Disclose what you collect

We are building Offen, a fair web analytics software that treats operators and users as equal parties. Operators can gain insights into how users interact with their services, while ensuring that they retain full control over their data.

We have just drafted a standards proposition that will allow websites and services to disclose information about their use of analytics software and tracking software.

As this relates to our work on Offen, we want to give some insight into this matter. Read the full version of this article on the Offen blog.

The variety of privacy regulations worldwide and the consequently varying techniques for collecting usage data make web analytics a cluttered field. Terms such as "data protection" or "privacy-friendly" are widely used and show up regularly in consent banners and privacy statements of websites and services.

Nevertheless, it is often difficult to find out what they really stand for in a specific case. Thats why we believe that a comprehensive description of the use of analytics and tracking is missing. It should be understandable for a non-technical audience, but also suitable for processing by software.

Earlier this year, we started working on such a standard and named it analytics.txt. For now, it is available as a draft and waits to be discussed. We are actively looking for reviewers and welcome any feedback. Feel welcomed to take this idea forward together and get in touch with us. For more information on the standard and its implementation, have a look on the dedicated website.

View analyticstxt.org