Legal

Privacy notice

This notice explains what personal information we collect when you visit thesecretsofdubai.com or buy Secrets of Dubai. It covers why we use the information, who receives it, how long we keep it, and the choices and rights you have.

Last updated 14 October 2026

Who is responsible

Branda Stock Ltd, the publisher of Secrets of Dubai, is responsible for (is the controller of) the personal information described here. Our company details are in the Legal notice in our Terms. For any privacy question or request, email support@thesecretsofdubai.com.

What we collect

• When you visit: our hosting provider’s servers record technical data such as your IP address, browser details, the pages requested and the time. If you accept measurement cookies, Meta, TikTok and Microsoft Clarity also collect the usage information described under “Measurement and advertising”.
• When you buy: Dodo Payments gives us your email address and, if you gave them, your name and your postcode, state or city. It also gives us your billing country, a customer and order reference, the product, and the amount, currency, tax and payment status. With your order we also record the campaign codes in the link you arrived by (utm values), your measurement choice, the checkout acknowledgement you gave (and, where you ticked a box, when), and the version of the terms you accepted. The Meta click identifier (fbclid), and the IP address and browser details your device used to open the payment form, are recorded only if measurement is on for you (see “Measurement and advertising”).
• When you ask for the free chapter: your email address, the time and wording of the consent you gave, the campaign codes in the link you arrived by (utm values), and which of our emails we sent you and when.
• When you download: our server records the order reference, the file, the time, and your IP address and browser details.
• When you contact us: whatever you choose to send, and our reply.

We never receive your card number. We do not ask for sensitive information, and there is no customer account. You do not have to give us your details, but without an email address and a billing country we cannot sell or deliver the book.

How we use it and our legal bases

• To email you Chapter 1 and at most two short emails about the book, if you ask for the free chapter and tick the consent box. Legal basis: your consent. You can withdraw it at any time with the unsubscribe link in every email or by writing to us; we then stop at once.
• To sell and deliver the book, send your download links and order emails, and provide support. Legal basis: it is necessary to perform our contract with you.
• To keep order, tax and accounting records, including the record of what you accepted at checkout. Legal basis: the law requires it.
• To keep the site and downloads secure, prevent fraud and link sharing, enforce our licence, and answer payment disputes and chargebacks. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in protecting our business. Where the law of your country does not recognise that basis, the processing is necessary for our contract or to establish or defend legal claims.
• To measure visits and our advertising, using the Meta Pixel and Conversions API, the TikTok Pixel and Events API, Microsoft Clarity and our advertising-management system. Legal basis: your consent where the law requires it, including in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland; elsewhere, our legitimate interest in measuring our advertising. You can switch measurement off at any time. If measurement is off for you, our advertising-management system receives only order amounts, currency, status and campaign codes, with nothing that identifies you.

We do not sell your personal information. We send marketing emails only to people who ask for the free chapter and tick the consent box, and then only Chapter 1 and at most two short emails about the book; we stop earlier if you unsubscribe or buy the book. We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects. If we ever want to send you marketing, we will ask for your consent first.

Payments

Payments are processed by Dodo Payments, our reseller and merchant of record. Dodo Payments is an independent controller for the information you give it at checkout. The payment form and the Apple Pay and Google Pay buttons are provided by Dodo Payments and loaded from its servers and the jsDelivr network. Dodo Payments privacy notice.

Measurement and advertising

We use the measurement tools below. If you visit from the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, they load only after you choose Accept on our cookie banner. Elsewhere they are on by default, and you can switch them off at any time with the Cookie choices button below.

• Meta Pixel (Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd and Meta Platforms, Inc.). It records page views, the checkout steps you reach, and a completed purchase with its amount, currency and order reference. It sets cookies such as _fbp.
• Microsoft Clarity (Microsoft Corporation). It records how you use our pages, including clicks, scrolling and mouse movement, and can replay a session. It cannot see the payment form, which Dodo Payments provides in a separate secure frame. Our order confirmation page, which shows your email address and download links, is masked in recordings, and we remove your email address from that page’s web address before any of these tools can load.
• Meta Conversions API. Unless measurement was off for you when you paid, our server also sends Meta a record of your purchase (amount, currency and order reference). With it we send, in hashed form, your email address, first and last name, country, city and postcode and a customer reference, plus the Meta cookie identifiers (_fbp and _fbc), and the IP address and browser details recorded when you opened the payment form. When you open the payment form, our server also tells Meta that a checkout started, with only your IP address, browser details and the Meta cookie identifiers. Hashing scrambles these details, but Meta can still match them to its users. Meta uses this to measure and improve our ads.
• TikTok Pixel (TikTok Technology Limited in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland; elsewhere TikTok Pte. Ltd.). It records page views, the checkout steps you reach, and a completed purchase with its amount, currency and order reference. It sets cookies such as _ttp and reads the TikTok click identifier (ttclid) in the link you arrived by.
• TikTok Events API. Unless measurement was off for you when you paid, our server also sends TikTok a record of your purchase (amount, currency and order reference). With it we send, in hashed form, your email address and a customer reference, plus the TikTok click and cookie identifiers (ttclid and _ttp), and the IP address and browser details recorded when you opened the payment form. When you open the payment form, our server also tells TikTok that a checkout started, with only your IP address, browser details and the TikTok identifiers. TikTok uses this to measure and improve our ads.
• Our advertising-management system. To see which ads led to sales, our server shares each order’s amount, currency, status and campaign codes with the advertising-management system we use. Unless measurement was off for you when you paid, it also receives your email address in hashed form and the Meta and TikTok click and cookie identifiers (fbclid, _fbc, _fbp, ttclid, _ttp), which it may send to Meta or TikTok to measure our ads.

If you visit from the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, none of these tools loads until you choose Accept, and if you decline or make no choice, no hashed email address, click identifier or cookie identifier about you is sent to Meta, TikTok or Microsoft. Elsewhere, if you switch measurement off with Cookie choices, the same applies from then on. We store your choice in your browser. We and Meta are joint controllers for the collection and transmission of data through the Meta tools. Meta is responsible for its own later use of the data. The same applies to TikTok for the TikTok tools. Meta privacy policy · TikTok privacy policy · Microsoft privacy statement.

You can change your choice at any time:

Cookie choices

The free-chapter emails

If you ask for the free chapter, we email you a link to Chapter 1 as a PDF straight away, a short note about the rest of the book about a day later, and a last note a few days after that. There are no other emails in the series. Every email has an unsubscribe link that works with one click. We do not send these emails to anyone who has unsubscribed or has already bought the book. Our email is sent through our host, Hostinger. If measurement is on for you, the Meta Pixel and the TikTok Pixel also record that a free-chapter request was made, without your email address.

Hosting and email

This website and our mailbox are hosted by Hostinger, which also sends our order emails. Messages sent to our support address are also delivered to, and managed in, Google’s email service. These providers process information on our behalf and apply their own security measures.

Who receives your information

• Dodo Payments, for payment, tax, receipts, refunds and disputes.
• Hostinger and Google, as our hosting and email providers.
• Our advertising-management system: order amounts, currency, status and campaign codes, plus hashed identifiers unless measurement is off for you.
• Meta, TikTok and Microsoft, unless measurement is off for you.
• Professional advisers, banks and payment networks where they are needed to handle a dispute, and authorities where the law requires it.
• A buyer or successor of the book or of our business, under the same protections.

International transfers

We and our service providers process personal information outside the UAE and outside your own country. This includes the European Union, the United States and the other countries where we and they are established. Where the law requires it, these transfers rely on recognised safeguards, such as adequacy decisions (including the EU–US and UK–US data frameworks), standard contractual clauses or your consent. You can ask us for more information about these safeguards.

How long we keep information

• Order, payment and download records, including the checkout record of your acknowledgement, cookie choice and the terms version: up to 7 years, for tax, accounting and dispute purposes.
• Support emails: 24 months after the last message.
• Free-chapter requests: 12 months after you signed up, then deleted. If you unsubscribe earlier, we keep your address with the unsubscribe mark until then, only so that we do not email you again.
• Our host’s server access logs: only as long as our host needs them for security, and no longer than 12 months.
• Information collected by Meta, TikTok and Microsoft: under their own retention periods.

Security

We limit access to the people and providers who need it, use encrypted connections, and protect our accounts with strong, unique passwords. If a breach affects your information in a way the law requires us to report, we will tell you and the relevant authority.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, laws such as the GDPR, the UK GDPR and the UAE Personal Data Protection Law let you ask us to:

• tell you what information we hold about you and give you a copy;
• correct or complete it;
• delete it, or restrict or stop our use of it;
• object to our use of it, including for profiling or advertising measurement;
• give it to you, or to someone else, in a portable format; and
• withdraw your consent at any time using the Cookie choices button above. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that happened before.

Email us to make a request. We may need to verify your identity, and we may keep records the law requires us to keep. We normally reply within one month and do not charge a fee. You can also complain to the data-protection authority where you live, such as the UAE Data Office or your EU or UK supervisory authority, but we would appreciate the chance to help first.

Children

The site and the book are for adults. They are not directed at anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect information about children.

Changes

If we update this notice, we will post the new version here with a new date before any new use of your information begins.