Privacy

Overview

How Many Dudes Guide is an independent fan-made informational guide. It is not affiliated with, operated by, or endorsed by Butterscotch Shenanigans, and it is not an official game service. The site does not provide accounts, logins, profiles, comments, user submissions, newsletters, or embedded video and community widgets. Its published guide content, local datasets, and in-browser filtering features do not require a user database.

Analytics and Advertising are separate optional purposes. Advertising is limited to eligible visits and separately enabled formats under the conditions below. Availability is not a statement that every eligible location or placement currently has an active ad.

Hosting and Technical Request Information

The site is hosted by Vercel. Vercel and the network infrastructure used to deliver, secure, and operate the site may process standard technical request information, such as an IP address, browser or device details, requested URLs, timestamps, and security logs.

Analytics Purpose and Provider

The site uses Google Analytics 4, provided by Google, for measurement only: to understand site usage, audiences, and interactions with published guide pages, and to help improve the guide's content and navigation. Analytics is separate from advertising.

Relevant measurements may include page views, page changes detected through browser history, scrolling, and outbound-link clicks. The current site does not provide embedded videos, user-facing file downloads, account or newsletter forms, and its Characters search is an in-page local filter rather than a URL-query site search.

Regional Analytics Behavior

The site applies one of three Analytics classes: PRIOR-CHOICE, NORMAL, or UNKNOWN.

• In PRIOR-CHOICE, Analytics remains off until you explicitly allow Analytics through Allow Analytics or a clearly disclosed combined action. You may instead select Decline Analytics. The choice is non-blocking, and declining does not limit access to the site's content or normal features.
• In NORMAL, limited, measurement-only Analytics may operate without a prior affirmative Allow, but only when no explicit Decline is recorded. This default is not affirmative consent, the absence of a choice is not an Allow, and the site does not record NORMAL measurement as an Allow.
• In UNKNOWN, including when classification information is missing, unavailable, fails, or times out, Analytics fails closed and remains off. The site presents the same non-blocking Allow Analytics and Decline Analytics choices.

An explicit Decline always keeps Analytics off, including in NORMAL. A previously recorded Decline continues to be respected. A historical Allow is not treated as a newly made consent where a fresh choice is required.

Region Classification

To determine which Analytics class applies, the site may use country and first-level-region information that Vercel makes available in hosting request headers. For this classification, the browser receives only the resulting NORMAL, PRIOR-CHOICE, or UNKNOWN class. HMD does not return to the browser or persist raw IP addresses, cities, coordinates, or a durable region identity for this classification. This does not change the hosting and network processing described above.

Analytics Choices and Records

Allow Analytics and Decline Analytics are explicit user choices. Both may be remembered through a first-party preference mechanism. To remember the choice and demonstrate when it was made and which notice version was shown, HMD may retain the choice, its action time, and a link to the applicable notice version. This preference is not used as an advertising signal or cross-site identifier.

Cookies, Identifiers, and Google Processing

When Analytics is permitted to operate—through an explicit Allow where required or through the limited NORMAL measurement rule—Google Analytics may use first-party cookies and identifiers such as _ga and the applicable _ga_* family to distinguish users and sessions. Analytics may process page URLs, referrers, session information, approximate geography, and browser or device information.

An IP address is necessarily transmitted to Google's collection infrastructure when an Analytics request is sent. Google states that GA4 uses IP information at collection time to derive approximate location information and discards the IP address before it is logged in Analytics. Google processes Analytics information as an external service provider under Google's own terms and privacy practices.

Changing Your Analytics Choice

You can use Privacy Settings to change your Analytics preference later. Turning Analytics off after an Allow is a withdrawal of that choice; turning it off after NORMAL measurement is an opt-out rather than withdrawal of consent that was never given. Both result in a remembered Decline and Analytics remaining off.

When you turn Analytics off, future HMD Google Analytics measurement stops, later navigation or reload does not silently resume it until you make a valid change, and HMD removes Google Analytics first-party cookies and identifiers that it can access on its own domain. Changing your preference affects future collection and does not automatically delete all historical information already transmitted to or processed by Google. Applicable privacy, erasure, and request rights remain available.

Cookies and Browser Storage

The site uses first-party browser storage to remember separate Analytics and Advertising choices and supporting information about the action and notice shown. It also retains recognized advertising opt-outs. Temporary, tab-scoped protection may be used while a refusal is being saved or a page replacement is pending. These records are not cross-site advertising identifiers.

Google Analytics cookies or identifiers may be created only when Analytics is permitted under its own regional behavior. Advertising technologies may operate only when Advertising independently qualifies. Hosting or network infrastructure may also use essential technical mechanisms needed to deliver, secure, or protect the site.

Analytics and Advertising

An Analytics Allow authorizes only Analytics. Analytics operating under its NORMAL rule does not authorize Advertising. Changing one purpose does not change the other unless you explicitly choose an action that applies to both.

Advertising Provider and Availability

Where enabled for your visit, HMD uses Adsterra to display and measure advertising. Display Banner placements are limited to the Home and Characters pages. Native Banner placements are limited to the Guide and Tier List pages and operate only where that format is separately enabled. The Guides index, Privacy and Terms pages do not display ads.

Advertising availability depends on the region, enabled format, applicable audience protections, browser privacy signals and your choices.

Regional Advertising Behavior

This advertising phase is limited to Arizona, United States. Other locations are not included. Advertising remains off when location cannot be established or the visit, format or placement does not meet the other conditions. Your Allow cannot enable an excluded or otherwise unavailable visit.

In supported regions where advance consent is not required, Advertising may load after notice without a prior Allow, provided there is no refusal, retained opt-out or other blocking condition. This automatic operation is not recorded as your consent.

HMD does not start Advertising when the applicable region or required conditions cannot be established, when you decline it, or when a recognized privacy signal or applicable audience protection requires it. Already-started advertising is handled as described in Turning Advertising Off below. HMD does not request a substitute Adsterra advertising mode after Advertising is turned off.

An active Global Privacy Control or other recognized universal opt-out signal prevents new HMD ad loads. A browser that does not implement Global Privacy Control is not treated as having opted out merely because that signal is absent. In this Arizona-only phase, a transient signal alone does not create a permanent saved Advertising opt-out after it disappears. Explicit Advertising declines and valid saved opt-outs remain honored; existing saved records are not automatically cleared. Any signal-specific persistence required for an applicable jurisdiction still applies. If advertising has already started, blocking new loads does not mean that existing ads have stopped; their protected exit is handled separately. These signals do not, by themselves, change your Analytics choice.

Advertising Information and Technologies

Adsterra's published service information describes cookies, identifiers and tracking pixels used for advertising delivery and measurement. It describes technical and interaction information such as IP address, page URLs and referrers, browser or device information, approximate location, and ad views, clicks and interactions. This describes the provider's stated categories; it is not an exhaustive inventory of each enabled ad's downstream processing.

Adsterra's Privacy Policy↗opens in a new tab describes its service-level data handling, third-party access, retention rules, international transfers and privacy rights. Its Cookies Policy↗opens in a new tab describes cookies and related technologies, and its Publisher Terms↗opens in a new tab describe the publishing relationship. These are provider-level sources. Their cookie lists and periods are not a promise that every entry applies to an HMD ad, and HMD does not state a single retention period or transfer arrangement for all ads. Contact HMD at the address below for questions about processing on this site.

Privacy Settings and Separate Choices

Open Privacy Settings in the footer to review or change your choices. When both purposes are offered, Accept all requests permission for Analytics and Advertising separately. Reject all requests that both optional purposes be turned off. Manage choices lets you choose each purpose separately and then save your changes.

Opening settings does not itself change a choice. The settings show existing choices and any unavailable Advertising state. Where Advertising is unavailable, the independent Allow Analytics and Decline Analytics controls remain available.

Rejecting optional processing does not restrict access to guide content. Silence, scrolling or continued browsing is not consent. A saved refusal is not cleared merely because you return, open settings or move to another region.

Turning Advertising Off

If advertising has not started, declining it prevents HMD from starting it. If it has already started, switching Advertising off immediately blocks new HMD ad loads. An already-running ad may remain active until the page is replaced.

If advertising has already started, HMD automatically requests one full page reload only after every refusal made in that action has been saved and verified, and all relevant earlier refusals remain protected for the next page. If advertising has never started, this advertising-refusal process does not add a page reload. If saving fails, settings report each affected purpose and offer Retry save; HMD does not automatically reload to bypass the failure. A successful refusal for the other purpose is retained.

If saving succeeds but the reload has not completed, settings explain that the Advertising off preference is saved while existing ads may still be running. When the page remains usable, Retry page reload rechecks that the relevant refusal choices are protected before requesting another reload.

Turning Advertising off after a previous Allow withdraws that choice. Turning it off after automatic regional loading is an opt-out. Both suppress future HMD ad loads. A later valid change must still satisfy the applicable availability and privacy conditions.

Changing the setting does not automatically delete all information previously received by Adsterra or its downstream recipients, or storage that HMD cannot access. Applicable privacy and erasure request rights remain available. Analytics withdrawal retains its separate measurement-stopping and accessible-cookie cleanup behavior.

Operator and Privacy Requests

This site is personally operated under the public site/operator label How Many Dudes Guide. This label is not the name of a registered legal entity. For privacy questions or requests, including concerns about a visitor who may be a minor, contact privacy@howmanydudesguide.com.

External Sites

Links to official and community resources open services controlled by their own providers. Their cookies, data handling, and privacy terms apply after you leave this site.

Future Changes

If the site adds or materially changes an advertising format, an Analytics provider, accounts, comments, newsletters, embeds, or another feature that changes data handling, this notice must be reviewed and updated before the new processing is published.