Who this notice covers
This notice applies when you browse gulfam.net, read an article, view a Moment, watch a video, react to content, submit a comment, or send a message through the contact form. It does not govern websites or services reached through external links.
Information you provide
Contact messages
When you use the contact form, the site collects your name, email address, optional organisation, enquiry category, message, and submission time. This information is used to review your enquiry, correspond with you, prevent misuse, and maintain an appropriate record of the conversation.
Comments and replies
When you comment on an article, Moment, or video, the site collects your chosen display name, email address, comment, any comment to which you are replying, and submission time. Comments are reviewed before publication. If approved, your display name, comment, and time of publication may appear publicly alongside any public replies. Your email address is never displayed publicly, but a one-way cryptographic hash of it is sent to Gravatar to display an avatar image next to your comment, if one is associated with that address; otherwise a generic placeholder image is shown.
Email newsletter
When you subscribe to receive new posts by email, the site collects your email address and stores a subscription status, a confirmation token, and an unsubscribe token. A confirmation email is sent via Amazon Web Services (AWS) Simple Email Service; you only receive future posts after clicking the confirmation link. Every email includes a one-click unsubscribe link, which immediately stops delivery. Subscriber addresses are not shared, sold, or used for any purpose other than sending posts from this site.
Reactions
When you add an emoji reaction to an article, Moment, or video, the site stores the selected reaction and a pseudonymous identifier so that one visitor can maintain one reaction per item. The identifier is created from a random reaction cookie and network information using a one-way hash; the underlying IP address is not stored with the reaction. The gulfam_reactor cookie is secure, inaccessible to browser scripts, and may remain for up to one year unless you remove it through your browser settings.
Reader analytics
After you spend at least ten seconds on an article and reach at least 25% of the page, the site may record an engaged-read event. It includes the article, date, approximate country, region or city supplied by Cloudflare, device category, browser family, broad referrer category, time engaged, and scroll progress. The full referring URL, raw user-agent string, and IP address are not retained in article statistics, and the information is not used to build an individual advertising profile.
A session-storage marker records that the article has already been counted during the current browser session. It is removed automatically when that browser session ends.
When configured, the site also loads Google Analytics (GA4), which sets its own cookies and processes standard analytics data such as pages viewed, approximate location, device and browser information, and referring site, under Google’s Privacy Policy.
Security and service information
Like most websites, the hosting and security infrastructure necessarily processes technical request information such as IP address, request headers, date and time, requested page, and security signals to deliver the site, detect abuse, troubleshoot faults, and protect forms and administrative access. Cloudflare Turnstile also evaluates technical and behavioural signals when you submit a protected form. This information may be processed by Cloudflare under its own privacy terms.
Cookies and browser storage
The public site does not use advertising cookies. It uses the reaction cookie described above when you react to content, session storage to avoid duplicate article-read events in one session, and any strictly necessary storage used by Cloudflare Turnstile. Administrative sign-in uses a separate secure session cookie that is relevant only to the site administrator. You can remove cookies and site data through your browser, although doing so may reset your reaction choices.
Service providers
Information is processed only where needed to operate the website:
- Cloudflare provides website delivery, security, Turnstile, Workers, D1 database storage, Analytics Engine, R2 object storage, and image optimisation.
- Amazon Web Services provides Simple Email Service, which delivers newsletter confirmation emails and new-post notifications to subscribers.
- Google and YouTube provide video thumbnails, channel information, links to YouTube videos, and site analytics (Google Analytics, when configured).
- Gravatar (Automattic) provides commenter avatar images from a hashed version of the commenter's email address.
These providers may process technical information in countries other than your own, subject to their respective safeguards and privacy terms. Personal information may also be disclosed where required by law, to protect the website or its users, or in connection with a legitimate transfer of the website. Personal information is not sold, rented, or shared for behavioural advertising. This site does not run advertising and is not enrolled in Google AdSense or any Google publisher programme.
YouTube and external links
Each video has its own page on this site with the YouTube player embedded directly, using YouTube's privacy-enhanced youtube-nocookie.com domain. Loading the embedded player or a video thumbnail may disclose your IP address and browser information to Google, and playing a video is subject to Google's Privacy Policy. Comments and reactions on a video page stay on this site — they are not posted to YouTube and do not require a Google account. Each video page also links to the same video on YouTube; clicking that link is counted as an anonymous total for that video (no personal information is recorded) before you are sent to YouTube. Links to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, YouTube, and other external websites are governed by the privacy practices of those services once you leave this site.
Retention
Contact messages and comment records are kept only for as long as reasonably needed to manage correspondence, moderation, record keeping, disputes, and security. Published comments may remain with the related content until they are removed. Reaction records and aggregated article statistics may be retained to preserve totals and understand long-term readership. Information may be retained for longer where required by law or necessary to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.
Your choices and rights
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to ask for access to, correction of, deletion of, restriction of, or a copy of your personal information, or to object to certain processing. You may also ask for a public comment to be removed. Requests are assessed subject to applicable law, identity verification, and any information that must be retained for legitimate legal or security reasons.
Children
This website is intended for a general audience and is not designed to collect personal information knowingly from children. If you believe a child has submitted personal information, please get in touch so it can be reviewed and, where appropriate, removed.
Changes to this notice
This notice may be updated when website features, service providers, or legal requirements change. The date below identifies the latest revision.
Privacy enquiries
To ask a privacy question or make a request concerning your information, please use the contact page. Include enough detail to identify the relevant message, comment, or interaction without sending unnecessary sensitive information.
Last updated: 17 September 2026