Puddle Rocket

Privacy

This site is made for children, so it is built to ask for as little as possible and keep as little as possible. This page is for parents, caregivers and teachers.

Last updated October 28, 2026

Who we are

Puddle Rocket is run by Alternate Thread Studios, McLean, Virginia. You can reach us through the contact page or at hello@puddlerocket.com.

The short version

  • We do not collect personal information from children. There are no accounts, sign-ups, comments, uploads, newsletters or contests.
  • We do not use cookies, browser storage that identifies you, analytics, advertising, tracking scripts or social media code.
  • The site’s pages, pictures and fonts all come from puddlerocket.com. The one exception is a spam check from Cloudflare on the adult contact page.
  • Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, processes technical information such as IP addresses to deliver the site and keep it secure. We use that only to run and protect the site.
  • If an adult writes to us, we keep the email only as long as we need it to reply.

What the site does in your browser

  • Pages and pictures. Everything is served from puddlerocket.com. Pictures further down a page load as you scroll, also from puddlerocket.com. The site loads no fonts, scripts, images, videos or players from other companies, except on the contact page (see below).
  • The “Try saying it” buttons. A small script lights up the sound chunks of a dinosaur’s name. It runs entirely in your browser, does not use the microphone, records nothing and sends nothing.
  • Cookies and storage. We do not set cookies or use local storage, session storage or similar browser storage. Like any website, your browser may keep copies of our public files (pictures, styles) in its cache so pages load faster; those copies contain nothing about you.
  • Links to other sites. Source links go to museum, journal and reference websites, and our video links go to YouTube. Those sites have their own privacy practices. Your browser is told not to send them the address of the page you came from.

What our hosting provider processes

The site is served by Cloudflare. To deliver each page and protect the site from attacks and abuse, Cloudflare’s network processes technical information about each request: the IP address, the page requested, the browser’s identifying string and similar connection details. We use this processing only to run the site: delivering pages, security, preventing spam and limiting abuse. We do not use it to identify or contact anyone, to build profiles, or for advertising.

We have not switched on Cloudflare’s optional visitor analytics, request logging or log exports for this site, so we do not receive per-visitor records. Cloudflare gives us aggregate totals, such as how many requests the site served; these do not identify anyone. Cloudflare’s own handling of this information is described in Cloudflare’s privacy policy.

Children

We treat the whole site as directed to children under 13 and design it with the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), as amended in 2025, in mind. We do not ask children for personal information, and nothing on the site invites them to give it. We do not use an age gate or a “parents only” label to get around this.

The technical information our host processes, described above, is used only to deliver and protect the site, not to contact a child, build a profile or show advertising.

If a child’s personal information reaches us anyway, for example in an email, we delete it as soon as we notice and keep no copy. The only exception is when the message suggests a child may be at risk, or the law requires us to keep or report it; then we keep only what is needed, limit who can see it, and act on it.

Writing to us

There are two ways to write to the studio, both for adults: the contact form and the address hello@puddlerocket.com. Children should not write to us, and we never invite them to.

  • The contact form asks for your email address, a message, an optional name, and confirmation that you are an adult. Cloudflare Turnstile, a spam check from Cloudflare, runs in your browser on that page only; Cloudflare processes technical details of your visit for it under its own privacy policy, and we do not receive them. Our server then checks the message (length, a hidden field that only robots fill in, no more than two links, and a limit on how many messages one connection can send in a minute) and emails it through Cloudflare to the studio’s inbox, with your address as the reply address. The website keeps no copy.
  • Email to hello@puddlerocket.com is forwarded by Cloudflare’s email routing to the studio’s inbox.
  • The studio’s inbox is an email account hosted by Google Workspace. A message stays there while we deal with it. We delete it once the conversation is finished, and in any case within 90 days of the last message, unless the law, a dispute, or a child’s safety requires us to keep it longer.
  • We use your address only to reply. We never add anyone to a mailing list, and we do not sell or share messages.

Our videos on YouTube

Puddle Rocket’s videos are published on YouTube, and this site links to them; it does not embed YouTube players. When you follow a link to YouTube, you are on YouTube’s service, and Google’s privacy policy applies there, not this one. Our videos are marked as made for kids on YouTube.

Your choices

If you have written to us and want your message deleted sooner, or want to know whether we still have it, ask through the contact page. A parent who believes their child has sent us information can ask the same; we will delete it.

Changes

If the site starts doing anything not described here, this page changes first, and the date at the top changes with it.