# Write.as privacy rating

Minimalist hosted blogging service from Musing Studio, focused on distraction-free writing and anonymous publishing, with federation over ActivityPub.

## Summary

Write.as scores 50 out of 100 (grade D) on the blogging criteria. It meets 2 of 8 criteria: no ads or data sales and TLS configuration. It partly meets open source, no trackers or telemetry and transparency report. It does not meet independent audit, tells users about requests and security headers. It is based in the United States: Five Eyes member; subject to the US CLOUD Act. Automated tests: SSL Labs grade A and Mozilla HTTP Observatory grade D-.

- Website: https://write.as
- Source code: https://github.com/writefreely/writefreely
- License: AGPL-3.0
- Jurisdiction: United States. Five Eyes member. Subject to the US CLOUD Act.
- Platforms: Web, Android, iOS
- Home page trackers: none found
- Category: [Blogging](https://privacyratings.com/blogging/)
- Grade: D (50/100)

## Criteria

| Criterion | Answer | Note | Evidence |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Open source | Partial | Write.as runs on WriteFreely, which is AGPL-3.0, but the code for Write.as Pro features beyond WriteFreely is not published. | https://github.com/writefreely/writefreely/blob/develop/LICENSE |
| No trackers or telemetry | Partial | Uses self-hosted Matomo analytics with cookies, which respects Do Not Track and can be opted out of. The Android app has no trackers. | https://write.as/privacy |
| No ads or data sales | Yes | Funded by paid plans with no ads, and the privacy policy states data is never shared for advertising. | https://write.as/pricing |
| Independent audit | No | No independent audit is published. |  |
| Transparency report | Partial | The privacy policy states requests are reviewed and require a warrant, and a quarterly warrant canary is published, but no request counts. | https://write.as/privacy |
| Tells users about requests | No | No published policy on notifying users about data requests. |  |
| TLS configuration | Yes | Grade A | https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=write.as&hideResults=on |
| Security headers | No | Grade D- (25/100+) | https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/observatory/analyze?host=write.as |
| Modern web standards | Not tested yet | Not tested yet. |  |

Source: https://privacyratings.com/blogging/write-as/
Edit: https://github.com/privacyratings/privacyratings.com/edit/main/ratings/blogging/write-as.md