Privacy Policy

The short version

This is a personal portfolio site run by Ahmed Ali. It has no user accounts. The personal information it receives is what you choose to type into the contact form, the cookies and device data that advertising partners (Google AdSense) use to serve and measure ads, and the usage data Google Analytics collects about how pages here are read. This page explains each of those, and what you can do about them.

Who is responsible

The site at devahmedali.com is operated by Ahmed Ali. For anything in this policy, email [email protected].

What the contact form collects

When you send a message through the contact form, it collects:

• Your name
• Your email address
• The subject and body of your message

These are used for one thing only: replying to you. They are delivered to my inbox by an email service provider (Resend) and are not added to any mailing list, sold, or shared with anyone else.

How long it is kept

Messages stay in my email account as part of normal correspondence. If you would like a message deleted, email me at [email protected] and I will remove it.

Cookies

A cookie is a small text file a website stores in your browser. This site sets no cookies of its own beyond the measurement cookies described below. Cookies you may encounter here come from:

• Advertising partners. Google and its partners use cookies and similar technologies (such as web beacons and device identifiers) to serve and measure ads. The next section explains this in detail.
• Measurement. Google Analytics sets cookies (named _ga and similar) so a returning visit is not counted twice. The Analytics section below says what is recorded and how to opt out.
• Hosting and security. The infrastructure that serves the site, including the Cloudflare content delivery network, may set cookies needed to protect the site from abuse and keep it available. These do not identify you to me.

You can delete or block cookies in your browser settings. The site keeps working if you do.

Advertising (Google AdSense)

This site displays advertising served by Google AdSense. Ads are labelled as ads and are kept visually separate from my own content. The following disclosures are made in line with Google's requirements for publishers:

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or to other websites.
• Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to this site and/or other sites on the internet.
• Google may also use the data it collects to measure how ads perform and to detect invalid traffic and abuse.
• I do not receive your personal information from Google. I only see aggregated reporting such as how many ads were shown.

For a full account of how Google handles this data, read How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services and Google's advertising technologies page.

Your choices about ads

• You can opt out of personalised advertising from Google at Google Ads Settings.
• You can opt out of some third-party vendors' use of cookies for personalised advertising at www.aboutads.info/choices or www.youronlinechoices.com (Europe).
• Blocking or deleting cookies in your browser also limits ad personalisation. You will still see ads, but they will not be based on your browsing.

Consent in the EEA, UK and Switzerland

If you visit from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, you will see a consent message before any advertising cookies are set. It is provided by Google's certified consent management platform, which follows the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework, and it lets you accept, reject or fine-tune the purposes your data is used for. If you decline, you are shown non-personalised ads only, which rely on the context of the page rather than on your browsing history.

You can change or withdraw your choice at any time using the Privacy settings link in the footer of every page.

Analytics

This site uses Google Analytics 4 to count visits and see which pages get read. It is the only analytics tool running here.

• What it records is the pages you open, the page or search that sent you here, an approximate location worked out from your IP address, and your device and browser type.
• Google Analytics 4 does not log or store IP addresses. The address is used to derive that coarse location and is then discarded.
• It is not connected to the contact form, so your name, email address and message never reach it. I see aggregated reports only, such as how many people read a given article, and cannot identify you from them.

You can opt out by installing Google's Analytics opt-out browser add-on, or by blocking cookies or scripts for this site in your browser. Nothing here stops working if you do. Google's own account of what it collects is in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.

Server logs and third-party services

The site is served from a hosting provider through Cloudflare, which together process standard request logs (such as IP address, browser type and the pages requested) for security, abuse prevention and reliability. Contact form messages are delivered by Resend. Advertising is served by Google.Page measurement is provided by Google Analytics. None of these providers is used by me to build a profile of you.

Children

This site is written for working engineers and the people who hire them. It is not directed at children under 13 (or the age of digital consent where you live), and I do not knowingly collect personal information from them.

Links to other sites

Pages here link out to places like GitHub, LinkedIn and the products described in the case studies. Once you follow one of those links, that site's own privacy policy applies, not this one.

Your rights

You can ask what information I hold about you, ask for it to be corrected, ask for it to be deleted, or object to how it is used. Email [email protected] and I will action it. If you are in the EEA or UK and are unhappy with how I have handled your data, you also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, the date at the top is updated. Anything that materially changes what is collected, such as adding analytics or a new advertising partner, will be spelled out here rather than buried.

Contact

Questions about this policy can go to [email protected]. The Terms of Use cover the rest of how the site may be used.