A Roadmap for Achieving Privacy in the Age of Analytics: A White Paper from A National Forum on Web Privacy and Web Analytics

Abstract

A National Forum on Web Privacy and Web Analytics is an IMLS-funded, community-fueled effort to shape a better analytics practice that protects our users’ privacy from unwanted third-party tracking and targeting. The main Forum event was held September 2018 in Bozeman, Montana, where 40 librarians, technologists, and privacy researchers collaborated in producing a practical roadmap for enhancing our analytics practice in support of privacy. Forum participants co-created eight Pathways to Action for enhancing web privacy. Forum activities also informed the development of an Action Handbook that contains practical skills and strategies for implementing privacy-oriented, ethical web analytics in libraries. This white paper provides an overview of the project, with a summary of the Pathways to Action and the Action Handbook. We present these resources to the wider community to remix, reuse, and apply towards action.