Today, we are pleased to announce that Read the Docs honors Do Not Track (DNT). DNT is a browser preference that requests that a user not be tracked across the internet while browsing the web.

While there isn’t a consensus on precisely what DNT should mean, we are following the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) guidelines for Do Not Track as we believe that gives a good balance between the privacy expectations of users and the reality of running a business and keeping Read the Docs sustainable.

Your email inbox has probably been bombarded over the last few days and weeks with “Updates to our Privacy Policy”. These emails pertain to an EU law called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which comes into effect today.

The goal of the GDPR is to put users back in control of their data. It is an important step toward respecting users’ privacy. The days of collecting as much data on as many people as possible without consent and sharing it with anyone willing to pay for it are over.

Last time, we shared how ethical advertising works to keep Read the Docs sustainable without creepy ad targeting. This time, we will share about one of our biggest challenges with advertising. At the beginning of April, Read the Docs was added to one of the most popular ad block lists: the Easylist.

Getting added to the EasyList had a significant and immediate impact on the bottom line at Read the Docs. Right around April 1, 32% of our ad views simply vanished. At first, we thought we had done something horribly wrong but then we discovered that this was due entirely to ad blocking. Our actual traffic wasn’t down at all.