Substantive response from speed tests

TL;DR

Although speed tests offer contact options on their website, more than three-quarters do not respond.

You can expect a meaningful answer from Internet Speed at a Glance, M-Lab, N Perf, Open Speed Test, SpeedSmart and TestMy.net.

 

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Method of measurement
  3. Speed tests to test
  4. The measurements
  5. Conclusions
 

Introduction

On February 26, we asked almost all unique speed tests known to us what they actually do with the IP address they receive when their web page is requested. For this we used the contact options that we previously collected.

The main goal was to understand what speed tests do with your IP address. However, the feedback provided also provides insight into the actual contact that is possible with (the privacy officer of) a speed test.

 

Method of measurement

We divide the feedback given into the following categories:

  1. Meaningful answer
  2. Automatic answer
  3. No answer

Note that we consider an Automatic answer as No answer.

 

Speed tests to test

All speed tests with a contact option -except Internet Speed at a Glance because this is our own speed test and Speedtest4.PHP because this speed test has no privacy policy- have been tested.

 

The measurements

  1. Astound speedtest No answer
  2. Bandwidth Place No answer
  3. Bredbandskollen No answer
  4. Broadband Speed Checker No answer
  5. Cloudflare Automatic answer
  6. Comparitech No answer
  7. DSLReports No answer
  8. Fast Automatic answer
  9. Fireprobe No answer
  10. Google Fiber Automatic answer
  11. LibreSpeed No answer
  12. M-Lab Meaningful answer
  13. Meter.net No answer
  14. N Perf Meaningful answer
  15. Ookla Speedtest No answer
  16. Open Speed Test Meaningful answer
  17. SamKnows No answer
  18. SpeedCheck No answer
  19. SpeedOf.me Automatic answer
  20. SpeedSmart Meaningful answer
  21. TestMy.net Meaningful answer
  22. Toast No answer
  23. Which Broadband Speed Test No answer
  24. Xfinity xFi Speed Test No answer
 

Conclusions

Unfortunately, 9 weeks after we sent our email, we have to conclude that most speed tests give no response at all.

  1. 5 speed test gave a meaningful answer
  2. 4 speed test gave an automatic answer
  3. 15 speed test gave no answer at all

We did have contact with the following speed tests:

  1. M-Lab
  2. N Perf
  3. Open Speed Test
  4. SpeedSmart
  5. TestMy.net

Hence we conclude that 6 speed tests give a substantive response. The 5 speed tests mentioned above plus Internet Speed at a Glance.

The latter because, knowing ourselves, we know that we normally respond quickly to a question.