Privacy policy
What this site collects, why, and how to have it deleted.
Last updated 23 September 2026.
Free Word Searches is a library of printable puzzles. You do not need an account to use it, and almost everything here works without the site knowing anything about you. This policy describes the site as it actually works, rather than as a general description of websites.
Your email address, and what is done with it
There are two moments this site can learn an email address, and it treats them differently.
When you make a puzzle
The maker offers an optional email address. If you give one it is not stored as you typed it. It is turned into a one-way code and only that code is kept, attached to the puzzle. The code cannot be turned back into your address, and it is computed with a secret key, so it cannot be matched against a list of addresses either.
That is deliberate, and not only for your sake: if addresses were stored as typed, anyone could file their puzzle under your address and it would turn up in your account.
When you sign in
Signing in has no password. You give an address, we email a link to it, and opening that link proves you can read that mailbox. At that point — and not before — the address is stored properly, because a link has to be delivered somewhere. Any puzzle whose one-way code matches becomes yours and appears on your list.
- What the account does: shows you the puzzles you made. That is all it does. There is nothing to configure and nothing to pay for.
- Sign-in links work once and expire after fifteen minutes. The link itself is never stored — only a code derived from it — so a copy of our database does not let anyone sign in as you.
- Staying signed in uses one cookie holding a signed token. It carries no personal data. Signing out deletes it.
- Who sees your address: nobody. It is never shown on the site, never attached to anything the site publishes, and not passed to anyone else.
- Getting rid of it: email info@freewordsearches.net. Your account and address are deleted. The puzzles stay up unless you ask for those too.
Addresses from the previous version of this site
The site that came before this one recorded an address against puzzles people made, going back to 2011. Those addresses have not been carried into this site. What exists here is the same kind of one-way code described above — 7,311 of them — and nothing else. We cannot read them, email them, or work out who they belong to.
They exist for one purpose: so that if you made puzzles here years ago and you sign in with the address you used then, your puzzles find their way back to you. If you never sign in, the code is never resolved and nothing happens. To have yours removed without signing in, write to us — tell us the address, and the matching code is deleted.
Anything you type into a puzzle is published
A puzzle’s title, description and word list are public the moment you publish, and are meant to be — that is what the library is. Do not put anything private in them, including your own or anyone else’s name, school, class list or contact details. A puzzle cannot be edited afterwards, though it can be taken down: ask.
Advertising, and the cookies that come with it
This site is paid for by advertising through Google AdSense. Google and its partners use cookies and similar technology to serve and measure ads, and may use your previous visits to this and other sites to choose which ads you see. That happens between you and Google; this site does not receive it and does not give Google anything about you.
You can control what Google does with this at adssettings.google.com, and read how Google uses data from sites that use its services at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. Your browser can also block or delete cookies; the puzzles and the printing work regardless.
What else the site records
- How often a puzzle is opened. A count per puzzle, which is what the “most opened” lists are built from. It is a number, not a record of who.
- A short-lived note of the address a submission came from, held in memory only, to stop one source publishing thousands of puzzles at once. It is not written down and does not survive a restart.
- Ordinary server logs. Like any website, the hosting that serves these pages records requests, which includes IP addresses, for operating and securing the service.
Children
This site is used in schools, and students use it. It is designed so that they do not have to hand over anything: no account, no sign-in, and no personal data needed to open, solve or print a puzzle. The only field that asks for personal data is the optional email on the maker, which is there for the adult publishing a puzzle. Please do not enter a student’s address, or a student’s name in a puzzle. If you believe a child has given us an address, tell us and it will be deleted.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask what personal data is held about you, to have it corrected or deleted, and to object to it being used. Since the only thing this site may hold is an email address you typed in yourself, in practice that means: ask, and it is deleted. Write to info@freewordsearches.net.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Changes apply from when they are posted, not backwards.