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GPC and DNT Signals: Why Sealmetrics Doesn't Respond to Them

Auditors and privacy-conscious teams sometimes ask why Sealmetrics does not react to the Global Privacy Control (GPC) or Do Not Track (DNT) browser signals. It is a fair question, and the answer is deliberate — not an oversight.

What these signals mean​

GPC is a browser signal through which an individual tells a website: "do not sell or share my personal information." It has legal force in certain jurisdictions (notably under California's CCPA/CPRA) for businesses that sell or share personal data.

DNT was an earlier attempt at a universal opt-out from cross-site tracking. It never acquired legal standing, and its own standardization effort was abandoned.

Both signals share one premise: there is an identifiable person being tracked, and that person wants out.

Why that premise does not apply here​

Honoring an individual opt-out only makes sense when individuals are being measured. Sealmetrics measures audiences, not people:

  • No cookies, no browser storage of any kind. There is nothing on the device to opt out of.
  • No cross-site identifiers. The ephemeral session identifier is derived per website and cannot link a visitor across sites.
  • No IP addresses in the analytics database, and country is derived from the browser's timezone — not from the IP.
  • Raw technical events live for 1 day; everything retained long-term is aggregate statistics.

You cannot opt out of an anonymous count for the same reason you cannot opt out of a turnstile at a stadium entrance: the count contains no you to remove. Responding to GPC would imply that Sealmetrics processes personal data that could be "sold or shared" — which is precisely what the architecture is designed to make impossible.

Protection by default beats opt-out on request​

Opt-out models protect only the minority of visitors who know the signal exists and have it enabled. Sealmetrics' model protects 100% of visitors, by default, with no action required on their part. That is a strictly stronger guarantee than honoring an opt-out — it is the opt-out made structural.

What this does not change for you​

If your business sells or shares personal data through other tools (advertising pixels, data brokers, CRM enrichment), your obligation to honor GPC for those tools is unaffected. Sealmetrics simply is not part of that category: it has nothing to stop selling or sharing.

We monitor the regulatory evolution of these signals. If any framework ever assigns GPC a meaning applicable to exempt, aggregate-only audience measurement, we will reassess this position — and document any change here.