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# Committers FAQ

## General Privacy Questions

### What, if we receive a data removal request?

If you receive removal requests for mailing lists or of a generic kind,
please forward this message to privacy@apache.org. If you feel the email
is of a sensitive kind or did not arrive on a mailing list, 
please forward this message to vp-privacy@apache.org.

You can reply to the original message that you have forwarded this request,
but don't reply with any further information (confirmation of deletions etc).

In example:

"Dear sender,

we have forwarded your message to Apache Software Foundation privacy committee,
which will handle your request. You can always reach out to VP Data Privacy (vp-privacy@apache.org)
or to the comittee directly (privacy@apache.org) if you have further questions.

Kind regards,"


## Project Websites

### Can I use Google Analytics?

The Apache Software Foundation discourages the use of Google Analytics.

Google Analytics can only be used if:

 - the users IP addressed would be anonymized before transmitting data
 - the user approved the use of Google Analytics it was loaded
 - you have a privacy policy clearly explaining what user data is collected on your web site

Court decision around Google Analytics have changed various times
in the past years and made it's use uncertain.

### Can I use Google Fonts?

You can use Google Fonts, but please host the fonts on ASF servers.

ASF projects don't have any reasons to load Google Fonts from
Google servers. Even [performance wise](https://wicki.io/posts/2020-11-goodbye-google-fonts/)
there is no reason to use Google CDNs.

To prevent any data being transmitted to a third party, please
[download the fonts and host them with your project website](https://github.com/google/fonts#self-host-fonts-available-from-google-fonts).

### Can I embed Google Maps?

Yes, you can use Google Maps, but they should only be activated after the user
actively wants to use them. This can be done by showing a placeholder first
and load the map when the user clicks on it. Please make it transparent
that users will load a Google Map with their click.

### Can I embed videos (from YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)?

Yes, you can embed videos on the website, but they should be loaded
only after the user actively wants them to load. This can be done 
by showing a placeholder first and load the video, when the user
clicks on the placeholder. Please make it transparent that users
will load video embeds from a third party.

If you don't want placeholders please consider self-hosted videos
and using an open source player like [Plyr on GitHub](https://github.com/sampotts/plyr).

### Can I embed social plugins (in example Like-Buttons)?

Yes, but you can only load them when users actively want them
to load. There is multiple open source solutions helping with
that problem, like [Shariff on GitHub](https://github.com/heiseonline/shariff).

### Can we haven an official Facebook fan page?

No. 

You cannot run an official ASF Facebook page.

The german [Datenschutzkonferenz decided on 2019-04-01](https://www.datenschutzkonferenz-online.de/media/dskb/20190405_positionierung_facebook_fanpages.pdf) that you cannot fulfill [Art. 5 §2](https://gdpr-info.eu/art-5-gdpr/). Also, it is not compatible with Art. 26. 

### Can I add a Facebook/Twitter etc custom pixel for creating a custom audience?

No, not without approval from your user.