This post originally appeared in the January 2, 2020 issue with the email subject line "Strengthen SEO, UX and content with a Healthy Website Regimen" and a 5-step website UX and SEO health check.

Update: As of December 2020, Metomic appears to have changed its product offerings and no longer offers the pop-up privacy widget replacement on its website.

Visual review of Metomic features: Cutting-edge technologist; improves efficiency; is free or very inexpensive. Metomic is finely tuned, single-user, and intuitive.

In 2018 it seemed like there was a law passed to ensure that every single website on the planet had:

  • A useless Accept Cookies pop-up
  • An email sign-up or promotional pop-up that blocked your screen whether you were a regular user or a new user

I’ve covered one better solution for email pop-ups and opt-ins — I’d like to cover more, but not today.

Privacy and GDPR compliance is a bigger issue. In 2017 I sat through presentations from data management companies that promised users would have better control of their data… with incredibly hefty price tags and poorly designed interfaces for user data “control centers” that appeared to have been designed circa 1995 and didn’t work on mobile. (Seriously, I’m all for investing in quality tech, but these companies were charging well over a mid-level FTE’s salary for the most basic of privacy protections. It was a racket.)

So instead, we all added those popups that were basically Accept Cookies or Leave. Which amounts to Go Away on the user’s behalf — click the button and make the popup disappear, without reviewing anything at all.

Thankfully believers in open source are tackling the privacy and cookie consent problem and making a better web. So here comes Metomic, the first solution I’ve seen that helps businesses inform their users of the data they’re collecting in a meaningful and non-invasive way.

Metomic isn’t directly related to content, but monetizing content requires data collection. We’re all digital here, and we’re all concerned about making a better web.

Like Ghostery or other ad-blockers, Metomic categorizes web pixels and analyzes the data they create. It gives users the control to opt in or out of common data trackers.

However, whereas Ghostery is user-controlled, Metomic lives on your website and integrates transparent cookies consent into an almost quiz-like experience. It’s really nicely designed, and it’s free for up to 100k users. The paid tier is $12/month for up to 500,000 users and 3 team members.

There’s not much else to it. Metomic offers an API and developer tools. Their roadmap says that they are working on a real-time privacy policy widget, which would be brilliant.

Unlike everything else related to privacy compliance, Metomic is a no-brainer.

Brad Pitt celebrates whilst dressed as a gym trainer in Burn After Reading [gif].