The visitor opt-out

The API

Three functions, present in every build including the base one. There is nothing to enable and no extra script to load.

All three read and write the browser's own storage and can fail if that storage is unavailable — a locked-down browser, a sandboxed frame, a private window with storage blocked. That is why optOut() returns a boolean rather than nothing: it tells you whether the choice actually took, so your interface can say so instead of showing a switch that quietly did not move.

Building the control

There is no hosted opt-out page and no embeddable widget. You build the control, which means it looks like your site and sits where your visitors will find it. Here is a complete one.

<p>
  <label>
    <input type="checkbox" id="aa-optout" />
    Do not count my visits to this site
  </label>
  <span id="aa-optout-status" role="status"></span>
</p>

const box = document.getElementById('aa-optout');
const status = document.getElementById('aa-optout-status');

// Reflect the current state on load.
box.checked = window.aa.hasOptedOut();

box.addEventListener('change', () => {
  const ok = box.checked ? window.aa.optOut() : window.aa.optIn();

  // The call can fail if this browser blocks storage. Say so rather than
  // showing a switch that looks like it worked.
  box.checked = window.aa.hasOptedOut();
  status.textContent = ok
    ? (box.checked ? 'Your visits are no longer counted.' : 'Your visits are counted again.')
    : 'Your browser blocked this setting. Try disabling private browsing.';
});

Put it somewhere a person would look — your privacy page, a footer link, a preferences panel. A control nobody can find is not a control. If you already show a cookie or preferences dialog for other reasons, that is the obvious home for it, even though this script is not why the dialog exists.

What the opt-out does

• Stops the request, not the record. The check runs before the first pageview is sent, so an opted-out browser makes no analytics request at all. You can watch this in a network tab.
• Covers everything. Pageviews, custom events, revenue, engagement, outbound links — all of it goes through the same check.
• Applies immediately. No reload is needed; the flag is re-read before every send.
• Persists for that browser until the visitor opts back in or clears their site data.

What it does not do

Four limits, stated plainly, because a privacy control oversold is worse than none.

• It does not travel. One browser, one device, one profile. Opting out on a phone does nothing for the same person's laptop.
• It does not survive clearing site data, and a private window starts without it.
• It does not apply to other sites. The flag is stored against your origin, so it is your site only. There is deliberately no cross-site opt-out, because a cross-site one would require a cross-site identifier — the exact thing this product refuses to create.
• It does not remove past data. See the question below on that; the short version is that there is nothing individual in the data to remove.

Suggested wording

For your privacy page, adjust to taste. It is written to be accurate about the limits rather than reassuring about them.

We use a privacy-first analytics tool that sets no cookies, stores no IP addresses and cannot identify you or follow you to another website. If you would still rather your visits were not counted, use the switch above. Your choice is stored in this browser only, is never sent to us, and will be forgotten if you clear this site's data.

More on the legal position, and on what you as the site owner still have to do, in privacy and compliance. If what you actually want is to stop counting your own team, that is a different flag — see excluding your own traffic.