Data Policy
At Proxima Analytics, we are committed to respecting the privacy of website visitors and tracking website usage without collecting personal data or personally identifiable information (PII), and without using cookies. Our data policy provides detailed information about the information we do collect, how we use it, and the steps we have taken to comply with cookie law and privacy regulations such as the GDPR, CCPA, and PECR.
We take the protection of personal data seriously, and we have implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure that data processing is carried out in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. We regularly review and update our processes and systems to ensure that we continue to meet the highest standards of data protection and privacy.
Privacy-First Data Collection and Use at Proxima
At Proxima, we are committed to protecting the privacy of website visitors and tracking website usage in a way that does not compromise that privacy. We do not track individuals across their devices or across websites and apps that they visit. All data is isolated to a single day, single website, and single device only. There is no way to know whether the same person visits a site from more than one device or visits another website.
Our goal is to track overall trends and behaviours in website traffic, not to track individual visitors. We do not use cookies, generate persistent identifiers, or collect or store any personal or identifiable data. All data we collect is aggregated data only and contains no personal information. For more information about the specific data we collect and how we use it, please see our full data processing agreement.
To ensure that all site measurements are carried out absolutely anonymously, we collect only the most essential data points and nothing else. Our collection of metrics pretty minimal. By limiting the data we collect and using it only for the purposes outlined in our data policy, we strive to provide accurate, useful website analytics without compromising the privacy of your visitors.
Following you may find a complete list of the data points we collect and store about your website visitors:
| Data Point | Example | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Page | https://snoopdog.com/shizzle | We track the page URL of each page view on your website. We use this information to show you which pages have been viewed and how many times a particular page has been viewed. The hostname and path are collected, but query parameters are discarded, with the exception of the following special query parameters: ref= , source= , utm_source= , utm_medium= , and utm_campaign=. |
| Referer | https://example.com | We use referrers to identify the source of incoming traffic to our website. Referrers do not contain personal information and are not used to identify individual visitors. |
| Browser | Firefox 11 | This information is derived and detected from the User-Agent HTTP header and helps us understand which browsers and versions are most commonly used on your website or services. The full User-Agent is discarded after it is used to extract this information. |
| Device | Smart TV | This information is derived and detected from the User-Agent HTTP header and helps us understand which devices are most commonly used on your website or services. The full User-Agent is discarded after it is used to extract this information. |
| Operating System | Windows 11 | This information is derived and detected from the User-Agent HTTP header and helps us understand which operating systems and versions are most commonly used on your website or services. The full User-Agent is discarded after it is used to extract this information. |
| Country, region, city | Germany, Brandenburg, Berlin | To determine a visitor's location, we use their IP address to identify the country, region, and city they are in. We use the MaxMind Geolite2 database to extract this information. We do not track or store any information that is more specific than the city level, and we never save IP addresses in our database, internal systems, or logs. By doing this, we ensure that our visitors' personal information remains private and secure. |
How We Count Unique and Returning Users without Cookies
Tracking unique visitors is an important part of web analytics. We strive to balance the need to accurately count page views with the importance of respecting our visitors' privacy. To do this, we do not use any methods that involve generating a device-persistent identifier, which is considered personal data under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Additionally, we do not use cookies, browser cache, or local storage to track visitors. We also do not store, retrieve, or extract any information from our visitors' devices. By taking these steps, we aim to protect our visitors' privacy while still providing valuable insights through our web analytics.
Every HTTP request includes the sender's IP address and User-Agent, which we use to track unique visitors. To do this, we generate a daily changing identifier by combining the visitor's IP address and User-Agent. To protect our visitors' privacy, we anonymise these data points by running them through a hash function with a rotating random string of characters (salt). This makes it impossible to connect the data we collect to individual users.
hash_function(salt + website identifier + IP address + User-Agent)
This hashing function generates a unique identification sequence of letters, characters, and numbers that is used to mark each visitor as unique. Using the same technique, we can progressively and anonymously create future references in order to track future visits and interactions. Since we cannot decipher the generated hash, and we cannot connect the hash to any other data points, we cannot track individual users.
Generated salts that are more than 24 hours old are automatically deleted from our systems to prevent linking visitors' information across a timeframe. This also ensures that stored user identifiers cannot be decrypted. We use the SHA-2 (Secure Hash Algorithm 2) as our hashing algorithm, which cannot be reversed.
All of the generated salts are complex, and even if there were a data breach, it would take more than 63 million years for a normal computer to brute force a single user's identifier. This makes it highly unlikely that an attacker would be able to crack the salt and access a user's information.
We would be happy to provide you with information about how Proxima Analytics is built to help you comply with various privacy regulations. We encourage you to talk to your lawyer about specific issues to help you determine whether our service allows you to meet the legal requirements that apply to your jurisdiction.
Hosting & Infrastructure
We are a small team based in Greece, and we are legally bound by Greek and EU law. Our legal entity is incorporated in Greece. As a result, we take privacy and data protection very seriously, and we strive to ensure that we always meet the relevant legal requirements.
We take data security and privacy very seriously, and we take several measures to ensure that all of the data that we track and collect is kept safe and secure.
All of the data is encrypted and hosted on servers that are powered by 100% renewable energy in Germany and France. The servers are owned by Hetzner and Scaleway, two European companies that are certified with ISO/IEC 27001. This ensures that all of the website data is protected by the European Union's strict laws on data privacy.
We have worked hard to limit the number of external services that we use, and none of them has access to any of the data that we collect. We do not use any third-party vendors other than the hosting company that owns the servers where the data is stored. You can read more about this in our privacy policy.
Additionally, you do not need to worry about Schrems II and its potential invalidation of the EU-US Privacy Shield. Your website data never leaves the European Union, so it is always protected by the EU's strict data protection laws.
Data Ownership
When you use our service to measure your website stats, Proxima Analytics will collect information about your visitors. We take the trust you place in us very seriously, and we understand that the privacy of your site data is important to you.
It is important to note that when you use Proxima, you retain 100% ownership of your website data. Even though your site analytics are stored on our server in the cloud when you use our hosted service, you remain in complete control of your data and you retain full ownership of it.
When using our service you own all rights, title, and interest in your website data. We do not acquire any rights to your website data from you and we will never sell or share your site data with any third parties.
When you use Proxima Analytics to measure your website stats, your data is kept private and secure. We take the privacy of your website data very seriously thus we do not share your data with advertising companies or any other third parties. Your data is not sent to anyone outside of our organisation, and it is not mined or harvested for personal or behavioral trends. Additionally, we do not monetise your website data in any way. We believe in protecting your data and keeping it private. We are committed to maintaining the trust you place in us by using our service.
At any time, you can choose to delete your account and your site statistics. We provide easy-to-use, no-questions-asked deletion links for this purpose. When you delete your account or your site stats, all of your stats will be permanently deleted immediately. We are unable to recover any information that has been permanently deleted. You can rest assured that your data will be completely removed from our systems when you choose to delete your account or your site statistics.
Privacy Focused Transparency
Proxima Analytics is an open-source website analytics tool that offers transparency and security for its users. Our code is available on GitHub and GitLab for anyone to review, contribute, inspect, and verify that we are following our own privacy principles.
This level of openness is essential for building trust in the field of privacy software, as it allows experts and users to see for themselves how our tool handles their data. Additionally, open-source code allows for community collaboration and involvement in the development of our software. We believe in the importance of transparency and trust in the handling of personal data, and we strive to provide a tool that upholds these values.
Privacy Compliant Web Analytics
Proxima Analytics offers a privacy-friendly and compliant solution for website analytics. With our tool, you don't need to worry about annoying GDPR, CCPA, COPPA, or PECR prompts, and you might not need a complex privacy policy.
Because we don't track any personal data, your visitors can enjoy your site without distractions or annoying cookie banners. We offer a generous free trial so you can test out our product and see if it's a good fit for you. There's no need to remove your current analytics provider until you're ready to make the switch. Try Proxima analytics and experience the benefits of a privacy-focused analytics solution today.