Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes how The Rust Guide ("we," "us," or "our") handles information when you use the Site. The Rust Guide is a free informational fan site for the game Rust.

The Site is run by an individual based in Australia, who decides how the information described here is used (under European data protection law, the "controller"). You can contact us at contact.therustguide@gmail.com.

We do not offer accounts. The only form on the Site is the mistake report form described below, and it does not ask for your name or email address.

Our hosting provider, Vercel, automatically processes standard technical information such as your IP address, browser type, and request metadata in server logs in order to deliver and secure the Site. Vercel keeps these logs only for a limited time.

On your device only, the Site stores a few preferences in your browser's local storage: favorited items (trg:favorites), how the item list is shown (trg:items-list), your recent searches (trg.search.recent.v1), whether you have seen the farming calculator's intro (farming-calc-intro-seen), the language you picked from the language menu (trg:language), and the currency you picked for skin prices (trg:skin-currency). This data stays in your browser and is not sent to our servers.

Visitor statistics: we use Vercel Web Analytics, provided by our hosting provider Vercel, to count page views. For each page view it records the page address, the site that linked you here, your approximate location (country, region and city), and your browser, operating system and device type. It does not use cookies and does not store your IP address. Visits are grouped using a hash of the request that is discarded after 24 hours, and we only see totals, not individual visitors.

The Site itself does not set cookies. Third-party services described below may set their own cookies or similar storage once you play a video or follow a link to them.

If you use the "Spot a mistake?" or "Report a mistake" form, we receive what you type, the address of the page you sent it from, the page's title, the figure you picked, the site language, whether you were on a phone or a larger screen, and the date of the game data the page showed. The form does not ask for your name or email address, so please do not type personal information into it.

Reports are stored as private issues in our GitHub repository (GitHub, Inc.), which only we can see, so we can check them against the game files. To slow down spam, our server briefly keeps a one-way hash of your IP address in memory to limit how many reports can be sent in an hour; it is not stored with the report.

We keep reports for as long as they help us check and fix the Site. You can ask us to delete a report at any time.

Support links take you to our Ko-fi page. If you donate, Ko-fi and its payment providers (such as Stripe and PayPal) process your payment under their own privacy policies; we never see your card or bank details.

Ko-fi shares some details of your donation with us: usually your display name, your email address, any message you write and the amount, and the payment provider may also share your name. We use these only to receive and record your donation, to thank you or reply to you, and to keep the financial records the law requires. We keep them for as long as those records must be kept and do not add you to any mailing list.

We use the information above only to run, secure and improve the Site, to count visits, to check and fix mistakes you report, and to handle donations. Under European data protection law, our legal bases are our legitimate interests in running a secure, accurate and reliable site (hosting logs, visitor statistics, spam limits and reports), and the legal obligation to keep financial records (donations). Preferences in local storage are kept because you chose them, and only on your device.

We do not use advertising networks, tracking cookies, or analytics beyond the cookie-free visitor statistics described above. We do not sell or rent your personal information, share it for advertising, build profiles of you, or make automated decisions about you. If that changes, we will update this Privacy Policy.

Hosting and visitor statistics: the Site is hosted by Vercel, which processes technical logs and the visitor statistics described above on our behalf.

YouTube: video thumbnails on the home, Guides and Farming pages and in item field guides are fetched from YouTube by our server and shown from our own domain, so loading a page does not contact YouTube. A video player loads from YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed domain (youtube-nocookie.com) only when you press play, and video links on the Guides and Farming pages open YouTube itself (youtube.com). Once you press play or follow such a link, YouTube (Google) receives your IP address and browser details, and the player may set cookies or similar storage, under Google's privacy policy.

Icons, images and 3D models: item and loot icons are loaded from jsDelivr (cdn.jsdelivr.net), falling back to our own domain. Skin pictures are loaded from Facepunch (files.facepunch.com). When you open an item's 3D view, the model file is loaded from jsDelivr, falling back to GitHub (raw.githubusercontent.com). Those services may log your IP address and browser details as part of serving the file.

Steam: skin prices, listing counts and workshop details are collected by us from Steam ahead of time, so viewing them does not contact Steam. Links to the Steam Community Market or Steam Workshop take you to Valve's site, where Valve's privacy policy applies.

Mistake reports are stored on GitHub, and donations are handled by Ko-fi, as described above.

Fonts: fonts are bundled with the Site and served from our own domain, so loading a page does not contact Google Fonts.

We are based in Australia, and the services above (Vercel, GitHub, Google, jsDelivr and its delivery networks, Facepunch, Ko-fi and its payment providers) may process information in the United States and other countries. Where these providers offer them, transfers out of Europe rely on safeguards such as the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework or the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.

The Site is served only over HTTPS, keeps reports in a private repository, and limits which outside services pages can load. No method of sending or storing information is completely secure, but we try to keep what little we hold safe and to collect as little as possible.

We use only the local preference storage described above, which the Site needs to remember your settings. Visitor statistics do not use cookies or local storage. You can clear it through your browser's site data settings; doing so resets your favorites, display preferences, recent searches and currency choice.

The Site is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are under 16, or under the age of digital consent where you live, please ask a parent or guardian before you send a report or a donation. If you think a child has sent us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

Because we store little personal information on our servers, most device preferences can be removed by clearing your browser's site data. Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, or delete personal information. To make a request related to information we may hold (for example in hosting logs), contact us using the email below. We may need to verify your request and may retain information when required by law.

If you live in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you can also ask us to restrict or stop using your information, object to our use of it, or receive a copy of it, and you can complain to the data protection authority where you live. If you live in Australia, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. We will answer requests within one month.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes are effective when posted on this page with an updated effective date.

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, contact us at contact.therustguide@gmail.com.