--- layout: page base: . --- # Console Do Not Track (DNT) {{ site.description }} [Gatsby](https://www.gatsbyjs.org/) has `GATSBY_TELEMETRY_DISABLED`. [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/) has `HOMEBREW_NO_ANALYTICS`. [Syncthing](https://syncthing.net/) has `STNOUPGRADE`, a config file setting for disabling crash reporting, and a GUI prompt for usage reporting. This is a proposal for a single, standard environment variable that plainly and unambiguously expresses LACK OF CONSENT by a user of that software to **any** of the following: * ad tracking * usage reporting, anonymous or not * automatic update phone-home * crash reporting * *non-essential-to-functionality* requests of *any kind* to the creator of the software or other *tracking services* We just want local software, and by providing it to us you are not entitled to our usage, our crashes, or our IP addresses. Remember: in the right hands, an IP address is a *physical location*. If you would not collect your users' GPS coordinates against their wishes, you should not be collecting their IP addresses against their wishes! Authors, do the *ethical thing* and respect the following environment variable in your software and your *limited rights to the computers of your users*:
export DO_NOT_TRACK=1