Reader privacy is part of the architecture.
NowMetrix is designed to show newsrooms what is happening now without building persistent profiles of individual readers. Data stays in Europe, and identifying signals remain short-lived.
The principles at a glance
| Principle | How NowMetrix applies it |
|---|---|
| Cookie-free by design | No tracking cookies, persistent reader identifiers, or cross-site profiles are created. |
| IP addresses are not stored | Incoming IP addresses are hashed immediately, exist in memory for milliseconds, and are never written to disk or server logs. |
| Identifiers are short-lived | A temporary hash derived from IP address, browser, and country is used to count unique visitors and deleted after 24 hours. |
| Long-term data is aggregated | Historical pageview and visit totals contain no reader hashes or IDs that could identify an individual. |
| Data stays in Europe | Analytics data is hosted in Frankfurt, Germany, and backups remain within the European Union. |
| Access is tightly restricted | Customer data can be accessed only by the CEO and co-founder, with two-factor authentication. |
What is stored - and what is not
| NowMetrix stores | NowMetrix does not store |
|---|---|
| Pageviews and visits | Tracking cookies or persistent reader identifiers |
| Article context such as URL, title, author, and section | Raw IP addresses or server logs containing them |
| Traffic source, referrer, and campaign | Names, email addresses, or accounts belonging to readers |
| Device class and country | Cross-site reader profiles |
| Aggregate counts for historical statistics | Reader data for resale |
Retention follows the realtime purpose
The temporary identifier used to estimate unique visitors expires after 24 hours. Historical statistics keep only aggregate pageview and visit counts, without reader-level identifiers.
When a customer contract ends, customer data is deleted. Exact deletion timelines, confirmations, and backup handling are governed by the Data Processing Agreement (DPA).
European hosting and controlled subprocessors
NowMetrix runs its analytics infrastructure on DigitalOcean and Hetzner in Frankfurt, Germany. Cloudflare provides CDN and DDoS protection, and backups remain in the EU.
The current subprocessor list, including locations and safeguards, is available on the NowMetrix Trust page and forms part of the DPA.
Cookie banners and legal review
The NowMetrix tracker does not use cookies. Whether your website still needs a consent banner depends on your jurisdiction and the other tools running on the site. Your legal or data protection team should confirm the final setup.