diff --git a/docs/_templates/footer.html b/docs/_templates/footer.html
deleted file mode 100644
index 5fd6ad48..00000000
--- a/docs/_templates/footer.html
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,11 +0,0 @@
-{% extends "!footer.html" %}
-
-{% block extrafooter %}
-{{ super() }}
-<div class="footer"><p>Please see
-    our <a href="https://www.mdanalysis.org/pages/privacy/">Privacy Policy</a>
-    to learn how <a href="https://www.mdanalysis.org">MDAnalysis</a> collects data.</p>
-    <script data-goatcounter="https://mdanalysis.goatcounter.com/count"
-        async src="//gc.zgo.at/count.js"></script>
-</div>
-{% endblock %}
diff --git a/docs/conf.py b/docs/conf.py
index c9578df4..6c8da3a6 100644
--- a/docs/conf.py
+++ b/docs/conf.py
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@
 sitemap_url_scheme = "{link}"
 
 # Add any paths that contain templates here, relative to this directory.
-templates_path = ['_templates']
+# templates_path = ['_templates']
 
 # The suffix(es) of source filenames.
 # You can specify multiple suffix as a list of string: