Privacy Policy

Effective Date: March 1, 2026
Last Updated: March 3, 2026

House of Saud (houseofsaud.com) is an English-language news and intelligence publication covering Saudi Arabian affairs, including business, defense, policy, diplomacy, and Vision 2030. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and protect your personal information when you visit our website or interact with our services.

By accessing or using houseofsaud.com, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with the practices described here, please discontinue use of the site.

1. Information We Collect

We collect limited information to operate our publication effectively and improve the reader experience. The data we collect falls into the following categories:

1.1 Automatically Collected Information

When you visit houseofsaud.com, certain technical information is collected automatically through cookies and analytics tools:

Device and browser information — browser type and version, operating system, screen resolution, and device type (desktop, mobile, or tablet)
Usage data — pages viewed, time spent on pages, referral source (how you arrived at the site), click patterns, and scroll depth
Network information — IP address (anonymized where possible), approximate geographic location (country and city level), and internet service provider
Performance data — page load times and site performance metrics collected for optimization purposes

This information is gathered primarily through Google Analytics and is used in aggregate to understand readership patterns and improve our content.

1.2 Information You Provide Voluntarily

Newsletter subscriptions — If you subscribe to our newsletter, we collect your email address and, optionally, your name
Contact form submissions — If you reach out through our contact page, we collect your name, email address, and the content of your message
Comments — If you leave comments on articles, we collect the name, email address, and website URL you provide, along with your comment text and IP address

1.3 Information We Do Not Collect

House of Saud does not currently:

Require user account registration or login
Collect payment or financial information
Process transactions of any kind
Collect sensitive personal data such as racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, health data, or biometric data

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

Content improvement — Analyzing readership data to understand which topics, formats, and coverage areas are most valuable to our audience
Site performance — Monitoring and optimizing website speed, reliability, and user experience
Editorial decisions — Using aggregate traffic and engagement data to inform our editorial priorities
Communication — Responding to inquiries submitted through our contact form
Newsletter delivery — Sending editorial updates and news digests to subscribers who have opted in
Security — Detecting and preventing malicious activity, spam, and unauthorized access
Legal compliance — Meeting our obligations under applicable data protection laws

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties. We do not use your data for automated decision-making or profiling.

3. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Cookies are small text files stored on your device when you visit a website. House of Saud uses the following types of cookies:

3.1 Strictly Necessary Cookies

WordPress session cookies — Required for basic site functionality, including comment submission and form handling
WP Rocket cookies — Used by our caching system to deliver optimized page versions, reduce load times, and improve site performance. These cookies do not track personal information

3.2 Analytics Cookies

Google Analytics (_ga, _gid, _gat) — Used to distinguish unique visitors, throttle request rates, and collect anonymous usage statistics. These cookies help us understand how readers interact with our content. Google Analytics data is processed in accordance with Google’s Privacy Policy

3.3 Third-Party Cookies

Embedded content cookies — Articles may contain embedded content from third-party services such as YouTube. These embeds may set their own cookies, governed by the respective third party’s privacy policy
Social sharing cookies — If social sharing buttons are present, the associated platforms may set cookies when you interact with them

3.4 Managing Cookies

You can control and manage cookies through your browser settings. Most browsers allow you to:

View and delete existing cookies
Block all cookies or only third-party cookies
Set preferences for specific websites
Receive notifications when a cookie is set

Please note that disabling certain cookies may affect site functionality or your browsing experience. For instructions on managing cookies in your specific browser, consult your browser’s help documentation.

To opt out of Google Analytics tracking specifically, you can install the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-on.

4. Third-Party Services

House of Saud relies on a limited number of third-party services to operate. These services may process your data in accordance with their own privacy policies:

Service	Purpose	Data Processed
Google Analytics	Website traffic analysis and audience measurement	Anonymized IP address, device information, browsing behavior
WP Rocket	Page caching and performance optimization	No personal data; performance-related cookies only
Rank Math SEO	Search engine optimization	No personal user data
YouTube (Google)	Video embeds within articles	Cookies and usage data per Google’s privacy policy
Email service provider	Newsletter distribution	Subscriber email addresses, open rates, click-through rates
Web hosting provider	Server infrastructure	Server access logs (IP addresses, request data)

We select third-party providers that maintain appropriate data protection standards. However, we encourage you to review the privacy policies of these services independently.

5. Data Retention

We retain your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this policy:

Analytics data — Google Analytics data is retained for 26 months from the date of collection, after which it is automatically deleted
Server logs — Web server access logs are retained for up to 90 days for security and diagnostic purposes
Newsletter subscriber data — Retained for as long as you remain subscribed. Upon unsubscribing, your email address is removed from our active mailing list within 30 days
Contact form submissions — Retained for up to 12 months to allow for follow-up correspondence, then deleted unless ongoing communication requires otherwise
Comment data — Retained indefinitely as part of the published editorial record, unless you request deletion

You may request early deletion of your personal data at any time by contacting us at the addresses provided in the Contact Us section below.

6. Your Rights Under GDPR

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, you have the following rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and related legislation:

Right of access — You may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
Right to rectification — You may request that we correct inaccurate or incomplete personal data
Right to erasure — You may request that we delete your personal data, subject to legal obligations that may require retention
Right to restrict processing — You may request that we limit how we use your data in certain circumstances
Right to data portability — You may request a machine-readable copy of the personal data you have provided to us
Right to object — You may object to our processing of your personal data, including processing for direct marketing purposes
Right to withdraw consent — Where processing is based on your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at [email protected]. We will respond to your request within 30 days, as required by law. We may ask you to verify your identity before processing your request.

If you believe your data protection rights have been violated, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority.

7. Your Rights Under CCPA

If you are a resident of California, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) provide you with specific rights regarding your personal information:

Right to know — You may request details about the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the sources of that information, our purposes for collecting it, and the categories of third parties with whom we share it
Right to delete — You may request the deletion of personal information we have collected from you, subject to certain exceptions
Right to correct — You may request that we correct inaccurate personal information
Right to opt out of sale or sharing — House of Saud does not sell your personal information, nor do we share it for cross-context behavioral advertising purposes
Right to non-discrimination — We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights

To submit a CCPA request, contact us at [email protected]. We will verify your identity and respond within 45 days.

In the preceding 12 months, House of Saud has collected the categories of personal information described in Section 1 of this policy. We have not sold personal information to any third party.

8. Children’s Privacy

House of Saud is a news publication intended for a general adult audience. Our content covers geopolitics, defense, business, and policy matters and is not directed at children.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 16 (or under 13 in jurisdictions where that is the applicable threshold). If we become aware that we have inadvertently collected personal data from a child under the applicable age, we will take prompt steps to delete that information.

If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided personal information to us, please contact us at [email protected] so we can address the matter.

9. Data Security

We take the security of your personal information seriously and implement reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect it, including:

SSL/TLS encryption — All data transmitted between your browser and houseofsaud.com is encrypted via HTTPS
Secure hosting — Our website is hosted on servers with industry-standard physical and network security controls
Access controls — Administrative access to the site and its data is restricted to authorized personnel only
Regular updates — We maintain up-to-date software, including WordPress core, plugins, and server components, to address known security vulnerabilities
Caching security — Our caching infrastructure (WP Rocket) is configured to prevent caching of sensitive or personalized data

While we strive to protect your personal information, no method of electronic transmission or storage is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security, but we are committed to maintaining safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the data we process.

10. International Data Transfers

House of Saud is accessed by readers worldwide. By using our website, you acknowledge that your information may be transferred to and processed in countries other than your own, including countries that may have different data protection standards.

Where personal data is transferred from the EEA, UK, or Switzerland to a jurisdiction without an adequacy determination, we rely on appropriate safeguards, including:

Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission
Data processing agreements with our third-party service providers
Ensuring that recipients maintain adequate levels of data protection

Our primary third-party data processor, Google (for Analytics), participates in and complies with applicable international data transfer frameworks. For more information, refer to Google’s data transfer framework disclosures.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technologies, legal requirements, or for other operational reasons. When we make material changes, we will:

Update the “Last Updated” date at the top of this page
Post the revised policy on this page
Where appropriate, provide notice through our website or newsletter for significant changes

We encourage you to review this page periodically to stay informed about how we protect your information. Your continued use of houseofsaud.com after any changes to this policy constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.