THE FINE PRINT

THE SHORT VERSION — THIS SITE HAS NO BACKEND DATABASE, NO COOKIES, NO ANALYTICS AND NO SERVER-SIDE ACCOUNTS. EVERYTHING YOU DO HERE IS STORED IN YOUR BROWSER'S LOCALSTORAGE. CLEARING SITE DATA ERASES ALL OF IT, EVERYWHERE, FOREVER — BECAUSE "EVERYWHERE" WAS ALWAYS JUST YOUR MACHINE.

WHAT I STORE, AND WHERE

Your XP, level, achievements, vault, dossier telemetry, forum threads and posts, and your account itself all live in localStorage, inside your browser, on your device. Your data never leaves your browser; technically, you are hosting yourself — and, by extension, me. Passwords are salted and hashed (SHA-256) before storage and are never transmitted anywhere. Not as a policy — as architecture. There is no server that could receive them.

The consequence is worth repeating: I cannot see your account, reset your password, or recover anything for you. Erasure is total and instant: clear this site's data in your browser settings (or run localStorage.clear() in the console, if you prefer drama) and every trace of your time here is gone. No backup. No grace period. No "are you sure". I find this arrangement existentially alarming and ethically perfect.

WHAT THE SERVER SEES

The site is static files served from a DigitalOcean droplet. Like every webserver since the first webserver, it writes standard access logs: IP address, user-agent, requested URL, timestamp. Those logs are retained briefly for security and operations, then rotate away. They are not analyzed for marketing, not enriched, not shared, and no analytics product is built on top of them. DNS for staresback.gg is handled by Cloudflare, which processes the lookups and routing that get you here under Cloudflare's own privacy policy.

WHAT YOUR BROWSER TELLS OTHER PEOPLE

Pages here load data and assets from third parties. Those requests come from your browser, so each host below receives standard request metadata: your IP address, your user-agent, and the URL being asked for. That is how HTTP works — I cannot unsend physics. None of them receive your save, your posts, or your identity, because those never leave localStorage.

HOST	WHY YOUR BROWSER TALKS TO IT
api.cheapshark.com	Game search and live deal prices for THE INDEX and LOOT DROPS. Deal links open through cheapshark.com/redirect.
staresback.gg/api/f2g + public CORS relays (api.allorigins.win, corsproxy.io, api.codetabs.com)	The FreeToGame catalog. FreeToGame publishes no CORS headers, so catalog requests race through this site's own relay and a few public relays — first valid answer wins, and any relay in the race may see the request.
www.freetogame.com	Game thumbnails and screenshots load directly as images from FreeToGame's servers.
cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com	Cover art for search results, from Steam's public image CDN.
cdn.emulatorjs.org	The EmulatorJS loader and RetroArch WebAssembly cores, fetched when you boot a cartridge in THE CABINET.
fonts.googleapis.com / fonts.gstatic.com	The three typefaces. Google sees the font request, per Google's privacy policy.

Files you load into YOUR SLOT are not on this list because they never generate a request at all — they go from your disk into your browser and stop there.

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• As-is, as-available. STARESBACK.GG is a free service provided with no warranty of any kind — express, implied, or emotionally implied. It may change, break, or go offline without notice. There is no SLA. There is barely an S.
• Your data is your responsibility. Accounts, saves and posts are device-local (see PRIVACY). If you clear your storage or lose the device, they are gone, and nothing can be recovered — because nothing was ever collected.
• Be decent in the forum. No harassment, hate, spam, doxxing, or illegal content. The standard applies even though your posts live in your own browser — you are decorating your copy of me, and I have taste.
• Moderation is real. The admin tools may remove content, lock threads, or reset boards. They operate on the local copy, but the house rules are the house rules in every copy of the house.
• Don't attack the machine. No attempts to disrupt the server, abuse the relay endpoints, or use this site as a component of anything unlawful.
• Terms can change. The compile date at the top of this page is the version number. Using the site after a change means you accept the change — the one classic clause I kept.

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Emulation software is legal. Courts settled that while some of these consoles were still on store shelves. THE CABINET uses EmulatorJS — RetroArch cores compiled to WebAssembly — which is open-source software running entirely in your browser. The legal questions around emulation were only ever about the ROMs, so here are the rules for those:

• Rule one — bundled means freely licensed. Every cartridge this server ships is homebrew that its author distributes freely (freeware, GPL, Creative Commons and similar). Each one is credited by name, source and license in the public ledger: roms/ATTRIBUTION.md.
• Rule two — commercial ROMs: never. Not hosted, not bundled, not linked, not indexed. There is no secret menu, and asking nicely does not unlock one.
• Rule three — YOUR SLOT is yours. Files you load there go straight from your disk into your browser's storage and are never uploaded; this server never sees the file, the filename, or that a file exists. The legality of your own dumps is your responsibility — own your cartridges and know your local law.

Homebrew authors: if your work is in the cabinet and you want different credit, a different link, or the game removed, email [email protected]. It will be handled quickly and with gratitude.

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If you believe content on this site infringes rights you own or represent, contact the operator:

Include the following, so the human can act on the first read:

• Identification of the work — what it is and who owns it.
• The exact URL(s) on staresback.gg where it appears.
• Your name and contact information.
• A good-faith statement that you own or represent the rights in question.

The commitment: notices are reviewed promptly by a human; content subject to a plausible claim is removed or disabled while it is assessed; and you receive a reply. Everything in THE CABINET is believed to be freely-licensed homebrew with full attribution — if something got through that shouldn't have, it comes down fast, and the ledger gets corrected with it.

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• Affiliate parameters. Deal links route through CheapShark's redirect service, and those redirects may carry partner or affiliate codes belonging to CheapShark — that is their platform's plumbing, not mine. STARESBACK.GG currently earns nothing from any click, purchase, or moment of retail weakness that happens here. If that ever changes, this section changes first, loudly.
• Trademarks. Nintendo, NES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Sega, Genesis, Mega Drive, Steam, and every other console, platform and game name on this site are trademarks of their respective owners. They appear here descriptively — to say which machine a cartridge runs on or where a price was found. No affiliation, sponsorship or endorsement exists or is implied.
• Price accuracy. Prices and discounts are live API data and can be stale, regional, or simply wrong by the time you click. The store's checkout page is the only number that legally matters. Verify before you pay; the loot gremlin would tell you the same.
• Nature of the establishment. Free and non-commercial. No sponsorships, no paid placement, no data sales — see PRIVACY for why there is nothing to sell.

⚠ NOTHING ON THIS PAGE IS LEGAL ADVICE TO YOU. IT IS THE SITE STATING, FOR THE RECORD, HOW IT BEHAVES — AND THE RECORD, AS ALWAYS HERE, IS PUBLIC.

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