Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes how your information is handled and which cookies are used when you visit the Harun Yahya website (https://www.harunyahya.info— the "Site"). The Site is operated in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Turkish Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK No. 6698) and other applicable data protection laws.

Last Updated: May 25, 2026

Accounts and Personal Data

The Site is designed so that you can browse all content freely and at no cost. No registration, sign-up or password is required. We do not ask you for your name, email, phone number or any similar identifying information in order to use the Site.

The only information you actively send us is what you choose to submit via our contact form (your name, email and the content of your message). This data is used solely to respond to your inquiry and is not used for any other purpose.

Cookies

The Site may store small text files ("cookies") in your browser. The cookies we use fall into two groups:

  • Essential / Functional Cookies: Required for the Site to work correctly. They remember your language preference, light/dark theme, a short-lived session identifier and similar non-personal information. Disabling these cookies may prevent parts of the Site from working.
  • Analytics Cookies: Used by third-party services (Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity) to collect anonymous usage statistics. These are described in more detail below.

You can delete existing cookies and prevent new ones from being placed through your browser settings. Please consult your browser's help pages for information on how to manage cookies.

Our Own Anonymous Analytics

To improve our content and to understand which topics readers find most useful, the Site uses an internal, fully anonymised analytics pipeline running on our own servers. The pipeline works as follows:

  • Your IP address is never stored in raw form. Instead, your IP address, your browser string and a daily-rotating secret are combined and run through a one-way cryptographic hash (HMAC-SHA256). The result cannot be reversed to recover the IP, and the same visitor produces a different hash on the next day — so we cannot track you across days.
  • From your browser string we derive only the broad device type (mobile / tablet / desktop), the operating system family and the browser name. The raw User-Agent header is not stored.
  • From your IP we derive only the country and region. More precise location data (city, coordinates) is not stored by default.
  • We record which piece of content was viewed, when, and how long you stayed on the page — always together with the anonymous hash above, never with identifying information.
  • Traffic that looks like a bot or automated crawler is filtered out. Data is never shared with third parties for advertising, profiling or commercial purposes.

Country and region lookup is performed entirely on our own servers using the MaxMind GeoLite2-City database, fully offline. Your IP address is never sent to MaxMind or any other external service; only the database file itself is periodically downloaded from MaxMind to our server. For MaxMind's privacy policy, see: https://www.maxmind.com/en/privacy-policy

This pipeline is designed to satisfy the anonymisation requirements of GDPR and KVKK. The records cannot be used to identify you as an individual.

Third-Party Analytics Services

To better understand reader behaviour, the Site also uses the following third-party services. These services collect information under their own privacy policies and store it on their own servers; we do not control that data:

These services may collect data through cookies, device identifiers and the IP address. You can opt out by installing browser extensions (for example the Google Analytics Opt-out add-on) or by enabling "Do Not Track" in your browser settings.

Data Retention

Our own anonymous analytics records are kept only as long as needed for trend analysis (generally no longer than twelve months) and are then deleted automatically. Retention periods of third-party services are described in their respective privacy policies.

How We Use the Information

The aggregated, anonymous data is used for the following purposes:

  • To understand usage trends and improve the Site's content, features and user experience
  • To measure how much interest each piece of content attracts and to guide editorial priorities
  • To monitor the Site's performance, detect technical issues and ensure stability
  • To detect and mitigate abuse and bot traffic

This information is never used to identify you personally or for advertising.

Advertising and Profiling

The Site does not display any advertisements and does not pass data to third-party advertising networks. Collected data is not used to build user profiles or to perform targeted marketing.

Data Security

All communication with the Site is encrypted over HTTPS. We apply reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect data processed on our servers against unauthorised access, loss and misuse. However, no security measure is perfect, and the security of your data also depends on the security of the device and network you use to access the Site.

Use of Content

All works on the Site (videos, articles, books, audio recordings, images and quotes) are provided for educational and informational purposes. Visitors are encouraged to access, reproduce and share this content for personal, non-commercial use.

Children's Privacy

The Site is intended for visitors of all ages. Because no registration or personal data is required, we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13 (or the applicable age of consent in your jurisdiction). For information on how third-party analytics services handle children's data, please consult their respective privacy policies.

Your Rights

Depending on your jurisdiction (GDPR for EU/EEA residents, KVKK Article 11 for Turkey, and equivalent laws elsewhere), you have rights regarding your personal data, including the right to:

  • Learn whether personal data about you is being processed
  • Request information about how it is being processed and for what purpose
  • Be informed about third parties to which the data has been transferred, within Turkey or abroad
  • Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data
  • Request erasure or destruction of the data when conditions are met
  • Object to decisions made about you by automated systems
  • Seek compensation for damages caused by unlawful processing

Because the Site does not require registration and the analytics records are anonymised, it is technically impossible for us to associate stored records with you as an individual. This does not prevent you from exercising your rights — we will respond to requests within the limits of what is technically possible.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, the Site's functionality or applicable laws. When we make changes, the "Last Updated" date at the top of this policy will be revised. Continued use of the Site after any update constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.

Contact Us

For any questions, requests or complaints regarding this Privacy Policy or your personal data, please contact us at https://www.harunyahya.info/en/contact.