Short Link Management
Create branded short links and track every click.
Short Link Management →Privacy-First Analytics
Privacy-First Analytics: Cookieless Tracking, No Consent Banner
UseClick's website analytics run without cookies, without storing your visitors' IP addresses, and without triggering a consent banner. See exactly what's collected, what's never collected, and how long it's kept.
- No Cookies
- No IP Storage
- No Consent Banner
- GDPR / DSGVO Ready
Most analytics tools ask you to bolt privacy on afterward, a cookie banner here, a data processing addendum there. UseClick's analytics are built the other way around: privacy is the default, not an add-on.
That starts with what gets written to the database in the first place. UseClick never stores IP addresses, only ever resolves location to country level, never keeps the raw user-agent string, and never sets a tracking cookie. There's no cross-site tracking and no third-party pixels to opt out of, because they were never there.
This page is the deep dive into the mechanics. For the full analytics feature set, dashboards, funnels, sources, and more, see Website Analytics.
What UseClick Actually Collects
Every metric is aggregate and anonymized. Nothing here can identify an individual visitor.
Country
Resolved at request time and stored as a country code. Nothing more precise is ever derived or saved.
Browser
A parsed browser name (e.g. Chrome, Safari) used for compatibility and audience reporting.
Device Type
Whether the visit came from desktop, mobile, or tablet, parsed from the request, not the raw string.
Operating System
A parsed OS name (e.g. iOS, Windows) used for audience breakdowns.
Language
The visitor's browser language preference, used for localization and audience insight.
Referrer URL
Where the visit came from, so you can see which channels and sources drive traffic.
That's the complete list. There's no hidden field, no optional tracking pixel, and no expanded data collection on higher-tier plans, every plan gets the same privacy guarantees.
What UseClick Never Collects
These aren't settings you can turn on. They're not stored, on any plan, for any customer.
IP Addresses
The ip_address column in UseClick's database is always null. An IP address is never written to disk.
City or Region
Geolocation stops at the country level. City- and region-level precision is never derived or stored.
Full User-Agent Strings
The raw user-agent, a common fingerprinting vector, is parsed into browser/device/OS values and then discarded.
Tracking Cookies
No cookies are set for analytics, and there's no cross-site tracking or third-party pixels.
How Tracking Works Without Cookies
Cookieless doesn't mean cruder, it means the same useful metrics without a persistent identifier or personal data attached to them.
No persistent identifier
Analytics events aren't tied to a cookie or client-side ID that follows a visitor across sessions or sites.
Country-level geolocation only
Location is resolved to a country and stored as a country code, never as a city, region, or coordinate.
Parsed, not raw, device data
The user-agent string is parsed into browser, device, and OS categories at collection time. The raw string itself is never stored.
The same country-level data also powers geo-targeting, so you can route links by country without UseClick ever needing anything more precise than that.
Data Retention, By Plan, Enforced Automatically
How long analytics data is kept depends on your plan, and it's enforced automatically, not something you have to configure or remember to clean up.
Automatic purging
A scheduled job runs daily and deletes analytics data older than your plan's retention window. There's no manual cleanup step and no data quietly piling up past your plan's promise.
Server-side clamp on every read
Every analytics query is clamped to your plan's retention window at the database level, regardless of what date range is requested. Even a broader or malformed query can't pull data older than your plan allows.
purge_expired_analytics()
get_website_retention_start()
Why No Consent Banner Is Needed
No Consent Banner
Cookie consent banners exist because of what's collected, not because of an interface decision. When there's no tracking cookie, no IP address, and no personal data being stored, there's no legal basis under GDPR or the ePrivacy Directive that requires asking for consent to run analytics.
That means you can turn on UseClick analytics from day one, on a new site or an existing one, without adding a cookie popup, a consent management platform, or a privacy policy update to accommodate it.
This applies to UseClick's own analytics collection. If you use analytics alongside other tools that do set cookies or collect personal data, those tools may still require consent.
How It Works, Step by Step
From page load to dashboard, here's what actually happens to a visit.
- Step 01
Visitor loads the page
No cookie is set. No client-side identifier is created or stored in the browser.
- Step 02
Request is processed
Country, browser, device, OS, language, and referrer are resolved. The IP address and full user-agent are never written to the database.
- Step 03
Event is aggregated
The parsed, anonymized data lands in your dashboard as part of your traffic totals, not as a record tied to an individual.
- Step 04
Data expires on schedule
Once the event falls outside your plan's retention window, it's automatically purged by the scheduled cleanup job.
UseClick vs. Typical Analytics Tools
This is where the differences actually live, in what gets written to the database, not in the marketing copy.
| UseClick vs. Typical Analytics Tools | Typical Analytics | UseClick |
|---|---|---|
| IP address | Logged or stored | Never stored (always null) |
| Location precision | City / region level | Country level only |
| User-agent string | Stored in full | Parsed, then discarded |
| Tracking cookies | Set for session/visitor tracking | Never set |
| Consent banner | Usually required | Not required |
| Cross-site tracking | Common via shared pixels | None |
| Data retention | Often indefinite or unclear | Plan-based, auto-purged |
For a full breakdown against Google Analytics specifically, see our Google Analytics alternative comparison.
To see this privacy model in the context of the full analytics dashboard, visit the link analytics feature page.
Privacy You Can Verify
Not claims, mechanics. Here's what's actually true of every UseClick account, on every plan.
No IP Storage
The ip_address column is always null. There's nothing to leak, subpoena, or accidentally expose.
Country-Level Geo Only
Location never resolves below the country level, by design.
No Consent Banner Needed
No tracking cookies and no personal data mean no legal requirement to ask for consent.
Automatic Data Expiry
Retention is enforced by a scheduled job and clamped on every read, per your plan.
