This Privacy Policy describes how ahmedalharthi.net (including its subdomains, collectively, “our website” or “we”) collects, uses, and shares your personal data when you visit or interact with our site. We are committed to protecting your privacy and handling your data responsibly.

1. Who We Are

Our website address, including its subdomains, is https://ahmedalharthi.net. This is a personal academic website managed by Dr. Ahmed D. Alharthi.

2. Information We Collect and Why We Collect It

We collect various types of information for different purposes to provide and improve our services to you.

Information You Provide Directly

• Comments: When you leave comments on our site, we collect the data shown in the comments form, your IP address, and your browser user agent string. This information is collected to help detect and prevent spam. An anonymised string (hash) created from your email address may be provided to the Gravatar service to check if you are using it. After your comment is approved, your profile picture (if using Gravatar) is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
• Contact Forms: If you use our contact form, we collect the data you provide, including your name, email address, website (if provided), and message. This data is used to respond to your inquiry and is emailed directly to the site owner. If Akismet (an anti-spam service) is enabled, your submission data (IP address, user agent, name, email, website, message) is sent to Akismet for spam checking.
• User Accounts (if applicable): If you register an account on our website, we store the personal information you provide in your user profile, such as your name, email address, and username. This data is used to manage your account and provide access to site features.

Information Collected Automatically

• Cookies: Our website uses cookies to enhance your experience.
  • Comments: If you leave a comment, you may opt-in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies for your convenience. These cookies last for one year.
  • Login: If you have an account and log in, we set temporary cookies to determine if your browser accepts cookies (no personal data, discarded on browser close). We also set cookies to save your login information (lasts two days) and screen display choices (lasts one year). If “Remember Me” is selected, your login persists for two weeks.
  • Article Editing/Publishing: If you edit or publish an article, a cookie indicating the post ID is saved for one day.
  • Mobile Theme: A cookie (akm_mobile) may be stored for 3.5 days to remember your preference for viewing the mobile version of the site.
  • Protect (Login Security): A cookie (jpp_math_pass) may be set for 1 day to remember if you successfully completed a math captcha.
• Embedded Content from Other Websites: Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g., videos, images, articles). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if you visited the other website directly. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, especially if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
• Analytics: We use analytics services to understand how visitors interact with our website, which helps us improve its content and functionality.
  • Google Analytics: This service collects data such as your IP address (which may be anonymized by us), pages visited, time spent on pages, and basic information about your device and browser. For details on Google’s data collection and usage, please refer to the Google Analytics Terms of Service.
  • Matomo (Piwik) Analytics: When you visit our site, Matomo stores information including the website from which you visited us, parts of our site you visit, date and duration of your visit, your anonymized IP address, device information (type, OS, screen resolution, language, country), and web browser type. This data is used for statistical purposes, site improvement, and misuse detection. Matomo tracks page views, page titles, URLs, referrer URLs, screen resolution, local user timezone, downloaded files, outbound link clicks, page generation time, approximate geolocation, browser language, and user agent. We retain control of this data, and it is stored in our own MySQL database; logs or report data are never sent to other servers by Matomo.
• Jetpack Modules (Automattic Services): Our website uses various Jetpack modules, which are provided by Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com). These modules collect certain data to provide their functionality.
  • Activity Log: Records activities around site management, including user email, role, login, display name, user IDs, activity type, site ID, Jetpack version, and timestamp. Some activities (e.g., login attempts) may also include IP address and user agent.
  • Carousel: If image view tracking is enabled, collects IP address, WordPress.com user ID (if logged in), username, user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp, browser language, and country code.
  • Comment Likes: To process a comment like, collects WordPress.com user ID/username (if logged in), local site-specific user ID, and a true/false data point for the like. For mobile app likes, also collects IP address, user agent, timestamp, blog ID, browser language, country code, and device info.
  • Gravatar Hovercards: Sends a hash of your email address (if logged in or commented with an email linked to Gravatar) to the Gravatar service to retrieve your profile image.
  • Jetpack Comments: Collects commenter’s name, email, site URL (if provided), timestamp, and IP address. Also receives WordPress.com blog ID, post ID, commenter’s local user ID/username (if available), and MD5 hash of email. If Akismet is enabled, name, email, site URL, IP address, and user agent are sent for spam checking.
  • Likes: To process a post like, collects IP address, WordPress.com user ID, username, connected site ID/URL, post ID, user agent, timestamp, browser language, and country code.
  • Notifications: Collects IP address, WordPress.com user ID/username, connected site ID/URL, Jetpack version, user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp, browser language, country code. May send email, username, site URL, comment content, follow actions to site owner. Tracks sending/opening notifications and actions within the notification panel.
  • Protect: To check login activity and block fraudulent attempts, uses attempting user’s IP address, email/username, and IP-related HTTP headers. Tracks failed login attempts (IP address, user agent).
  • Search: Processes visitor-chosen search filters and query data on WordPress.com servers.
  • Sharing: When sharing content via email (if Akismet is active), collects sharing party’s name/email (if logged in), IP address, user agent, and email body/content for spam checking by Akismet. If reCAPTCHA is enabled, sharing party’s IP address is shared with Google.
  • WordPress.com Secure Sign On: Collects User ID (local and WordPress.com), role, email, username, display name. For activity tracking: IP address, WordPress.com user ID/username, connected site ID/URL, Jetpack version, user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp, browser language, country code. Tracks the login process events.
  • WordPress.com Stats: Collects IP address, WordPress.com user ID (if logged in), username (if logged in), user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp, browser language, country code. Tracks post/page views, video plays, outbound link clicks, referring URLs, search terms, and country. Site owner does not have access to specific user data. Logs are retained by Automattic for 28 days for feature powering.
  • WordPress.com Toolbar: Collects Gravatar image URL and WordPress.com user ID of logged-in user. For activity tracking: IP address, WordPress.com user ID/username, connected site ID/URL, Jetpack version, user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp, browser language, country code. Tracks click actions within the toolbar.
  • Event, Venue, and Organiser Information (If Applicable): If you create, submit, import, save, or publish Event, Venue, or Organizer information, such information is retained in the local database. This includes names, addresses, contact details, event specifics, and import origin data. Please note that creating new events through the Community Events submission form often requires a website account on this domain.

3. How We Use Your Data

We use the collected data to:

• Operate and maintain our website.
• Improve your browsing experience.
• Understand how our website is used.
• Detect and prevent spam and fraudulent activity.
• Respond to your inquiries and provide support.
• Analyze website performance and traffic.

4. Who We Share Your Data With

We share your data with the following third-party service providers to help us operate our website and provide our services:

• Automattic: (For Jetpack services, Akismet, Gravatar, WordPress.com)
  • See Automattic Privacy Policy
• Google Analytics: (For website analytics)
  • See Google Analytics Terms of Service
• Matomo (Piwik) Analytics: (For website analytics, data stored on our own server)
• Akismet: (For spam detection on comments and contact forms)
• Gravatar: (For displaying profile pictures in comments)
• Google (reCAPTCHA): (If enabled for sharing features)
  • See Google’s Privacy Policy
• Eventbrite: (If event features are used for ticket purchasing, attendee, purchaser, and order information are stored and managed by Eventbrite.)

5. How Long We Retain Your Data

• Comments: If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This allows us to recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
• User Accounts: For users who register on our website, we store the personal information they provide in their user profile indefinitely.
• Analytics Data: Retention duration for analytics data varies by service; for Matomo, we control the retention on our server. For WordPress.com Stats, logs are retained by Automattic for 28 days.
• Activity Log Data: Retention duration depends on the site’s plan and activity type.

6. Your Rights Over Your Data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you have the following rights:

• Right to Access: You can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us.
• Right to Erasure: You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

7. Where Your Data Is Sent

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service (Akismet).

8. Privacy Policy Changes

We may update this Policy from time to time. If we do, we’ll let you know about any material changes, either by notifying you on the website or by sending you an email.

9. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please get in touch with us via our contact form