Privacy Policy
Last updated 22 September 2026
This policy explains what our game servers, this website and our store collect about you, why, who else sees it, and how to have it removed. It goes with our Terms of Service.
The short version. We collect what it takes to run game servers and deliver what you buy: your Steam ID, what you bought, and the ordinary logs any game or web server keeps. No ads, no analytics, no selling data. Payments are taken by PayNow under its own privacy policy, and we never see your card.
- Who is responsible
- What we collect, and why
- Cookies and browser storage
- Who we share it with
- Where it is stored
- How long we keep it
- Your choices and rights
- Children
- Security
- Changes to this policy
- Contact
1. Who is responsible
MrK Wardogs, the community-run group that hosts the WARDOGS servers listed on this site, runs mrkdogs.com, sells digital goods for those servers through its store and takes donations. We are not affiliated with BULKHEAD Interactive or Valve. The quickest way to reach us about anything in this policy is our Discord.
2. What we collect, and why
Playing on our servers
When you join one of our game servers, the server itself records what any WARDOGS server does: your Steam ID, your in-game name, your IP address, when you connected and left, and in-game chat and reports. We use this to run the server, moderate it, enforce the Rules, and deal with cheating and attacks. Ban records keep your Steam ID for as long as the ban lasts. The live player counts on the home page are numbers only.
The leaderboard is different. While it is switched on, we read each server’s player list about once a minute and bank your kills, deaths, cash earned and time played, against your Steam ID, and publish them on that page under your in-game name, ranked. Your Steam ID is what keeps the tally per account; it is not published. If you would rather not appear, ask in Discord and we will hide your account from the boards.
Visiting this website
Our web host sees what any website’s host sees: your IP address, your browser, and the pages and files you request, in its standard access logs. We use IP addresses briefly to rate-limit abuse, for example repeated Steam profile lookups, and we note failed admin sign-ins. There is no advertising and no analytics or tracking script. Fonts, scripts and images are served from our own domain, so simply reading a page contacts nobody else.
Signing in through Steam
The store lets you sign in with your Steam account so a rank goes to the right place. This uses Steam’s own sign-in (OpenID). Steam tells us your 17-digit Steam ID and nothing else; we then read your public profile name and avatar from your Steam profile so the cart can show who is signed in. We never see your Steam password or email. A signed cookie remembers you for a few hours, or until you sign out from the cart.
Buying digital goods, or donating
When you check out, whether for a rank (a digital good delivered to a Steam account) or a donation, we send PayNow the products and quantities in your cart, your Steam ID, and the Steam ID of anyone you are gifting to, so it can build your checkout. PayNow collects your payment details, email address and billing information itself, under its Privacy Policy. We never see card numbers.
PayNow then tells us about the order: its order number, the items, the amount and currency, its status (paid, cancelled, refunded or charged back), your Steam ID and profile name, and any gift recipient. We keep this in an order log so we can deliver your perks, help you with the order, and handle refunds and chargebacks. To deliver a perk, your Steam ID (or the recipient’s) is sent to the game server you bought it for, for example to add it to the reserved-slot list or to send a welcome message.
Looking up a Steam account for a gift
When you look up who a gift is for, by Steam ID, custom URL or profile link, our server fetches that account’s public Steam profile (name and avatar) and shows it to you so you can check it is the right person. The result is cached for a few minutes. The recipient’s avatar image loads from Steam’s servers, so Steam sees a normal image request from your browser. The recipient’s Steam ID goes on the order.
Prices in your currency
Your browser’s language and time zone pick a currency to show prices in, and you can change it from the menu. That decision happens in your browser and is remembered there. The exchange rates come from the European Central Bank via frankfurter.app, fetched by our server; your browser does not contact them.
Discord
Joining our Discord is covered by Discord’s own privacy policy. To give you a rank’s Discord perks, our staff may note your Steam ID against your Discord account.
The media page
Clips and photos we host are served from our own site. Twitch and YouTube players load only when you press play on one of their clips, and at that point those services may set their own cookies (YouTube is loaded through its privacy-enhanced domain). Our server asks Twitch whether our streamers are live; your browser does not contact Twitch for that.
3. Cookies and browser storage
We set no third-party cookies, and none of the following is used for tracking or advertising.
| Name | What it does | How long |
|---|---|---|
wardogs_steam | Cookie. Who you signed in as through Steam, signed so it cannot be altered. | A few hours, or until you sign out. |
wardogs_steam_nonce | Cookie. Protects the Steam sign-in from being tampered with on its way back. | 10 minutes. |
wardogs_session | Cookie. The admin panel sign-in. Staff only. | Until it expires or the staff member signs out. |
wardogs_cart, wardogs_cart_parked | Browser storage. Your cart, and a copy of it while you are over on PayNow so it can be restored if you come back without paying. | Until you empty the cart or clear your browser data. |
wardogs_currency | Browser storage. The currency you chose for prices. | Until you clear your browser data. |
wardogs_steam_id | Browser storage. A Steam ID you typed in, so you need not type it again. | Until you clear your browser data. |
Browser storage stays on your device and is never sent to us on its own. You can clear all of it from your browser’s settings.
4. Who we share it with
- PayNow (paynow.gg) takes payments and holds your payment and billing details. It receives your cart, your Steam ID and any gift recipient’s Steam ID from us, and sends us the order details described above.
- Steam (Valve) handles the sign-in and serves the profile names and avatars we look up.
- Our game servers, hosted in Australia and North America, receive the Steam IDs that perks are delivered to.
- Our web host and database provider store the site, its settings, and the order log on our behalf.
- frankfurter.app supplies exchange rates. It receives no personal data; the request comes from our server.
- Discord, Twitch and YouTube only if you join the Discord or play one of their clips, under their own policies.
We do not sell or rent personal data, and we do not share it for advertising. We may disclose it if the law requires, or where it is needed to protect the servers and the people on them, such as reporting an attack to a host.
5. Where it is stored
The game servers are in Australia and North America. The website, its settings and the order log are stored with our web host and database provider, which may keep them in another country. By using the site and the servers you accept that your data may be handled outside the country you live in.
6. How long we keep it
- Game server logs for as long as we need them for moderation, after which they are rotated out. Ban records for the life of the ban.
- Web server logs for the short period our host keeps them.
- The order log for as long as a rank is active and for as long as we need it to answer support questions and defend chargebacks, after which older orders are trimmed.
- Steam profile lookups for a few minutes in memory.
- Leaderboard tallies until we reset them. Monthly figures are dropped after a few months; all-time figures stay while the boards run. Ask to be hidden and your account leaves the boards straight away.
- Cookies and browser storage as in the table above.
7. Your choices and rights
- Sign out of Steam on this site from the cart at any time, and clear your cart and preferences from your browser settings.
- Cancel a subscription through PayNow, using the link in your receipt email.
- Ask us in Discord to see, correct or delete what we hold against your Steam ID. We will do so unless we need to keep an order record for a chargeback, fraud or legal reason, and we will tell you if that is the case. Deleting your order record means we can no longer restore its perks.
- Payment data is held by PayNow. Ask them directly about it, using the contact details in their privacy policy.
Depending on where you live, you may have further rights over your data under laws such as the GDPR, the UK GDPR, the Australian Privacy Act or US state privacy laws, including the right to complain to your local data protection authority. Ask us in Discord and we will help.
8. Children
This site and the store are not aimed at children under 13, and the game carries its own age rating. If we learn we hold personal data about a child under 13, we will delete it. Anyone under 18 needs a parent or guardian’s permission to buy from the store.
9. Security
The site is served over HTTPS. Keys and passwords stay on the server and never reach the browser, sign-in cookies are signed and cannot be read by page scripts, and the order log is available only to staff who are signed in to the admin panel. No system is perfect, and if something goes wrong that affects your data we will say so in Discord.
10. Changes to this policy
We will post any change on this page and update the date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use your data, we will also say so in Discord.
11. Contact
Anything about this policy or your data: message us in our Discord.