1. Overview & Terms of Use
Welcome to Word Neighbor. By accessing or playing Word Neighbor (the "Game"), you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions outlined on this page. If you do not agree with any part of these terms, your sole remedy is to cease using the Game.
2. Intellectual Property & Ownership
The concept, source code, game design, rules, visual layout, graphics, branding, and original content comprising Word Neighbor are the exclusive property of Michael Teter and are protected by copyright, trademark, and applicable intellectual property laws.
All rights not expressly granted to users under these terms are strictly reserved by the owner.
3. Permitted Use & License
Word Neighbor is provided as a free, web-based game for personal, non-commercial, and entertainment use only.
You may:
- Play the Game freely on supported web browsers for personal entertainment.
- Share links to the Game with friends, colleagues, or on social media platforms.
You may not:
- Sell, license, rent, monetize, or commercially exploit the Game or any part of its source code.
- Copy, modify, frame, mirror, redistribute, or create derivative works based on the Game without prior explicit written permission.
- Automate access, reverse engineer, or scrape game assets, dictionaries, or puzzle datasets for non-personal use.
4. Privacy Policy & Data Collection
Your privacy is important to us. Word Neighbor is designed with a privacy-first approach:
- Usage Analytics Only: We collect aggregate web usage metrics solely to understand game performance, measure aggregate player activity, and improve the overall game experience.
- No Identifiable Personal Data: We do not collect names, email addresses, phone numbers, or any personally identifiable information (PII).
- No Data Sales or Commercial Sharing: We do not sell, rent, or trade any user data or analytics with advertisers, data brokers, or third parties.
- Hosting & Infrastructure: The Game is hosted on Cloudflare, which processes web traffic and provides privacy-focused web analytics for site reliability and aggregate metrics. Data processed by Cloudflare is governed by Cloudflare's Privacy Policy.
- Local Storage (`localStorage`): The Game uses your browser's local storage solely to save non-sensitive user preferences on your device (such as your chosen visual theme and letter casing preference). No tracking cookies are used.
5. Credits & Third-Party Attributions
Word Neighbor relies on several open-source projects, public APIs, datasets, and community resources to power its gameplay, word definitions, and visual design:
- Free Dictionary API: Interactive word definitions, meanings, phonetics, and pronunciation audio snippets presented in the game's definition modal are powered by the Free Dictionary API (Source code: GitHub meetshah1995/free-dictionary-api).
- Wiktionary & Wikimedia Foundation: Definition content, phonetic transcriptions, and recorded pronunciation audio are sourced from Wiktionary, the collaborative free dictionary maintained by the Wikimedia community. Content from Wiktionary is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-SA 3.0) and the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).
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Lexicons & Word Datasets: Candidate word validation, starter word selection, and game difficulty balance utilize open benchmark lexicons and frequency corpora, including:
- ENABLE1 Lexicon: The Enhanced North American Benchmark Lexicon, standard benchmark wordlist for word games.
- Scrabble SOWPODS: The official international tournament Scrabble word list used for English spelling verification.
- Frequency Corpora: Google Ngram Trillion Word Corpus frequency datasets and OpenSubtitles conversational frequency lists used for filtering common starter words.
- Typography & Fonts: Visual typography features the Outfit font (by Onur Yazıcıgil) and JetBrains Mono font (by JetBrains), served via Google Fonts under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.
- Web Hosting & Infrastructure: Edge function routing, static hosting, and privacy-first site analytics are provided by Cloudflare, Inc.
6. Disclaimer of Warranty
Word Neighbor is provided on an "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" basis, without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory.
Without limiting the foregoing, the owner explicitly disclaims any warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, quiet enjoyment, or uninterrupted, error-free operation of the Game.
7. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall Michael Teter or any affiliates be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages resulting from your access to, use of, or inability to access or use the Game.
8. Changes to Terms
These legal terms and privacy policies may be updated periodically. Any updates will be reflected directly on this page with immediate effect upon posting.
9. Contact Information
If you have questions, feedback, or inquiries, please feel free to get in touch with us using the appropriate email address below:
- General Inquiries & Feedback: For general questions, feature suggestions, or feedback about Word Neighbor, contact [email protected].
- Legal & Privacy Matters: For legal inquiries, copyright notices, trademark questions, or privacy policy matters, contact [email protected].