We offer an Implementation Wizard with vendor presets.
Try it now~We aim at providing a well-defined way for websites and services to signal their usage of analytics and tracking software to users and make it discoverable for their tooling.
analytics.txt will be designed to be an elaborate standard that describes the usage of analytics and tracking in a non-biased way that is understandable both for a non-technical audience, but is also useful for consumption by tools and software.
We have submitted a first version of the specification as an Internet-Draft. We welcome any kind of feedback to initiate a discussion on our proposal.
View Internet-DraftRegulations around the handling of user data on websites are evolving quickly and mandate certain practices. An analytics.txt file can give auditors instant insights on what is in use and how this maps to the applicable regulations.
Users value websites that are transparent about the privacy implications their usage brings. analytics.txt can disclose such information to your users without hiding behind the walls of legalese text that have become an industry practice.
Tools like crawlers or Browser extensions can read and parse the data in analytics.txt and use it to signal privacy metrics to users and other third parties.
# analytics.txt file for www.analyticstxt.org Author: Frederik Ring <hioffen@posteo.de> Collects: url, referrer, device-type Stores: first-party-cookies, local-storage # Usage data is encrypted end-to-end Uses: javascript # Users can also delete their usage data only without opting out Allows: opt-in, opt-out # Data is retained for 6 months Retains: 186 days # Optional fields Honors: none Tracks: sessions, users Varies: none Shares: per-user Implements: gdpr Deploys: offen
The preferred default location for your analytics.txt file is the /.well-known/ path of your web server. If this is not ideal or possible for you, there are two alternatives:
Use a <link rel="analytics.txt" href="/path/to/analytics.txt"> in the head of your document.
Send a X-Analytics-Txt: https://www.example.com/path/to/analytics.txt HTTP header with your documents.
We want to make the specification as accessible as possible for everyone. That is why we offer an Implementation Wizard with vendor presets included in it.
analytics.txt is designed in a way that there are no right or wrong answers, so we start by trusting others to populate it correctly. If you are unsure about the correctness of such a file, you can do two things:
Contact the email address given in the mandatory Author field of the analytics.txt file, asking for clarification.
Use the Audit Tool we will be providing to check for basic conformance.
Do you have feedback on analytics.txt? Do you have an idea for an application that could consume the provided data? Are you as enthusiastic about fair data transfer as we are?
Reach out to us and feel invited to take this idea forward together.