and the advertising cookies described under Advertising below. The theme choice is kept in your browser’s local storage so the site does not flash the wrong colors on your next visit, and it never leaves your device. The analytics cookies are set by Google Analytics: _ga holds a random ID that tells one browser’s visits apart from another’s, and _ga_DTVRDGN48B keeps track of the current visit. The analytics tag sends that ID to Google with everything it records, and each cookie is set to last up to two years, though your browser may delete it sooner. Clearing your browser data removes all of them, and blocking the analytics and ad tags keeps their cookies from being set at all.
Your wheel entries and results are not stored — reloading the page loses them, unless you opened a share link. A share link carries the list itself after the # sign; browsers never send that part of an address to a server, and the site’s own code reads it only to put the list back on the wheel. The address Google Analytics records stops before the #, so a share link’s list is not part of it either. Google’s ad tag runs in the page too and, like any script there, can read the whole address; what Google does with the data it collects is set out in its policy, linked under Advertising.
Analytics
This site uses Google Analytics (measurement ID G-DTVRDGN48B) to count visits and see how pages are used. As you use the site, it records:
- the page address, never anything after the # sign (which is where share links keep a wheel’s entries), and the page title
- the page you came from
- your approximate location, to city level
- your device type, your browser and operating system with their versions, and your screen size and language
- how long you spend on the page and how far you scroll
- clicks on links to other sites, with the address of the link
- files downloaded from links on the page
It links your visits together through the random ID in the _ga cookie. That makes the data pseudonymous rather than anonymous: it carries no name or email address, but it can tell that two visits came from the same browser. It never receives the entries on a wheel, because those never leave your device, and the embeddable wheel that other sites show in a frame does not load it at all. Its form, site-search and video tracking are switched off; Google signals is off, so your visits are not linked to a Google account; and its automatic detection of email addresses, phone numbers and postal addresses is switched off. Because the ads need the page to be able to reach www.google.com, Google Analytics may also send the same hits to Google at www.google.com; they carry the same data and nothing more.
Google Analytics deletes visit-level data after two months; the totals in our reports are kept longer. The data is not tied to a name or an email address, so we cannot look it up by person, and clearing your cookies starts a new ID. You can block Google Analytics with any standard content blocker or with Google’s opt-out browser add-on, and the wheels work the same without it. Google’s handling of the data is covered by its own privacy policy.
Advertising
As of October 24, 2026, this site shows ads served by Google AdSense, Google’s advertising service. The ad tag loads on the home page, the wheel pages and the page about embedding a wheel. It never loads in the embeddable wheel itself, which other sites show in a frame, on the error pages, or on the About, Privacy, Terms and Contact pages.
Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites. Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to this site and/or other sites on the Internet. To serve and measure ads, Google and those vendors may place and read cookies in your browser, and may use web beacons and your IP address. Google’s cookies can be set from Google domains such as google.com and doubleclick.net. AdSense can also let other ad networks and ad technology vendors serve or measure ads here; Google lists them, with links to their own policies, in its list of ad technology partners.
You can opt out of personalized advertising from Google in Ads Settings, and opt out of many other vendors’ use of cookies for personalized advertising at www.aboutads.info or on those vendors’ own sites. Opting out does not remove the ads: the ones you see are then chosen from the page you are on and your general location instead of your browsing. How Google uses information from the sites that carry its ads, this one included, is explained on Google’s page How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.
Visitors in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland are asked for consent first, through Google’s consent message, which names the ad partners involved. Without that consent Google shows only non-personalized or limited ads there. The choice is kept in a cookie. To change or withdraw that choice, clear this site’s cookies and the message asks again.
AdSense gives us totals, such as page views, ad impressions, clicks and earnings by page, country and device. It does not tell us who you are, and the wheel never hands it what you type.
Hosting and logs
The site is served as static files by Cloudflare, our hosting provider, which — like every web host — processes each request to deliver and protect the page, including your IP address, your browser and the page requested. Cloudflare’s network error reporting also asks your browser to report failed page loads to Cloudflare. That applies to the embeddable wheel too, which otherwise contacts nothing but thespinwheels.com. We do not add to that, query it, or combine it with anything else. Cloudflare also inserts its own Web Analytics script into the pages it serves, but the site’s Content-Security-Policy blocks it, so it never runs.
If you email contact@thespinwheels.com, the message passes through Cloudflare Email Routing and arrives in a Gmail inbox, so Google holds it as well as us. We get your email address, any name your email program sends with it, and what you write. We keep messages only to read them and reply, never add you to a mailing list, and delete your messages on request.
Children
The site is for all ages, and many of its wheels are written with classrooms in mind. It asks no one, of any age, for personal information, and it collects nothing typed into a wheel. Google Analytics and Google AdSense, described above, work the same way for every visitor, children included, and the embeddable wheel that schools put on their own pages loads neither. A school or a parent who would rather they did not run can block them with a content blocker, and the wheels work the same without them.
Your rights, and why there is little to exercise them on
Rights of access, correction and deletion apply to personal data a site holds about you. Apart from the pseudonymous analytics data described above and any email you send us, we hold none. The analytics data is keyed to a random ID rather than to your name, so we have no way to tell from our side which visits were yours; deleting the _ga cookies breaks the link between your browser and its past visits. The advertising cookies, and what Google learns from them, are held by Google, not by us; we see only totals. Google’s Ads Settings, linked above, shows what Google uses to choose ads for you and lets you change it. We delete your emails on request. If you believe we hold anything else, email contact@thespinwheels.com and we will answer.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Material changes — adding or changing analytics or advertising — will be described in the relevant section above rather than buried in a general notice.