That’s something I was actually worried about! When I play Wordle, especially on May 18 but really any day, I kinda forget there's a bunch of tracking going on. I read that the New York Times collects info like what puzzles I play, stuff I click, and even combines it with things I’ve done on other sites. So yeah, it builds up this profile about what you like, maybe even your style of puzzles, and that gets used by advertisers who wanna show you stuff they think you’ll buy.

I noticed more cycling gear ads after I read an article about bikes, so that tracking is real. It freaks me out a bit that like 140 different advertisers are getting all this info just because I wanna guess five-letter words! You can lower how much they know by using privacy settings or private browsing, but they still get some info. I still play because it’s fun, but I’d say don’t use your real name and check your privacy settings if you care about that.