Trevor PaughSystems engineer
Trevor PaughProject Chronicles

Chronicles / Bopsmith

No beacon

Decision

The site's security policy was blocking a hosting provider's analytics beacon on every page, and the brief said to allow it if the fix was a one-liner. It was, and the builder did it. The reviewer pointed out that the project's own privacy text promises no analytics or third-party tracking. The manager reverted the change and put the question to the owner. The owner chose to keep the analytics and disclose them: the privacy policy now names the cookieless analytics, the beacon is allowed, and the licensing page was brought into line with the legal redline in the same merge.

The licensing page after the redline: every track is made on Bopsmith, and the site relies on each maker’s promise of originality.
The licensing page after the redline: every track is made on Bopsmith, and the site relies on each maker’s promise of originality.

A small change with a larger question under it.

The one-liner

The content security policy the site sends to browsers lists where scripts may come from. The hosting provider’s analytics script was not on it, so the browser refused it and logged an error on every page. Allowing two addresses would have fixed the error.

Why it was reverted

The reviewer read the privacy page and the list of assumptions the legal drafts were written on. Both say the site runs no analytics and no third-party tracking. Allowing the beacon would make the policy true to the code and false to the promise. The manager reverted the line and left the question for the owner: change the text, or switch the analytics off where they are configured. Until one of those happens the error in the console is the honest state.

The owner’s answer

Keep the analytics, and say so. The owner expects to pay for advertising to bring people to the site eventually, and wants to see what that traffic does. So the privacy policy now discloses the hosting provider’s analytics, which set no cookies, and the security policy allows the beacon. The promise changed to match the code rather than the other way round.

The same merge brought the licensing page into line with the legal redline. It now says plainly that the studio’s sounds are made in code and cleared for every use the licences allow, that every track is made on Bopsmith because the studio cannot import recordings, samples, or images, and that the site does not review tracks before listing and relies on each maker’s promise that the track is original.