do-not-track-middleware.md

---
title: Do-Not-Track middleware
date: 2024-01-24
description: "Detail of the Do-Not-Track middleware"
tags: ["do-not-track", "endpoint tracking", "analytics", "transaction logging", "middleware", "per-endpoint", "per-API"]
---

When [transaction logging]({{< ref "product-stack/tyk-gateway/basic-config-and-security/logging-api-traffic/logging-api-traffic" >}}) is enabled in the Tyk Gateway, a transaction record will be generated for every request made to an API endpoint deployed on the gateway. You can suppress the generation of transaction records for any API by enabling the do-not-track middleware. This provides granular control over request tracking.

## When to use the do-not-track middleware

#### Compliance and privacy

Disabling tracking on endpoints that handle personal or sensitive information is crucial for adhering to privacy laws such as GDPR or HIPAA. This action prevents the storage and logging of sensitive data, ensuring compliance and safeguarding user privacy.

#### Optimising performance

For endpoints experiencing high traffic, disabling tracking can mitigate the impact on the analytics processing pipeline and storage systems. Disabling tracking on endpoints used primarily for health checks or load balancing can prevent the analytics data from being cluttered with information that offers little insight. These optimisations help to maintain system responsiveness and efficiency by reducing unnecessary data load and help to ensure that analytics efforts are concentrated on more meaningful data. 

#### Cost Management

In scenarios where analytics data storage and processing incur significant costs, particularly in cloud-based deployments, disabling tracking for non-essential endpoints can be a cost-effective strategy. This approach allows for focusing resources on capturing valuable data from critical endpoints.

## How the do-not-track middleware works

When transaction logging is enabled, the gateway will automatically generate a transaction record for every request made to deployed APIs. 

You can enable the do-not-track middleware on whichever endpoints for which you do not want to generate logs. This will instruct the Gateway not to generate any transaction records for those endpoints or APIs. As no record of these transactions will be generated by the Gateway, there will be nothing created in Redis and hence nothing for the pumps to transfer to the persistent storage and these endpoints will not show traffic in the Dashboard's analytics screens.

{{< note success >}}
**Note**  

When working with Tyk Classic APIs, you can disable tracking at the API or endpoint-level. When working with Tyk OAS APIs, you can currently disable tracking only at the more granular endpoint-level.
{{< /note >}}

<hr>

If you're using Tyk OAS APIs, then you can find details and examples of how to configure the do-not-track middleware [here]({{< ref "product-stack/tyk-gateway/middleware/do-not-track-tyk-oas" >}}).

If you're using Tyk Classic APIs, then you can find details and examples of how to configure the do-not-track middleware [here]({{< ref "product-stack/tyk-gateway/middleware/do-not-track-tyk-classic" >}}).

<!-- proposed "summary box" to be shown graphically on each middleware page
 ## Do-Not-Track middleware summary
  - The Do-Not-Track middleware is an optional stage in Tyk's API Request processing chain sitting between the [TBC]() and [TBC]() middleware.
  - The Do-Not-Track middleware can be configured at the per-endpoint level within the API Definition and is supported by the API Designer within the Tyk Dashboard. 
 -->