Cookie Policy — How Riyadh 2030 Uses Cookies, Tracking Technologies, and Your Consent Choices

Effective Date: March 23, 2026

Last Updated: March 23, 2026

This Cookie Policy explains how Riyadh 2030, a publication of The Vanderbilt Portfolio (“we,” “us,” or “our”), uses cookies and similar tracking technologies when you visit the riyadh2030.ai website and associated services (collectively, the “Platform”). This policy should be read in conjunction with our Privacy Policy, which provides additional detail about how we collect, use, and protect your personal information.

We believe in transparency about the technologies used on our Platform and in giving you meaningful choices about how your information is collected and used. This Cookie Policy provides a comprehensive explanation of what cookies are, the types of cookies we use, the purposes they serve, and the options available to you for managing your cookie preferences.

What Are Cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device (computer, tablet, smartphone, or other internet-connected device) when you visit a website. Cookies are widely used across the internet to make websites function properly, to enhance user experience, and to provide website operators with information about how their sites are used.

Cookies were invented in 1994 by Lou Montulli, a programmer at Netscape Communications, to solve the problem of maintaining state in the inherently stateless HTTP protocol. The technology has since become a fundamental building block of the modern web, enabling everything from shopping carts and login sessions to audience analytics and personalized advertising.

Each cookie contains a name, a value, an expiration date, and the domain that set it. When you revisit a website, the browser sends the relevant cookies back to the server, allowing the site to recognize your device and recall your preferences, login status, and other information.

Types of Cookies by Duration

Session Cookies: These cookies are temporary and are deleted from your device when you close your browser. Session cookies enable essential website functionality such as maintaining your login state as you navigate between pages and preserving items in a shopping cart during a single browsing session.

Persistent Cookies: These cookies remain on your device for a predetermined period or until you manually delete them. Persistent cookies enable the website to remember your preferences and recognize your device on subsequent visits. The duration of persistent cookies varies; some expire after a few hours, while others may persist for months or years.

Types of Cookies by Origin

First-Party Cookies: These cookies are set by the website you are visiting — in this case, riyadh2030.ai. First-party cookies enable core website functionality and are typically used for user preferences, session management, and basic analytics.

Third-Party Cookies: These cookies are set by domains other than the one you are visiting. Third-party cookies are commonly used for cross-site tracking, advertising, and analytics. For example, when we display advertisements through Google AdSense, Google may set cookies on your device to manage ad delivery and measure advertising effectiveness.

Cookies Used on Riyadh 2030

We categorize the cookies used on our Platform into four functional groups, each serving distinct purposes:

Essential Cookies

Essential cookies are strictly necessary for the Platform to function properly. Without these cookies, certain features of the Platform would not work, and you would not be able to access core functionality. Essential cookies do not require your consent under most privacy regulations because they are necessary for the provision of the service you have requested.

Essential cookies on the Riyadh 2030 platform include:

Session Management Cookies: These cookies maintain your browsing session as you navigate between pages on the Platform. They ensure that your interactions (such as form submissions and page navigation) are handled correctly and that you do not need to re-authenticate on each page load.

Security Cookies: These cookies support security features that protect the Platform and its users, including cross-site request forgery (CSRF) protection tokens and bot detection mechanisms.

Cookie Consent Cookies: These cookies store your cookie preference choices, ensuring that the Platform respects your consent decisions on subsequent visits. Without these cookies, the Platform would prompt you for consent on every page load.

Load Balancing Cookies: These cookies distribute traffic across our server infrastructure to ensure optimal performance and prevent any single server from becoming overloaded.

Analytics Cookies

Analytics cookies help us understand how visitors interact with the Platform by collecting information about pages visited, time spent on the site, navigation patterns, error messages encountered, and other usage data. This information is typically processed in aggregate form, though some analytics services provide individual-level data that we use to improve the user experience.

Google Analytics: We use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google LLC, to collect and analyze usage data. Google Analytics uses cookies including _ga, ga[ID], and _gid to distinguish users, track session data, and compile statistical reports about Platform activity. Google Analytics data is processed by Google on servers in the United States under Google’s privacy policy.

The _ga cookie has a default expiration of 2 years and assigns a unique identifier to your device. The _gid cookie expires after 24 hours and is used to distinguish users within a single day. The ga[ID] cookie is specific to our Google Analytics property and is used to persist session state.

We have configured Google Analytics with the following privacy-enhancing settings:

• IP anonymization is enabled, which truncates your IP address before storage
• Data retention is set to 26 months
• Advertising features that create detailed user profiles are disabled unless you have consented to advertising cookies
• Data sharing with other Google products is limited to analytics purposes

Google Analytics 4 (GA4): As the successor to Universal Analytics, GA4 uses an event-based data model and machine learning to provide insights about user behavior. GA4 cookies operate similarly to those described above but with enhanced cross-device tracking capabilities.

Advertising Cookies

Advertising cookies are used to deliver relevant advertisements to our visitors and to measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. These cookies track your browsing activity across websites and are typically set by our advertising partners.

Google AdSense: As a Google AdSense publisher, we display advertisements served by Google’s advertising network. Google AdSense uses cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to our Platform and other websites, to limit the number of times you see a particular advertisement, and to measure advertising performance.

Key Google advertising cookies include:

• NID: This cookie stores a unique identifier that Google uses to remember your preferences and other information, such as your preferred language, how many search results you wish to have shown per page, and whether you wish to have Google’s SafeSearch filter turned on. It expires after 6 months.

• IDE / DSID: These cookies are used by Google’s DoubleClick advertising system to register and report on website users’ actions after viewing or clicking on one of an advertiser’s ads. IDE cookies expire after 13 months in regions subject to GDPR and after 24 months elsewhere.

• ANID: This cookie is used to deliver advertising relevant to your interests. It expires after 13 months.

• 1P_JAR: This cookie gathers website statistics and tracks conversion rates. It expires after 1 month.

Google’s use of advertising cookies is governed by Google’s Advertising Privacy Policy. You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google’s Ad Settings page at adssettings.google.com.

Functional Cookies

Functional cookies enable enhanced functionality and personalization features on the Platform that go beyond essential operation. These cookies remember your preferences and choices to provide a more tailored experience.

Theme and Display Preferences: If the Platform offers display customization options (such as dark mode or font size adjustments), functional cookies store your selections so they persist across visits.

Content Preferences: Functional cookies may store your content interest preferences, enabling us to surface articles and analysis that align with topics you have previously engaged with.

Language Preferences: Although the Platform currently publishes in English, functional cookies support our capability to remember language preferences should we introduce multilingual content in the future.

Recently Viewed Content: Functional cookies may track which articles and dashboard pages you have recently viewed, enabling navigation features that help you return to content you were exploring.

Web Beacons and Pixel Tags

In addition to cookies, we use web beacons (also known as pixel tags, clear GIFs, or tracking pixels) on the Platform and in our email communications. Web beacons are tiny transparent images embedded in web pages or emails that send a signal to a server when the page or email is loaded.

On the Platform, web beacons work in conjunction with cookies to provide usage analytics and advertising measurement. In our email newsletters, web beacons help us determine whether emails were opened, which links were clicked, and how you engage with our email content. This information helps us optimize our email communications and deliver content that our readers find valuable.

Local Storage and Session Storage

We use browser local storage and session storage technologies, which are similar to cookies but can store larger amounts of data locally on your device. Local storage persists until manually cleared, while session storage is cleared when you close your browser tab.

We use local storage for caching dashboard data to improve page load performance, storing user interface state information, and maintaining offline capabilities for certain features. Session storage is used for temporary data needed during your current browsing session.

Managing Your Cookie Preferences

You have several options for managing how cookies are used when you visit the Platform:

Browser Settings

Most web browsers allow you to control cookies through their settings. You can typically find cookie management options in the “Privacy,” “Security,” or “Settings” menu of your browser. Common browser cookie management options include:

• Block all cookies: This prevents all cookies from being set on your device. Note that blocking all cookies will prevent essential cookies from functioning and may render the Platform unusable.

• Block third-party cookies: This allows first-party cookies (set by riyadh2030.ai) while blocking cookies from other domains. This option provides a balance between functionality and privacy, as it blocks most advertising and cross-site tracking cookies while preserving essential Platform functionality.

• Delete cookies: You can delete all cookies currently stored on your device or delete cookies from specific websites. Note that deleting cookies will reset your preferences and consent choices, requiring you to reconfigure them on your next visit.

Google Ad Personalization

You can control how Google uses information for advertising purposes by visiting Google’s Ad Settings at adssettings.google.com. This allows you to opt out of personalized advertising while still seeing non-personalized advertisements.

Industry Opt-Out Tools

Several industry organizations offer opt-out mechanisms that allow you to limit interest-based advertising from participating companies:

• Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA): optout.aboutads.info
• European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA): youronlinechoices.eu
• Network Advertising Initiative (NAI): optout.networkadvertising.org

These tools set opt-out cookies on your device. If you clear your cookies, you will need to use these tools again to reinstate your preferences.

Do Not Track

Some browsers offer a Do Not Track (DNT) signal that indicates your preference not to be tracked. As noted in our Privacy Policy, the Platform does not currently respond to DNT signals due to the absence of a uniform industry standard for DNT implementation. However, you can achieve similar results through the cookie management options described above.

Impact of Cookie Restrictions

If you choose to restrict or block cookies, please be aware of the following potential impacts on your experience:

• Blocking essential cookies will prevent core Platform functionality, potentially making the site unusable
• Blocking analytics cookies will prevent us from understanding how you use the Platform and from improving our content and user experience based on aggregate usage data
• Blocking advertising cookies will not prevent advertisements from appearing on the Platform, but the advertisements you see will be less relevant to your interests. You will see the same number of advertisements, but they will be generic rather than personalized
• Blocking functional cookies will prevent the Platform from remembering your preferences, requiring you to reconfigure settings on each visit

Cookie Retention Periods

The following table summarizes the retention periods for the major categories of cookies used on the Platform:

Updates to This Cookie Policy

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time to reflect changes in the cookies we use, the purposes for which we use them, changes in applicable law, or other factors. We will indicate the date of the most recent revision at the top of this page.

Material changes to this Cookie Policy will be communicated through a prominent notice on the Platform. We encourage you to review this Cookie Policy periodically to stay informed about our use of cookies and related technologies.

Cookie Use in Context: Our Analytical Platform

The Riyadh 2030 Platform operates as a specialized intelligence and analytical service covering Saudi Arabia’s economic transformation, and our cookie usage reflects the specific requirements of this publishing model. Our content spans free-access analytical articles, premium intelligence products, newsletter distribution, report downloads, and interactive data dashboards — each with distinct cookie requirements. The Google Analytics cookies deployed on the Platform help us understand which analytical topics generate the most engagement (for example, giga-project tracking, Vision 2030 scorecard analysis, or Expo 2030 construction progress), enabling us to allocate editorial resources to the subjects our audience values most. The Google AdSense cookies support the advertising revenue model that funds our free-access content, which includes comprehensive coverage of Saudi Arabia’s $1.27 trillion economy, the Public Investment Fund’s $1+ trillion portfolio, and the Kingdom’s giga-project developments. Newsletter subscription forms use functional cookies to remember subscriber preferences and prevent duplicate submissions, while our premium content access system uses authentication cookies to verify subscriber status and deliver gated content including extended briefings, sector supplements, and interactive dashboards.

Users should be aware that our Platform’s analytical content frequently references entities and developments in Saudi Arabia, including PIF investments, Expo 2030 construction contracts, and Vision 2030 performance metrics. Cookies associated with embedded content — such as interactive charts, data visualizations, or embedded social media posts referencing Saudi economic data — may be set by third-party providers whose cookie policies differ from ours. We encourage users who access our Platform for investment research, policy analysis, or business intelligence purposes to configure their browser cookie settings in alignment with their organization’s data handling policies. Enterprise users accessing the Platform through corporate networks should consult their IT departments regarding any organizational cookie management requirements that may apply. The cookie consent preferences you set through our consent management tool are stored locally and respected across all sections of the Platform, including free-access content, premium intelligence sections, lead-generation pages, and interactive dashboard tools.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Cookie Policy, the cookies used on the Platform, or your cookie preferences, please contact us at:

Email: info@riyadh2030.ai

Subject Line: Cookie Policy Inquiry

Publisher: The Vanderbilt Portfolio

We will endeavor to respond to your inquiry within five business days.