Privacy & Analytics

Last Updated: January 8, 2025

Analytics

This website uses Umami Analytics, a privacy-focused, open-source analytics platform. Unlike traditional analytics solutions, Umami is designed with privacy at its core.

What I Track

I collect basic, anonymous usage statistics to understand how people use this site:

• Page views and navigation patterns
• Referral sources (where visitors come from)
• Device type (desktop, mobile, tablet)
• Browser and operating system
• Geographic location (country level only)

What I Don't Track

• No personal information
• No cookies are stored on your device
• No cross-site tracking
• No IP addresses are stored
• No user profiling or fingerprinting

What "Anonymous" Means in Practice

When I say the analytics are anonymous, here's what that actually means:

• No unique identifiers: No user IDs, session IDs, or tracking cookies
• IP addresses are not stored: Your IP address is used only to determine country-level location, then immediately discarded
• Aggregated data only: I see numbers like "50 visitors today" not "John from Amsterdam visited at 2pm"
• No cross-site tracking: The analytics only work on this site, they don't follow you around the internet
• Cannot be linked to you: Even if I wanted to, I cannot identify who you are or build a profile about you

In technical terms: Umami hashes your IP address with a daily rotating salt for session detection, then discards the original IP. This means consecutive page views are grouped as a "session" but I cannot identify you as an individual, track you across days, or link visits to any personal information.

The analytics are so privacy-focused that even I (the site owner and Umami hoster) cannot filter out my own visits.

Privacy Compliance

Umami Analytics is:

• GDPR compliant - No personal data is collected
• Cookie-free - Works without storing any cookies
• Self-hosted - Data is stored on my own server, not shared with third parties
• Open source - The code is publicly auditable at GitHub

For more information about how Umami protects your privacy, see Umami's privacy documentation.

Your Choice

You can disable analytics tracking at any time using the button in the footer of this page. Your preference is stored locally in your browser and will be respected on all future visits.

When tracking is disabled:

• No analytics data is collected from your visits
• The analytics script still loads but doesn't record any events
• Your preference persists across sessions

Data Usage

The analytics data helps me:

• Understand which content resonates most with readers
• Improve the site structure and navigation
• Identify technical issues
• Occasionally share interesting insights in blog posts about traffic patterns or popular content

I never:

• Sell or share your data with third parties
• Use tracking for advertising purposes
• Attempt to identify individual visitors

When I share analytics insights on the blog, all data remains anonymous and aggregated. I only discuss general trends like "which posts were most popular" or "where traffic comes from", never individual visitor behaviour.

Questions

If you have questions about privacy or data collection on this site, feel free to reach out via email or Mastodon.