Privacy policy

This version takes effect on December 9, 2026. Until then, the current policy applies. What changes: Plysight adds Google's ads on the front page, the featured players' pages, the match previews and the articles, matched to the page only, with no Google code in Europe, for anyone under 18 or for a browser sending Global Privacy Control. The sections on ads and cookies say what Google receives. The terms change in one phrase to name both ad partners.

Who runs Plysight

Plysight is operated by Theodore Lattis, an individual based in New York City, United States, who is responsible for how Plysight collects and uses your personal information. For questions about this policy or to exercise your privacy rights, write to [email protected]. He also works on partnerships for Hola AI, the company that provides the ads on Plysight's analysis pages, and is paid for that work.

The short version

• You can use Plysight without an account. Reports and conversations you don't save are deleted after 30 days.
• An account asks for your email and your date of birth. If you sign in with Google, Microsoft or Lichess, that service also passes Plysight its id for you and the name it shows. You can delete the account, and everything in it, from your account page.
• Plysight does not build an advertising profile about you, does not sell your information, and does not follow you to other websites. On the front page, the featured players' pages and the articles, Google's ad code sets cookies of its own, used to limit repeats and count views, not to pick ads for you; the sections on ads and cookies say more.
• The AI guide sends your messages, and facts from your own games, to Anthropic, the company that makes the AI it runs on. Anthropic does not train its models on this data under our commercial arrangement; its retention rules are explained below.
• Plysight is paid for by ads. They're matched to the page and to what you ask, not to who you are, and none are shown to anyone under 18. On the front page, the featured players' pages and the articles, the ads come from Google and are matched to the page only. The section on ads says what each ad partner receives, and your choices.

What Plysight collects, and what it's used for

• What you type. Your first message on the front page and every message to the AI guide, used to answer you and to find which of your findings answer the question.
• Your games. If you give a Lichess or chess.com username, Plysight asks that site for the username's public games. If you upload files, it reads them. Either way it analyzes the most recent 200 games with a chess engine on its own server, to make your report and answer your questions. Public games name your opponents too; those names stay with the games.
• What the analysis makes. The report, the findings behind it, the games it was made from and the engine's evaluation of them. Yours to read, save, share or delete.
• Which findings you open. The page tells the guide which part of your report you're looking at, so "why?" means that part, and keeps a record of it for 30 days.
• Your account, if you make one. Your email address, used to sign you in and for messages about your account. Your date of birth, kept so the rules for your age still apply as your age changes; it isn't shown on any page, though the person who runs the site can see it in the database. Your choice about ads (below). A record that you're signed in on a browser. And, only if you turn them on, emails when you've played new games worth a look (at most one a week; each has a link to unsubscribe). For those, Plysight keeps the Lichess or chess.com username of the report you chose and how many rated games that account had played at the last check. It reads only those public totals, once a day, and never reads your games until you come back and add them. If you're signed in, your practice streak and when each position you've practiced is due again are kept with your account, so they follow you to any device; they're only shown back to you.
• If you ask for a report's link by email. Your email address, used to send that one email, and kept with its "Keep my report" link until you use it or the report is deleted (30 days at most). To limit how many emails one address can be sent, a scrambled form of it (a hash) is kept for a day; if you unsubscribe, that scrambled form is kept so we never email the address again.
• If you sign in with Google, Microsoft or Lichess. That service tells Plysight your email address, its own id for you, and the name it shows (your Lichess username, for example). Plysight keeps the id and the name to recognize you next time. It keeps no password and no sign-in token from that service.
• Sign-in codes are stored in hashed form and expire after 15 minutes.
• If you ask to be told when Plysight Plus is ready. Your email address, the price you were shown, and the day you asked. Used for that one email, and to count how many people asked at each price; nothing else. Kept until that email has gone, or until you ask for the address to be removed (write to the contact address below).
• Messages you send through the contact form: what it's about (something broken, an idea, your account or data, press or partnership, something else), your message, the page you sent it from, your email address if you leave one for a reply, and, for something broken, the name of your browser and the kind of device (for example "Safari on an iPhone"). Used to fix what's wrong and to answer you; see "Who reads it".
• Replies you report, and replies that failed a check, kept for a person to read; see "Who reads it".
• Counts of how the site is used. When a page opens, an analysis starts, a message is sent or an ad auction runs, Plysight adds a line to a log of counts: what happened, the country it came from, and the kind of device (phone, tablet or computer). A line never holds your network address, your browser's details, your words or anything that names you. The counts are used to run the site and to understand what pays for it.
• Technical details. Your network (IP) address and browser details reach the server with every request, as they do for every website. Plysight uses them to limit abuse, for example how many analyses one address can start in an hour, and they appear in the server's logs.

None of this is used to build an advertising profile about you or to follow you to other websites. Plysight does not use your games or messages to train AI models; Anthropic's treatment is described below.

Why, and on what basis

Who else sees it

• Anthropic (the AI guide). Your messages and the facts from your report the guide needs to answer them go to Anthropic's AI, through its business service: your findings, details of your games (the moves, results, ratings and opponents' usernames), and your first message when the site works out which findings answer it. Under Anthropic's commercial terms it doesn't use any of this to train its models, and it normally deletes API inputs and outputs within 30 days, subject to the exceptions in its retention policy. Pressing "Report this reply" sends nothing extra to Anthropic.
• Hola AI (the ads). What it receives is set out under "Ads" below.
• Google (the ads on the front page, the featured players' pages, the match previews and the articles). What it receives is set out under "Ads" below.
• Google, Microsoft and Lichess, only if you choose to sign in with one of them: you sign in on their page, and they send back the details above.
• Passiro (the consent banner, in Europe). It records your answer, with a random id for it and the time, and sees your network address when the banner loads.
• Resend (email). It delivers the sign-in codes and account emails, the report links you ask for, the emails about your new games if you turned them on, and the one email about Plysight Plus if you asked for it, and passes messages from the contact form to the person who runs Plysight, so it sees your email address and the message.
• Our hosting provider, Vultr (The Constant Company, LLC), where everything is stored on a server in New York, in the United States.
• Lichess and chess.com. When you give a username, Plysight sends that username to the site to ask for its public games. Nothing else about you is sent.
• When the law requires it. Plysight would hand over what it must to meet a legal obligation.
• When security requires it. Plysight may share what is reasonably necessary to protect the site and its users from abuse, for example with a hosting provider's abuse team.

Plysight doesn't sell your information.

Who reads it

The person who runs Plysight can see what's stored. In practice they read the replies you report with "Report this reply", and the replies the site's own checks rejected, with the message before each, to find what the guide gets wrong; both are deleted after 30 days. They don't read conversations otherwise. They also read the messages you send through the contact form, which reach them by email too.

Ads

Plysight is free and pays for itself with ads. On the analysis wait page, beside the AI guide and on the practice page, they come through an advertising partner, Hola AI (United Kingdom), on whose platform advertisers bid to show ads here. On the front page, the featured players' pages, the match previews and the articles, they come from Google, through its AdSense service; those are described further down. Plysight doesn't choose or name individual advertisers. Ads for adult content, gambling, weapons, drugs, scams, misleading financial products and political causes aren't allowed; if one slips through, report it and it will be investigated and, where it breaks that rule, removed. On Google's ads, Google's own advertising policies apply, and Plysight blocks the categories Google lets a site block among those.

What the ads use. Ads are matched to the page you're on and to what you ask. The question you type on the front page is sent to Hola AI's code to choose the ads on the wait page, and the ad beside the AI guide on that report and its practice page, with its general subject (for example "endgames"). When you talk with the AI guide, each message you send is sent the same way, to choose the ad shown beside the conversation; the guide's replies are not sent. Your last message on a report is kept with the conversation and used the same way when you come back to that report or its practice page, so an ad can show from the start. Before anything goes, email addresses, links, phone numbers, ages and names you give ("my name is ...") are taken out. A message identified as a distress disclosure is never used to select ads. Hola AI passes what they need to bid to the ad companies bidding through it, and that includes your question and messages.

To deliver and measure ads, Hola AI's code on the page also receives your network (IP) address, your device and browser details (including the size of your screen and your language), your rough location (the city, worked out from the address), the page's address and the page you came from, the time and length of your visit, and which ads were shown and tapped. It doesn't keep identifiers in your browser: Plysight stops its code from storing them, removes any left from before, and stops it syncing identifiers with its ad partners. Each round of ads carries a new random identifier instead, and the page has one that isn't kept after you leave it. Hola AI is independently responsible for how it uses this information, which it uses for matching, delivering and measuring ads, preventing fraud and improving its platform, under its own privacy notice. Plysight gives it no email address, name, account id or date of birth, hashed or otherwise, and none of the guide's replies. No ad code loads for accounts under 18, or in a browser whose user has said they're under 18: no ads are shown there, and nothing is sent to or stored by the ad partner.

Your choices. Under "Your privacy choices", linked at the foot of every page, you can turn off the use of what you ask. Ads still show, matched only to the page, and nothing you ask is sent. That switch is about Hola AI's ads; Google's ads never use what you ask. To refuse Google's cookies, block or clear them in your browser, or use the ad settings on Google's page below.

Google's ads. On the front page, the featured players' pages, the match previews and the articles, nothing you type anywhere on Plysight is sent to Google or used to pick its ads. Plysight asks Google for non-personalized ads only: they're matched to the page and to your rough location (the city, worked out from your network address), not to an ad profile or your past browsing, and Plysight asks Google to handle the data under its restricted data processing, as Plysight's service provider. To deliver and measure the ads, Google's code receives your network (IP) address, your device and browser details, the page's address and the page you came from, and which ads were shown and tapped, and it sets cookies of its own to limit how often you see the same ad and to count views and taps; the Cookies section names them. Google explains how it uses this information on its page on how Google uses information from sites that use its services, along with its ad settings. No Google code loads for accounts under 18, in a browser whose user has said they're under 18, in a browser that sends a Global Privacy Control signal, or in the EU, the rest of the European Economic Area, the UK, Switzerland and wherever Plysight can't tell the country: no Google ads are shown there, and nothing is sent to or stored by Google. Google's ads never appear on the wait page, a report, beside the AI guide or on the practice page.

The ad partner's code still receives the technical details above (your network address, device and browser, rough location) to deliver and measure each ad, and a random identifier for the page you're on, which isn't kept after you leave it. In the EU, the rest of the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, and wherever Plysight can't tell the country, the ad partner's code loads only after you agree to ads in the consent banner. If you don't agree, or don't answer, you see no ads, and nothing is sent to or stored by the ad partner. You can change your answer any time with "Cookie settings" under "Your privacy choices". If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, Plysight doesn't load the ad partner's code at all: you see no ads, and nothing is sent to or stored by it. In US states that give a right to opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of personal information, the switch under "Your privacy choices" is that opt-out for Hola AI's ads. Google's ads are served under its restricted data processing, with Google as Plysight's service provider, and a Global Privacy Control signal turns Google's code off altogether.

How long it's kept

What you can do

• Delete. On your account page you can delete a saved report, or your account with everything in it: the account, its sign-in ids, its saved reports, their games and their conversations are deleted from the live site at once; backup copies follow within the period above. Without an account, "Your privacy choices" (at the foot of every page) deletes this browser's unsaved reports, their games and its conversations from the live site at once; the browser then holds nothing but its cookies.
• Share, or not. A saved report is private to you. You can turn on a link that lets anyone with it read the report, never your conversation, and turn it off again; a link that was turned off stops working, though copies or screenshots already made are out of Plysight's hands.
• Ask. To see what's held about you, to correct it, or to have something deleted that you can't delete yourself, write to [email protected] or use the contact form. We may ask for information to verify your request.
• Your rights. Depending on where you live (the EU, the UK, California and some other US states), you may also have rights to access, correct, delete, move, restrict or object to the use of your information, to withdraw a consent you gave, and to complain to your data protection authority. Ask at the address above.

Cookies

Plysight sets only the cookies it needs for the site to work. Hola AI's ad cookies, if any, are its and its partners', and where required by law we ask for consent before they're set; Plysight stops Hola AI's code from keeping identifiers in your browser's storage. On the front page, the featured players' pages and the articles, Google's ad code sets cookies of its own, listed at the end; where the law requires consent first, Google's code doesn't load at all.

• plysight_browser, a random number that keeps your unsaved reports and conversations with your browser. 30 days, refreshed each visit.
• plysight_session, which keeps you signed in. 30 days.
• plysight_oauth, for the few minutes you're signing in with Google, Microsoft or Lichess, so the answer comes back to the browser that asked.
• plysight_signup and plysight_next, which carry you through sign-up and back to the page you were on. Half an hour or less.
• plysight_adult, set when you tell us you're 18 or over, so the AI guide opens without asking again. A year.
• plysight_minor, set in a browser whose user told us they're under 18, so the AI guide stays closed there. A year.
• plysight_ads_subject, set when you turn off, under "Your privacy choices" and without signing in, the use of what you ask and the ad partner's identifiers, so both stay off in that browser. A year.
• plysight_theme, set when you choose Light or Dark at the foot of a page or in your account's settings, so the site keeps that look in that browser. It holds only "light" or "dark". A year; choosing Match device removes it.
• plysight_no_signup, set when someone says they're under 13, so that browser can't start another account straight away. A day.
• plysight_from, which remembers for three days which site or post a link brought you from, so we can count which posts lead to analyses. It holds a channel name, never anything about you.
• plysight_first, set on your first visit, which remembers for 30 days which site or link first brought you here (or that none did), the day of your first analysis and whether you've come back since, so we can count whether visitors from each channel return. It holds a channel name and two dates, never anything about you.
• passiro_consent, set by the consent banner in Europe to remember your answer. A year.
• plysight_me, set only on the site operator's own browsers so their testing is left out of the visitor counts. 400 days.
• __gads and __gpi, set by Google in Plysight's name on the pages with its ads, to limit how often you see the same ad and to count ad views. Up to 13 months. With non-personalized ads, not used to pick ads for you.
• IDE, set by Google on its own domain, doubleclick.net, when its ads load, which Google uses to show its ads on sites that aren't its own. Up to 24 months in the US. Block or clear it in your browser, or see Google's page under "Ads".

Children

Anyone can get a report without an account. Accounts are for people 13 and older: if your date of birth says you're younger, no account is made, nothing from the form is kept, and the reports and conversations that browser made earlier are deleted then and there. If Plysight learns that an existing account belongs to someone under 13, the account and everything in it is deleted; write to the address above.

The AI guide is for people 18 and older. Before it answers anyone who isn't signed in, Plysight asks whether they're 18 or over and remembers the answer in the browser. It stays closed to accounts under 18 and to a browser whose user has said they're under 18. A teenager's account works for saving reports and adding games; no ads are shown to it, and no ad code loads.

Where your information is processed

Plysight is operated from the United States, where its own systems store and process your information. The providers listed above may process information in other countries, as described in their privacy notices. If you use Plysight from elsewhere, your information is sent to the United States. Plysight holds no certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or its UK Extension.

Where EU or UK law applies and requires safeguards for the onward transfer of your information to those providers, Plysight relies on the providers' own terms: the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK Addendum or International Data Transfer Agreement where that is the mechanism they use, or their certification under the Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension where they hold one. For information about these safeguards, write to [email protected].

Changes

For material changes to this policy, we'll email account holders and display a notice on the site at least 30 days before the changes take effect. If a legal requirement or urgent security issue requires a shorter notice period, we'll explain the change as soon as reasonably possible.

We'll update the date at the top whenever this policy changes. Where required, we'll ask for your consent before using your information in a new way.

Questions: [email protected].