Data protection

We have drawn up this data protection declaration (version 22.04.2020-311171316) to explain to you, in accordance with the provisions of the basic data protection regulation (EU) 2016/679, what information we collect, how we use data and what decision-making options you have as a visitor to this website.

Unfortunately, it is in the nature of things that these explanations sound very technical, but we have tried to describe the most important things as simple and clear as possible.

Automatic data storage

When you visit websites today, certain information is automatically created and stored, including on this website.

When you visit our website as you are doing right now, our web server (computer on which this website is stored) automatically saves data such as

• the address (URL) of the accessed web page

• Browser and browser version

• the operating system used

• the address (URL) of the previously visited page (referrer URL)

• the hostname and IP address of the device from which access is made

• Date and time

in files (web server log files).

Usually, web server log files are stored for two weeks and then automatically deleted. We do not pass on this data, but cannot exclude the possibility that this data may be viewed in the event of illegal behavior.

Cookies

Our website uses HTTP cookies to store user-specific data.

In the following, we explain what cookies are and why they are used so that you can better understand the following privacy policy.

What exactly are cookies?

Whenever you surf the Internet, you use a browser. Some well-known browsers include Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge. Most websites store small text files in your browser. These files are called cookies.

There is one thing that cannot be dismissed: Cookies are really useful little helpers. Almost all websites use cookies. More precisely, they are HTTP cookies, as there are other cookies for other applications. HTTP cookies are small files that are stored on your computer by our website. These cookie files are automatically stored in the cookie folder, quasi the “brain” of your browser. A cookie consists of a name and a value. When defining a cookie, one or more attributes must also be specified.

Cookies store certain user data about you, such as language or personal page settings. When you visit our site again, your browser transmits the “user-related” information back to our site. Thanks to the cookies, our website knows who you are and offers you your accustomed standard settings. In some browsers, each cookie has its own file; in others, such as Firefox, all cookies are stored in a single file.

There are both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created directly by our site. Third-party cookies are created by partner sites (e.g., Google Analytics). Each cookie is unique because each cookie stores different data. The expiration time of a cookie also varies from a few minutes to a few years. Cookies are not software programs and do not contain viruses, trojans, or other “pests”. Cookies also cannot access information on your PC.

This is how cookie data can look like, for example:

• Name: _ga

• Expiry period: 2 years

• Usage: Differentiation of website visitors

• Example value: GA1.2.1326744211.152311171316

A browser should support the following minimum sizes:

• A cookie should be able to contain at least 4096 bytes.

• At least 50 cookies should be able to be stored per domain.

• A total of at least 3000 cookies should be able to be stored.

What types of cookies are there?

The question of which cookies we use in particular depends on the services used and is clarified in the following sections of the privacy policy. At this point, we would like to briefly discuss the different types of HTTP cookies.

You can distinguish four types of cookies:

Essential Cookies

These cookies are necessary to ensure the basic functions of the website. For example, these cookies are needed when a user places a product in the shopping cart, then continues surfing on other pages and only proceeds to checkout later. These cookies do not delete the shopping cart, even if the user closes his browser window.

Functional cookies

These cookies collect information about user behavior and whether the user receives any error messages. In addition, these cookies also measure the loading time and the behavior of the website with different browsers.

Goal-oriented cookies

These cookies ensure a better user experience. For example, entered locations, font sizes, or form data are stored.

Advertising cookies

These cookies are also called targeting cookies. They are used to deliver customized advertising to the user. This can be very practical, but also very annoying.

Usually, the first time you visit a website, you will be asked which of these types of cookies you wish to accept. And of course, this decision is also stored in a cookie.

How can I delete cookies?

How and whether you want to use cookies is up to you. Regardless of which service or website the cookies come from, you always have the option of deleting cookies, allowing them only partially or deactivating them. For example, you can block third-party cookies but allow all other cookies.

If you want to find out which cookies have been stored in your browser when you change or delete cookie settings, you can find this in your browser settings:

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

Firefox: Delete cookies to remove data that websites have placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. In this way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether or not you wish to accept it. The procedure varies depending on the browser. The best thing to do is to look for the instructions in Google using the search term “Delete Chrome cookies” or “Disable Chrome cookies” in the case of a Chrome browser, or replace the word “Chrome” with the name of your browser, e.g., Edge, Firefox, Safari.

What about my privacy?

The so-called “cookie guidelines” have been in place since 2009. This states that the storage of cookies requires the consent of the website visitor (i.e., you). Within the EU countries, however, there are still very different reactions to these guidelines. In Germany, the cookie guidelines have not been implemented as national law. Instead, the implementation of this directive was largely carried out in § 15 para.3 of the Telemediengesetz (TMG).

If you want to know more about cookies and are not afraid of technical documentation, we recommend https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6265, the Request for Comments of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) called “HTTP State Management Mechanism”.

Storage of personal data

Personal information that you submit to us electronically on this website, such as your name, e-mail address, postal address or other personal information when submitting a form or comments on the blog, together with the time and IP address, will only be used by us for the purpose stated in each case, will be kept securely stored and will not be disclosed to third parties.

We use your personal data, therefore, only for communication with those visitors who expressly wish to contact us and for processing the services and products offered on this website. We will not pass on your personal data without your consent, but we cannot exclude the possibility that this data may be viewed in the event of unlawful behavior.

If you send us personal data by e-mail – thus off this website – we cannot guarantee secure transmission and protection of your data. We recommend that you never send confidential data by e-mail without encryption.

According to Article 6 paragraph 1, a DSGVO (lawfulness of processing), the legal basis is that you give us your consent to process the data you have entered. You can revoke this consent at any time – an informal e-mail is sufficient; you will find our contact details in the imprint.

Rights under the basic data protection regulation

In accordance with the provisions of the DSGVO, you are basically entitled to the following rights:

• Right of rectification (Article 16 DSGVO)

• Right of cancellation (“right to be forgotten”) (Article 17 DPA)

• Right to restrict processing (Article 18 DSGVO)

• Right of notification – Obligation to notify in connection with the correction or deletion of personal data or the restriction of processing (Article 19 DPA)

• Right to data transferability (Article 20 DSGVO)

• Right of objection (Article 21 DSGVO)

• Right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling (Article 22 DPA)

If you believe that the processing of your data violates data protection law or your data protection rights have otherwise been violated in any way, you can contact the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI).

Evaluation of the visitor behavior

In the following data protection declaration, we inform you whether and how we evaluate data of your visit to this website. The evaluation of the collected data is usually anonymous, and we cannot deduce your identity from your behavior on this website.

You can find out more about how to object to this evaluation of visit data in the following data protection declaration.

TLS encryption with https

We use https to transmit data tap-proof on the Internet (data protection through technology design article 25, paragraph 1, DSGVO). By using TLS (Transport Layer Security), an encryption protocol for secure data transmission on the Internet, we can ensure the protection of confidential data. You can recognize the use of this data transmission security by the small lock symbol in the upper left corner of your browser and the use of the https scheme (instead of http) as part of our Internet address.

Google Analytics IP anonymization

We have implemented the IP address anonymization of Google Analytics on this website. This function was developed by Google so that this website can comply with the applicable data protection regulations and recommendations of local data protection authorities if they prohibit the storage of the complete IP address. The anonymization or masking of the IP address takes place as soon as the IP addresses arrive in the Google Analytics data collection network and before the data is saved or processed.

More information on IP anonymization can be found at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2763052?hl=de.

Google Analytics reports on demographic characteristics and interests.

We have enabled the advertising reporting features in Google Analytics. The demographic and interest reports include information about age, gender, and interests. This allows us to get a better picture of our users without having to associate this information with individual people. You can learn more about the advertising features at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3450482?hl=de_ATtm_id=ad.

You can stop using the activities and information of your Google Account by selecting the checkbox under “Advertising settings” on https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated.

Google Analytics add-on for data processing

We have concluded a direct customer agreement with Google for the use of Google Analytics by accepting the “data processing addendum” in Google Analytics.

More about the data processing add-on for Google Analytics can be found here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3379636?hl=detm_id=ad

Facebook-Pixel Privacy Policy

We use the Facebook pixel of Facebook on our website. We have implemented code for this on our website. The Facebook pixel is an excerpt of JavaScript code that loads a collection of functions with which Facebook can track your user actions if you came to our website via Facebook ads. For example, when you purchase a product on our website, the Facebook pixel is triggered and stores your actions on our website in one or more cookies. These cookies enable Facebook to compare your user data (customer data such as IP address, user ID) with the data of your Facebook account. Then Facebook deletes this data again. The collected data is anonymous and cannot be viewed by us and is only used for advertising purposes. If you yourself are a Facebook user and are logged in, your visit to our website is automatically assigned to your Facebook user account.

We only want to show our services or products to people who are really interested in them. With the help of Facebook pixels, our advertising measures can be better tailored to your wishes and interests. Thus, Facebook users (if they have allowed personalized advertising) get to see suitable advertisements. Furthermore, Facebook uses the collected data for analysis purposes and its own advertisements.

In the following, we show you those cookies that were set by including Facebook pixels on a test page. Please note that these are only sample cookies. Different cookies are set depending on the interaction on our website.

Name: _fbp

Value: fb.1.1568287647279.257405483-6311171316-7

Purpose: This cookie uses Facebook to display advertising products.

Expiry date: after three months

Name: fr

Value: 0aPf312HOS5Pboo2r..Bdeiuf…1.0.Bdeiuf.

Purpose: This cookie is used so that Facebook pixels work properly.

Expiry date: after 3 months

Name: comment_author_50ae8267e2bdf1253ec1a5769f48e062311171316-3

Value: Name of the author

Purpose: This cookie stores the text and the name of a user, who, for example, leaves a comment.

Expiry date: after 12 months

Name: comment_author_url_50ae8267e2bdf1253ec1a5769f48e062

Value: https%3A%2F%2Fww.test page…%2F (URL of the author)

Purpose: This cookie stores the URL of the website, which the user enters in a text field on our website.

Expiry date: after 12 months

Name: comment_author_email_50ae8267e2bdf1253ec1a5769f48e062

Value: e-mail address of the author

Purpose: This cookie stores the user’s e-mail address, provided that the user has made it known on the website.

Expiry date: after 12 months

Note: The above-mentioned cookies refer to individual user behavior. Especially when using cookies, changes can never be ruled out on Facebook.

If you are logged in to Facebook, you can change your settings for advertisements yourself at https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen. If you are not a Facebook user, you can always manage your usage-based online advertising at http://www.youronlinechoices.com/de/praferenzmanagement/. There you have the possibility to deactivate or activate providers.

If you would like to learn more about Facebook’s privacy policy, we recommend that you read the company’s own privacy policy at https://www.facebook.com/policy.php.

Facebook Automatic Advanced Matching Privacy Policy

We have also activated Automatic Advanced Matching as part of the Facebook pixel function. This pixel feature allows us to send hashed emails, name, gender, city, state, zip code and date of birth, or phone number to Facebook as additional information if you have provided us with this data. This activation allows us to tailor advertising campaigns on Facebook even more precisely to people interested in our services or products.

Google Fonts Privacy Policy

We use Google Fonts on our website. These are the “Google fonts” of the company Google Inc. For the European area, the company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services.

You do not need to sign in or set a password to use Google fonts. Furthermore, no cookies are stored in your browser. The files (CSS, fonts) are requested via the Google domains fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com. According to Google, the requests for CSS and fonts are completely separate from all other Google services. If you have a Google Account, you don’t need to worry about your Google Account information being submitted to Google while using Google Fonts. Google tracks the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and the fonts used and stores this information securely. We’ll be taking a closer look at what exactly this data storage looks like.

What are Google Fonts?

Google Fonts (formerly Google Web Fonts) is a directory of over 800 fonts that Google makes available to its users free of charge.

Many of these fonts are published under the SIL Open Font License, while others are published under the Apache license. Both are free software licenses.

Why do we use Google Fonts on our website?

With Google Fonts, we can use fonts on our own website, but we don’t have to upload them to our own server. Google Fonts is an important component to keep the quality of our website high. All Google fonts are automatically optimized for the web, which saves data volume and is a great advantage, especially for use with mobile devices. When you visit our site, the small file size ensures a fast loading time. Furthermore, Google Fonts are secure web fonts. Different image synthesis systems (rendering) in different browsers, operating systems, and mobile devices can lead to errors. Such errors can visually distort some texts or entire web pages. Thanks to the fast Content Delivery Network (CDN), there are no cross-platform problems with Google Fonts. Google Fonts supports all major browsers (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera) and works reliably on most modern mobile operating systems, including Android 2.2+ and iOS 4.2+ (iPhone, iPad, iPod). So we use Google Fonts to make our entire online service as beautiful and consistent as possible.

Which data is stored by Google?

When you visit our website, the fonts are reloaded via a Google server. This external call transfers data to the Google servers. In this way, Google also recognizes that you or your IP address are visiting our website. The Google Fonts API was developed to reduce the use, storage, and collection of end-user data to what is necessary for the proper provision of fonts. By the way, API stands for “Application Programming Interface” and serves, among other things, as a data transmitter in the software sector.

Google Fonts securely stores CSS and font requests at Google and is, therefore protected. Google can use the collected usage figures to determine how well the individual fonts are received. Google publishes the results on internal analysis pages, such as Google Analytics. Google also uses data from its own web crawler to determine which websites use Google fonts. This data is published in Google Fonts’ BigQuery database. Entrepreneurs and developers use Google’s BigQuery web service to examine and move large amounts of data.

However, it should also be noted that each Google Font request automatically sends information such as language settings, IP address, browser version, browser screen resolution, and browser name to the Google servers. Whether this data is also stored cannot be clearly determined or is not clearly communicated by Google.

How long and where is the data stored?

Google stores requests for CSS assets for one day on its servers, which are mainly located outside the EU. This allows us to use the fonts using a Google style sheet. A stylesheet is a style template that allows you to easily and quickly change, for example, the design or font of a web page.

The font files are stored by Google for one year. Google’s goal is to improve the loading time of web pages. When millions of web pages link to the same fonts, they are cached after the first visit and reappear immediately on all other web pages visited later. Sometimes Google updates font files to reduce file size, increase language coverage, and improve the design.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

The data that Google stores for a day or a year cannot simply be deleted. The data is automatically transmitted to Google when the page is called up. To delete this data prematurely, you must contact Google support at https://support.google.com/?hl=deid=311171316. In this case, you only prevent data storage if you do not visit our site.

Unlike other web fonts, Google allows us unlimited access to all fonts. So we have unlimited access to a set of fonts and can thus get the most out of our website. You can find more information about Google Fonts and other questions at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq?tid=311171316. Although Google addresses privacy issues there, it doesn’t provide really detailed information about data storage. It’s relatively difficult to get really detailed information about data storage from Google.

You can also find out which data is generally collected by Google and what this data is used for at https://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/.

Google Fonts Local Privacy Policy

On our website, we use Google fonts from Google Inc. The company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for the European area. We have integrated the Google fonts locally, i.e., on our web server – not on the servers of Google. This means that there is no connection to Google servers and, therefore, no data transfer or storage.

What are Google Fonts?

In the past, Google Fonts was also called Google Web Fonts. This is an interactive directory with over 800 fonts, which Google provides free of charge. With Google Fonts, you could use fonts without uploading them to your own server. But to prevent any information transfer to Google servers, we have downloaded the fonts to our server. In this way, we act in accordance with data protection laws and do not send any data to Google Fonts.

Unlike other web fonts, Google allows us unlimited access to all fonts. So we have unlimited access to a set of fonts and can thus get the most out of our website. More about Google Fonts and other questions can be found at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq?tid=311171316.

Embedded Social Media Elements Privacy Policy

We integrate elements of social media services on our website to display pictures, videos, and text.

When you visit pages that display these elements, data is transferred from your browser to the respective social media service and stored there. We have no access to this data.

The following links will take you to the pages of the respective social media services where it is explained how they handle your data:

• Instagram Privacy Policy: https://help.instagram.com/519522125107875

• For YouTube, the Google Privacy Policy applies: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de

• Facebook data policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy

• Twitter Privacy Policy: https://twitter.com/de/privacy

Google Analytics Privacy Policy

On our website, we use the analysis tracking tool Google Analytics (GA) of the American company Google Inc. For the European area, the company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services. Google Analytics collects data about your actions on our website. For example, when you click on a link, this action is stored in a cookie and sent to Google Analytics. The reports we receive from Google Analytics enable us to better tailor our website and services to your needs. In the following, we will go into more detail about the tracking tool and inform you above all about what data is stored and how you can prevent this.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a tracking tool that is used for traffic analysis of our website. To make Google Analytics work, a tracking code is built into the code of our website. When you visit our website, this code records various actions that you perform on our website. As soon as you leave our website, this data is sent to the Google Analytics servers and stored there.

Google processes the data, and we get reports about your user behavior. These reports can include the following:

• Target group reports: Through target group reports, we get to know our users better and know more precisely who is interested in our service.

• Advertisement Reports: Advertisement reports make it easier for us to analyze and improve our online advertising.

• Acquisition reports: Acquisition reports give us helpful information on how we can get more people interested in our service.

• Behavioral Reports: Here, we learn how you interact with our website. We can track which path you take on our site and which links you click on.

• Conversion reports: Conversion is the name of a process in which you carry out the desired action based on a marketing message. For example, when you go from being a mere website visitor to a buyer or newsletter subscriber. These reports help us to learn more about how our marketing activities are received by you. This is how we want to increase our conversion rate.

• Real-time reports: Here, we always know immediately what is happening on our website. For example, we see how many users are reading this text.

Why do we use Google Analytics on our website?

Our goal with this website is clear: We want to offer you the best possible service. The statistics and data from Google Analytics help us to achieve this goal.

The statistically evaluated data give us a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of our website. On the one hand, we can optimize our site so that it can be found more easily by interested people on Google. On the other hand, the data helps us to better understand you as a visitor. We, therefore, know exactly what we need to improve on our website in order to offer you the best possible service. The data also helps us to carry out our advertising and marketing measures more individually and cost-effectively. After all, it only makes sense to show our products and services to people who are interested.

Which data is stored by Google Analytics?

Google Analytics uses a tracking code to create a random, unique ID associated with your browser cookie. This allows Google Analytics to recognize you as a new user. The next time you visit our site, you will be recognized as a “returning” user. All collected data is stored together with this user ID. This makes it possible to evaluate pseudonymous user profiles in the first place.

Labels such as cookies and app instance IDs measure your interactions on our site. Interactions are all types of actions you perform on our site. If you also use other Google systems (such as a Google account), data generated by Google Analytics may be linked to third-party cookies. Google does not pass on any Google Analytics data unless we, as the website operator, give permission to do so. Exceptions may be made if required by law.

The following cookies are used by Google Analytics:

Name: _ga

Value:2.1326744211.152311171316-5

Purpose: By default, analytics.js uses the _ga cookie to store the user ID. Basically, it is used to differentiate between website visitors.

Expiry date: after two years

Name: _gid

Value:2.1687193234.152311171316-1

Purpose: The cookie is also used to differentiate between website visitors.

Expiration date: after 24 hours

Name: _gat_gtag_UA_<property-id>

Value: 1

Purpose: Used to lower the request rate. If Google Analytics is provided via the Google Tag Manager, this cookie is named _dc_gtm_ <property-id>.

Expiration date: after 1 minute

Name: AMP_TOKEN

Value: not specified

Purpose: The cookie has a token with which a User ID can be retrieved from the AMP Client ID Service. Other possible values indicate a logoff, a request or an error.

Expiration date: after 30 seconds up to one year

Name: __utma

Value:1564498958.1564498958.1564498958.1

Purpose: With this cookie, you can track your behavior on the website and measure performance. The cookie is updated each time information is sent to Google Analytics.

Expiry date: after two years

Name: __utmt

Value: 1

Purpose: The cookie is used like _gat_gtag_UA_<property-id> to throttle the request rate.

Expiration date: after 10 minutes

Name: __utmb

Value:3.10.1564498958

Purpose: This cookie is used to determine new sessions. It is updated each time new data or information is sent to Google Analytics.

Expiration date: after 30 minutes

Name: __utmc

Value: 167421564

Purpose: This cookie is used to establish new sessions for returning visitors. This is a session cookie and is only stored until you close the browser.

Expiration date: After closing the browser

Name: __utmz

Value: m|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/

Purpose: The cookie is used to identify the source of the traffic to our website. This means that the cookie stores where you came to our website. This may have been another site or an advertising campaign.

Expiry date: after six months

Name: __utmv

Value: not specified

Purpose: The cookie is used to store user-defined user data. It is always updated when information is sent to Google Analytics.

Expiry date: after two years

Note: This list cannot claim to be complete, as Google constantly changes the choice of its cookies.

Here we show you an overview of the most important data collected with Google Analytics:

Heatmaps: Google creates so-called heat maps. With Heatmaps, you can see exactly those areas that you click on. This way, we get information where you are “on the road” on our site.

Session duration: Google defines session duration as the time you spend on our site without leaving the site. If you’ve been inactive for 20 minutes, the session ends automatically.

Bounce rate: A bouncer is when you view only one page on our website and then leave our website.

Account creation: When you create an account or place an order on our website, Google Analytics collects this information.

IP address: The IP address is only shown in abbreviated form so that no clear assignment is possible.

Location: The IP address can be used to determine the country and your approximate location. This process is also known as IP location determination.

Technical information: Technical information includes your browser type, Internet service provider, and screen resolution.

Source of origin: Google Analytics or us. Of course, we are also interested in which website or which advertisement brought you to our site.

Other data includes contact details and ratings, playing media (e.g., when you play a video on our site), sharing content via social media, or adding to your favorites. This list does not claim to be exhaustive and serves only as a general orientation for data storage by Google Analytics.

How long and where is the data stored?

Google has distributed your servers around the world. Most servers are located in America, and therefore your data is usually stored on American servers. Here you can find out exactly where the Google data centers are located: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de

Your data is distributed to different physical media. This has the advantage that the data can be retrieved more quickly and is better protected against manipulation. In every Google data center, there are appropriate emergency programs for your data. For example, if Google’s hardware fails or natural disasters paralyze servers, the risk of service interruption at Google remains low.

Google Analytics has a standard retention period of 26 months for your user data. Then your user data will be deleted. However, we have the option of choosing the retention period for user data ourselves. We have five options for this:

• Deletion after 14 months

• Cancellation after 26 months

• Cancellation after 38 months

• Deletion after 50 months

• No automatic deletion

When the specified period has expired, the data is deleted once a month. This retention period applies to your data linked to cookies, user recognition, and advertising IDs (e.g., cookies from the DoubleClick domain). Reporting results are based on aggregated data and are stored independently of user data. Aggregated data is a fusion of individual data into a larger unit.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

Under European Union data protection law, you have the right to access, update, delete, or restrict your data. You can use the browser add-on to disable Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, dc.js) to prevent Google Analytics from using your data. You can download and install the browser add-on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de. Please note that this add-on only deactivates data collection by Google Analytics.

If you basically want to deactivate, delete, or manage cookies (independent of Google Analytics), there are separate instructions for each browser:

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

Firefox: Delete cookies to remove data that websites have placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

Google Analytics is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information about this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAIid=311171316. We hope we have been able to provide you with the most important information about data processing by Google Analytics. If you want to learn more about the tracking service, we recommend these two links: http://www.google.com/analytics/terms/de.html and https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=de.

MailChimp Privacy Policy

Like many other websites, we use the services of the newsletter company MailChimp on our website. The operator of MailChimp is The Rocket Science Group, LLC, 675 Ponce de Leon Ave NE, Suite 5000, Atlanta, GA 30308 USA. Thanks to MailChimp, we can send you interesting news very easily via newsletter. With MailChimp, we do not need to install anything and can still draw from a pool of really useful functions. In the following, we will go into more detail about this e-mail marketing service and inform you about the most important data protection aspects.

What is MailChimp?

MailChimp is a cloud-based newsletter management service. “Cloud-based” means that we do not have to install MailChimp on our own computer or server. Instead, we use the service via an IT infrastructure – which is available via the Internet – on an external server. This way of using software is also called SaaS (Software as a Service).

With MailChimp, we can choose from a wide range of different e-mail types. Depending on what we want to achieve with our newsletter, we can run single campaigns, regular campaigns, autoresponders (automatic email), A/B tests, RSS campaigns (sending in predefined time and frequency), and follow-up campaigns.

Why do we use MailChimp on our website?

Basically, we use a newsletter service to keep in touch with you. We want to tell you what’s new with us or what attractive offers we have in our program right now. For our marketing measures, we always look for the simplest and best solutions. And that is why we have chosen the newsletter management service of Mailchimp. Although the software is very easy to use, it offers a large number of helpful features. So we can create interesting and beautiful newsletters in a very short time. Due to the offered design templates, we can create each newsletter individually, and thanks to the “Responsive Design,” our content will be displayed legibly and beautifully on your smartphone (or any other mobile device).

Through tools such as the A/B test or the extensive analysis options, we can see very quickly how our newsletters are received by you. This enables us to react if necessary and improve our offer or services.

Another advantage is the “cloud system” of Mailchimp. The data is not stored and processed directly on our server. We can retrieve the data from external servers and thus save our storage space. In addition, the maintenance effort is significantly lower.

Which data is stored by MailChimp?

The Rocket Science Group LLC (MailChimp) maintains online platforms that allow us to contact you (if you have subscribed to our newsletter). If you become a subscriber of our newsletter via our website, you confirm your membership in an e-mail list of MailChimp by e-mail. To enable MailChimp to prove that you are registered in the “list provider,” the date of registration and your IP address will be saved. Furthermore, MailChimp stores your e-mail address, name, physical address, and demographic information, such as language or location.

This information is used to send you e-mails and to enable certain other MailChimp functions (such as newsletter evaluation).

MailChimp also shares information with third parties to provide better services. MailChimp also shares some information with third-party advertising partners to better understand the interests and concerns of our customers and to provide more relevant content and targeted advertising.

By means of so-called “web beacons,” (these are small graphics in HTML e-mails), MailChimp can determine whether the e-mail has arrived, whether it has been opened, and whether links have been clicked on. All this information is stored on the MailChimp servers. Thus we get statistical evaluations and see exactly how well our newsletter was received by you. This way we can adapt our offer much better to your wishes and improve our service.

MailChimp may also use this data to improve its own service. This can be used, for example, to technically optimize the dispatch or to determine the location (country) of the recipients.

The following cookies can be set by Mailchimp. This is not a complete cookie list, but rather an exemplary selection:

Name: AVESTA_ENVIRONMENT

Value: Prod

Purpose: This cookie is necessary to provide the Mailchimp services. It is always set when a user subscribes to a newsletter mailing list.

Expiry date: after the end of the meeting

Name: ak_bmsc

Value: F1766FA98C9BB9DE4A39F70A9E5EEAB55F6517348A7000001311171316-3

Purpose: The cookie is used to distinguish a human from a bot. This enables secure reports on the use of a website to be generated.

Expiration date: after 2 hours

Name: bm_sv

Value: A5A322305B4401C2451FC22FFF547486~FEsKGvX8eovCwTeFTzb8//I3ak2Au…

Purpose: The cookie is from MasterPass Digital Wallet (a MasterCard service) and is used to provide a visitor with a secure and easy virtual payment transaction. For this purpose, the user is anonymously identified on the website.

Expiration date: after 2 hours

Name: _abck

Value: 8D545C8CCA4C3A50579014C449B045311171316-9

Purpose: We were not able to find out any further information about the purpose of this cookie

Expiry date: after one year

Sometimes it can happen that you open our newsletter for a better presentation via a given link. This is the case, for example, if your e-mail program does not work or the newsletter is not displayed correctly. The newsletter will then be displayed on the website of MailChimp. MailChimp also uses cookies (small text files that store data on your browser) on its own websites. Personal data can be processed by MailChimp and its partners (e.g., Google Analytics). This data collection is the responsibility of MailChimp, and we have no influence on it. In the “Cookie Statement” of MailChimp (under https://mailchimp.com/legal/cookies/), you can read exactly how and why the company uses cookies.

How long and where is the data stored?

Since MailChimp is an American company, all collected data is also stored on American servers.

In principle, the data remains permanently stored on the servers of Mailchimp and is only deleted when you request it. You can have your contact deleted by us. This permanently removes all your personal data and makes you anonymous in the Mailchimp reports. However, you can also request the deletion of your data directly at Mailchimp. Then all your data will be removed there, and we will get a notification from MailChimp. After we receive the email, we have 30 days to delete your contact from all connected integrations.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You can withdraw your consent to receive our newsletter at any time within the received e-mail by clicking on the link in the lower area. If you have unsubscribed by clicking on the unsubscribe link, your data will be deleted by MailChimp.

If you access a MailChimp website via a link in our newsletter and cookies are set in your browser, you can delete or deactivate these cookies at any time.

Depending on the browser, deactivating or deleting works slightly differently. The following instructions show how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

Firefox: Delete cookies to remove data that websites have placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. In this way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether you want to allow it or not.

MailChimp is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information on https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000TO6hAAGid=311171316. You can learn about the use of cookies at MailChimp at https://mailchimp.com/legal/cookies/, information on data protection at MailChimp (Privacy) can be found at https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/.

MailChimp contract data processing Contract

We have concluded a contract with MailChimp for the data processing addendum. This contract serves to protect your personal data and ensures that MailChimp complies with the applicable data protection regulations and does not pass on your personal data to third parties.

More information about this agreement can be found at https://mailchimp.com/legal/data-processing-addendum/.

Google AdSense Privacy Policy

We use Google AdSense on this website. This is an advertising program of the company Google Inc. In Europe, the company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services. With Google AdSense, we can display ads on this website that match our theme. In this way, we can offer you ads that ideally represent a real added value for you. In the course of this privacy policy about Google AdSense, we explain why we use Google AdSense on our website, which data is processed and stored by you, and how you can prevent this data storage.

What is Google AdSense?

The advertising program Google AdSense has been around since 2003, and unlike Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), you cannot place your own ads here. Over Google AdSense advertisements on web pages, as for example on ours, are played out. The biggest advantage of this advertising service compared to some others is that Google AdSense only shows you ads that match our content. Google has its own algorithm that calculates which ads you will see. Of course, we only want to offer you ads that interest you and provide you with added value. Google checks which ads are suitable for our website and our users based on your interests or your user behavior and our offer. At this point, we would like to mention that we are not responsible for the selection of the advertisements. With our website, we only offer the advertising space. The selection of the displayed advertisements is made by Google. Since August 2013, the ads are also adapted to the respective user interface. This means that no matter whether you visit our website from your smartphone, PC, or laptop, the ads adapt to your device.

Why do we use Google AdSense on our website?

Running a high-quality website requires a lot of dedication and effort. Basically, we are never finished with the work on our website. We always try to maintain our site and keep it as up-to-date as possible. Of course, we also want to achieve an economic success with this work. Therefore we have decided to use advertisements as a source of income. However, the most important thing for us is not to disturb your visit to our website through these ads. With the help of Google AdSense, you will only be offered advertising that fits our topics and your interests.

Similar to Google indexing for a website, a bot examines the corresponding content and offers on our website. Then the ads are adapted in terms of content and presented on the website. In addition to the content overlap between ads and website offers, AdSense also supports interest-based targeting. This means that Google will also use your data to offer advertising tailored to your needs. This way, you receive advertising that ideally offers you a real added value, and we have a higher chance of earning a little bit more.

Which data is stored by Google AdSense?

So that Google AdSense can display a tailor-made, on your adapted advertisement, among other things, cookies are used. Cookies are small text files that store certain information on your computer.

In AdSense, cookies are intended to enable better advertising. The cookies do not contain any personally identifiable data. However, please note that Google considers data such as “pseudonymous cookie IDs” (name or other identifier is replaced by a pseudonym) or IP addresses as non-personally identifiable information. Under the DSGVO, however, this data may be considered personal data. Google AdSense sends a cookie to the browser after each impression (this is always the case when you see an ad), each click, and any other activity that leads to a call to the Google AdSense servers. If the browser accepts the cookie, it is stored there.

AdSense may allow third parties to place and read cookies in your browser or use web beacons to store information obtained from ad delivery on the website. Web beacons are small graphics that perform log file analysis and record the log file. This analysis enables a statistical evaluation of online marketing.

Google may use these cookies to collect certain information about your user behavior on our website. This includes:

• Information on how to handle an ad (clicks, impressions, mouse movements)

• Information on whether an advertisement has already appeared in your browser at an earlier time. This data helps to prevent you from seeing an ad more often.

In doing so, Google analyses and evaluates the data on the displayed advertising media and your IP address. Google uses the data primarily to measure the effectiveness of an advertisement and to improve the advertising offer. This data is not linked to personal data that Google may have about you through other Google services.

In the following, we present you cookies that Google AdSense uses for tracking purposes. Here we refer to a test website that has only Google AdSense installed:

Name: uid

Value: 891269189311171316-8

Purpose: The cookie is stored under the domain adform.net. It provides a uniquely assigned, machine-generated user ID and collects data about activity on our website.

Expiry date: after two months

Name: C

Value: 1

Purpose: This cookie identifies whether your browser accepts cookies. The cookie is stored under the domain track.adform.net.

Expiry date: after one month

Name: cid

Value: 8912691894970695056,0,0,0

Purpose: This cookie is stored under the domain track.adform.net, stands for the client ID, and is used to improve the advertising for you. It can deliver more relevant advertising to the visitor and helps improve campaign performance reports.

Expiry date: after two months

Name: IDE

Value: zOtj4TWxwbFDjaATZ2TzNaQmxrU311171316-1

Purpose: The cookie is stored under the domain doubleclick.net. It is used to register your actions after the ad or after clicking the ad. This enables us to measure how well an ad is received by our visitors.

Expiry date: after one month

Name: test_cookie

Value: not specified

Purpose: With the help of the “test_cookies,” you can check whether your browser supports cookies at all. The cookie is stored under the domain doubleclick.net.

Expiry date: after one month

Name: CT592996

Value:733366

Purpose: Will be saved under the domain adform.net. The cookie is set when you click on an advertisement. We could not find out more detailed information about the use of this cookie.

Expiration date: after one hour

Note: This list cannot claim to be exhaustive, as experience has shown that Google always changes the choice of its cookies.

How long and where is the data stored?

Google records your IP address and various activities that you carry out on the website. Cookies store this information about the interactions on our website. According to Google, the company collects and stores the information provided in a secure manner on Google’s own servers in the USA.

If you do not have a Google account or are not logged in, Google usually saves the collected data with a unique identification (ID) on your browser. The unique IDs stored in cookies serve, for example, to ensure personalized advertising. If you are logged into a Google Account, Google may also collect personal data.

You can delete some of the data that Google stores at any time (see next section). Much of the information stored in cookies is automatically deleted after a certain amount of time. However, there is also data that Google stores over a longer period of time. This is the case if Google has to store certain data for an indefinite, longer period of time due to economic or legal necessities.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You always have the possibility to delete or deactivate cookies that are on your computer. How exactly this works depends on your browser.

Here you will find instructions on how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

Firefox: Delete cookies to remove data that websites have placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. In this way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether you want to allow it or not. Downloading and installing this browser plug-in on https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996 will also deactivate all “advertising cookies”. Please note that by deactivating these cookies you do not prevent the advertising, but only the personalized advertising.

If you have a Google Account, you can deactivate personalized advertising on the https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated website. You will continue to see ads here, but they will no longer match your interests. However, ads are still displayed based on a few factors, such as your location, browser type, and the search terms you use.

You can read at https://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/, which data Google generally collects and for what purpose they use this data.

Google Ads (Google AdWords) Conversion Tracking Privacy Policy

We use Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) as an online marketing measure to promote our products and services. In this way, we want to make more people aware of the high quality of our offers on the Internet. As part of our advertising activities through Google Ads, we use conversion tracking from Google Inc. on our website, but in Europe, all Google services are provided by Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland). This free tracking tool allows us to better tailor our advertising offer to your interests and needs. In the following articles, we’ll go into more detail about why we use conversion tracking, what data is stored, and how you can prevent it.

What is Google Ads Conversion Tracking?

Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is the in-house online advertising system of Google Inc. We are convinced of the quality of our offer and want as many people as possible to get to know our website. In the online area, Google Ads offers the best platform for this. Of course, we also want to get an exact overview of the cost-benefit factor of our advertising campaigns. Therefore we use the conversion tracking tool of Google Ads.

But what exactly is a conversion? A conversion occurs when you go from being a purely interested website visitor to an acting visitor. This always happens when you click on our ad and then perform another action, such as visiting our website. With Google’s conversion tracking tool, we record what happens after a user clicks on our Google Ads ad. For example, we can see if products are purchased, services are used or if users have subscribed to our newsletter.

Why do we use Google Ads conversion tracking on our website?

We use Google Ads to draw attention to our offer on other websites as well. The aim is to ensure that our advertising campaigns really only reach those people who are interested in our offers. With the conversion tracking tool, we see which keywords, ads, ad groups, and campaigns lead to the desired customer actions. We see how many customers interact with our ads on a device and then make a conversion. With this data, we can calculate our cost-benefit factor, measure the success of individual advertising measures, and consequently optimize our online marketing measures. Furthermore, we can use the data obtained to make our website more interesting for you and adapt our advertising offer even more individuals to your needs.

What information is stored in Google Ads conversion tracking?

We have included a conversion tracking tag or code snippet on our website to better analyze certain user actions. If you now click on one of our Google Ads ads, the “conversion” cookie from a Google domain is stored on your computer (usually in the browser) or mobile device. Cookies are small text files that store information on your computer.

Here are the data of the most important cookies for Google’s conversion tracking:

Name: Conversion

Value: EhMI_aySuoyv4gIVled3Ch0llweVGAEgt-mr6aXd7dYlSAGQ311171316-3

Purpose: This cookie stores every conversion you make on our site after you have come to us via a Google Ad.

Expiry date: after 3 months

Name: _gac

Value: 1.1558695989.EAIaIQobChMIiOmEgYO04gIVj5AYCh2CBAPrEAAYASAAEgIYQfD_BwE

Purpose: This is a classic Google Analytics cookie and is used to record various actions on our website.

Expiry date: after three months

Note: The _gac cookie only appears in connection with Google Analytics. The above list does not claim to be complete, as Google always uses other cookies for analytical evaluation.

As soon as you complete an action on our website, Google recognizes the cookie and saves your action as a so-called conversion. As long as you are surfing on our website and the cookie has not expired, Google and we recognize that you have found us through our Google Ads display. The cookie is read and sent back to Google Ads with the conversion data. It is also possible that other cookies are used to measure conversions. The conversion tracking of Google Ads can be further refined and improved using Google Analytics. For ads that Google displays in multiple locations on the web, our domain may set cookies named “__gads” or “_gac.” Since September 2017, analytics.js has been storing various campaign information with the _gac cookie. The cookie saves this data as soon as you visit one of our pages for which Google Ads has set up automatic tagging. In contrast to cookies that are set for Google domains, Google can only read these conversion cookies if you are on our website. We do not collect or receive any personal data. We receive a report with statistical evaluations from Google. For example, we find out the total number of users who clicked on our advertisement, and we see which advertising measures were well received.

How long and where is the data stored?

At this point, we would like to point out that we have no influence on how Google uses the collected data. According to Google, the data is encrypted and stored on secure servers. In most cases, conversion cookies expire after 30 days and do not transmit any personal data. The cookies with the name “Conversion” and “_gac” (which is used in connection with Google Analytics) have an expiration date of 3 months.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You have the option not to participate in Google Ads conversion tracking. If you disable the Google Conversion Tracking cookie through your browser, you’re blocking conversion tracking. In this case, you will not be included in the tracking tool’s statistics. You can change the cookie settings in your browser at any time. Each browser works slightly differently. Here you will find instructions on how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

Firefox: Delete cookies to remove data that websites have placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. In this way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether you want to allow it or not. Downloading and installing this browser plug-in on https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996 will also deactivate all “advertising cookies.” Please note that by deactivating these cookies you do not prevent the advertising, but only the personalized advertising.

Through the certification for the American-European data protection agreement “Privacy Shield,” the American company Google LLC must comply with the data protection laws applicable in the EU. If you would like to learn more about data protection at Google, we recommend Google’s general data protection declaration: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.

Facebook Privacy Policy

We use selected tools from Facebook on our website. Facebook is a social media network of the company Facebook Ireland Ltd, 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2 Ireland These tools enable us to provide the best possible experience for you and people interested in our products and services. Below we provide an overview of the various Facebook tools, what data is sent to Facebook, and how you can delete this data.

What are Facebook tools?

Among many other products, Facebook also offers the so-called “Facebook Business Tools.” This is the official name of Facebook. But since the term is hardly known, we have decided to call them simply Facebook Tools. Among them you will find:

• Facebook pixels

• social plug-ins (such as the “Like” or “Share” button)

• Facebook login

• account kit

• APIs (Application Programming Interface)

• SDKs (collection of programming tools)

• Platform Integrations

• Plugins

• Codes

• Specifications

• Documentation

• Technologies and services

Through these tools, Facebook extends services and has the ability to obtain information about user activities outside of Facebook.

Why do we use Facebook tools on our website?

We want to show our services and products only to people who are really interested in them. With the help of advertisements (Facebook Ads), we can reach exactly these people. However, in order to be able to show users suitable ads, Facebook needs information about people’s wishes and needs. For example, information about user behavior (and contact details) is provided to the company on our website. This enables Facebook to collect better user data and to show interested people the appropriate advertising about our products or services. The tools thus enable tailored advertising campaigns on Facebook.

Facebook calls data about your behavior on our website, “event data.” This data is also used for measurement and analysis services. Facebook can thus produce “campaign reports” on our behalf about the impact of our advertising campaigns. Furthermore, analyses give us a better insight into how you use our services, website, or products. This enables us to use some of these tools to optimize your user experience on our website. For example, you can use the social plug-ins to share content on our site directly on Facebook.

What data is stored by Facebook Tools?

By using individual Facebook tools, personal data (customer data) can be sent to Facebook. Depending on the tools used, customer data such as name, address, telephone number, and IP address can be sent.

Facebook uses this information to match the data with the data it has about you (if you are a Facebook member). Before customer data is transmitted to Facebook, a so-called “hashing” process takes place. This means that a data record of any size is transformed into a character string. This also serves to encrypt data.

In addition to the contact data, “event data” is also transmitted. By “event data” we mean the information we receive about you on our website, for example, which subpages you visit or which products you buy from us. Facebook does not share the information it receives with third parties (such as advertisers) unless the company has explicit permission or is legally required to do so. “Event information” may also be linked to contact information. This allows Facebook to provide better-personalized advertising. After the aforementioned matching process, Facebook will delete the contact information.

In order to be able to deliver advertisements in an optimized way, Facebook only uses the event data if it has been combined with other data (which has been collected by Facebook in another way). Facebook also uses this event data for security, protection, development, and research purposes. Much of this data is transferred to Facebook via cookies. Cookies are small text files that are used to store data or information in browsers. Depending on the tools used and whether you are a Facebook member or not, different numbers of cookies are created in your browser. In the descriptions of the individual Facebook tools, we will go into more detail about individual Facebook cookies. General information about the use of Facebook cookies can also be found at https://www.facebook.com/policies/cookies.

How long and where is the data stored?

In principle, Facebook stores data until it is no longer needed for its own services and Facebook products. Facebook has servers all over the world where your data is stored. However, customer data is deleted within 48 hours after it has been compared with your own user data.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

In accordance with the Data Protection Basic Regulation, you have the right to information, correction, transferability, and deletion of your data.

A complete deletion of the data will only take place if you completely delete your Facebook account. And this is how deleting your Facebook account works:

1) Click Settings on the right side of Facebook.

2) Then click on “Your Facebook Information” in the left column.

3) Now click “Deactivation and deletion”.

4) Now select “Delete account” and then click on “Next and delete the account

5) Now enter your password, click on “Next” and then on “Delete account

The storage of the data that Facebook receives via our site is done, among other things, via cookies (e.g., in the case of social plugins). You can deactivate, delete, or manage individual or all cookies in your browser. Depending on which browser you use, this works in different ways. The following instructions show you how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

Firefox: Delete cookies to remove data that websites have placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. In this way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether you want to allow it or not.

Facebook is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information about this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000GnywAAC. We hope we have provided you with the most important information about the use and data processing by Facebook tools. If you want to learn more about how Facebook uses your data, we recommend the data guidelines at https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/update.

Google Tag Manager Privacy Policy

For our website, we use the Google Tag Manager of the company Google Inc. For the European area, the company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services. This tag manager is one of many helpful marketing products from Google. The Google Tag Manager allows us to centrally install and manage code sections of various tracking tools we use on our website.

In this privacy policy, we would like to explain to you in more detail what the Google Tag Manager does, why we use it, and in what form data is processed.

What is Google Tag Manager?

The Google Tag Manager is an organization tool that allows us to integrate and manage website tags centrally and through a single interface. Tags are small sections of code that, for example, record (track) your activities on our website. For this purpose, JavaScript code sections are inserted into the source code of our website. The tags often come from Google’s internal products such as Google Ads or Google Analytics, but tags from other companies can also be integrated and managed via the manager. Such tags take over different tasks. They can collect browser data, feed marketing tools with data, integrate buttons, set cookies, and also track users across multiple websites.

Why do we use the Google Tag Manager for our website?

As they say: Organization is half the battle! And that, of course, also applies to the maintenance of our website. To make our website as good as possible for you and all people interested in our products and services, we need various tracking tools such as Google Analytics. The data collected by these tools show us what interests you most, where we can improve our services and to which people we should still show our offers. And for this tracking to work, we have to integrate appropriate JavaScript codes into our website. Basically, we could integrate each code section of the individual tracking tools separately into our source code. However, this requires a relatively large amount of time, and it is easy to lose track. Therefore we use the Google Tag Manager. We can easily integrate the necessary scripts and manage them from one place. In addition, the Google Tag Manager offers an easy-to-use interface, and no programming skills are required. This is how we manage to keep order in our tag jungle.

What information is stored by Google Tag Manager?

The Tag Manager itself is a domain that does not set cookies and does not store any data. It acts as a mere “administrator” of the implemented tags. The data captures the individual tags of different web analysis tools. The data is virtually routed through the Google Tag Manager to the individual tracking tools and is not stored.

However, the situation is completely different from the integrated tags of various web analysis tools, such as Google Analytics. Depending on the analysis tool, different data about your web behavior is usually collected, stored, and processed with the help of cookies. To do this, please read our data protection texts on the individual analysis and tracking tools that we use on our website.

In the account settings of the Tag Manager, we have allowed Google to receive anonymous data from us. However, this only concerns the use and usage of our Tag Manager and not your data, which is stored via the code sections. We allow Google and others to receive selected data in anonymized form. We thus agree to the anonymous transfer of our website data. Despite long research, we were not able to find out exactly which summarized and anonymous data is forwarded. In any case, Google will delete all information that could identify our website. Google combines the data with hundreds of other anonymous website data and creates user trends as part of benchmarking measures. In benchmarking, we compare our own results with those of our competitors. On the basis of the collected information, processes can be optimized.

How long and where is the data stored?

When Google stores data, this data is stored on Google’s own servers. These servers are spread all over the world. Most are located in America. At https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de you can find out exactly where the Google servers are located.

How long the individual tracking tools store data about you can be seen in our individual data protection texts for each tool.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

The Google Tag Manager itself does not set any cookies but manages tags of different tracking websites. In our privacy policy for each tracking tool, you will find detailed information on how to delete or manage your data.

Google is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information about this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAIid=311171316. If you want to learn more about the Google Tag Manager, we recommend the FAQs at https://www.google.com/intl/de/tagmanager/faq.html.

Instagram Privacy Policy

We have included features from Instagram on our website. Instagram is a social media platform of the company Instagram LLC, 1601 Willow Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025, USA. Instagram is a subsidiary of Facebook Inc. since 2012 and is part of Facebook products. The embedding of Instagram content on our website is called embedding. This allows us to show you content such as buttons, photos, or videos from Instagram directly on our website. When you visit web pages on our website that have an Instagram feature embedded, data is transferred to Instagram, stored and processed. Instagram uses the same systems and technologies like Facebook. Your data is, therefore, processed across all Facebook companies.

In the following, we want to give you a more detailed insight into why Instagram collects data, what data is involved, and how you can largely control the data processing. Since Instagram is part of Facebook Inc., we obtain our information from the Instagram policies on the one hand, but also from the Facebook data policies themselves on the other.

What is Instagram?

Instagram is one of the most popular social media networks worldwide. Instagram combines the advantages of a blog with the benefits of audiovisual platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo. On “Insta” (as many users casually call the platform), you can upload photos and short videos, edit them with different filters and also distribute them in other social networks. And if you don’t want to be active yourself, you can also just follow other interesting users.

Why do we use Instagram on our website?

Instagram is the social media platform that has really gone through the roof in recent years. And, of course, we too have reacted to this boom. We want you to feel as comfortable as possible on our website. That’s why a varied preparation of our content is a matter of course for us. The embedded Instagram functions allow us to enrich our content with helpful, funny, or exciting content from the Instagram world. Since Instagram is a subsidiary of Facebook, the data collected can also be used for personalized advertising on Facebook. This way, our ads are only shown to people who are really interested in our products or services.

Instagram also uses the collected data for measurement and analysis purposes. We get summarized statistics and thus more insight into your wishes and interests. It is important to note that these reports do not identify you personally.

 

What data does the Instagram store?

If you come across one of our sites that has Instagram features (such as Instagram images or plug-ins) built-in, your browser will automatically connect to Instagram’s servers. Data is sent to Instagram, stored, and processed. This is regardless of whether you have an Instagram account or not. This includes information about our website, your computer, purchases made, advertisements you see, and how you use our services. We also record the date and time of your interaction with Instagram. If you have an Instagram account or are logged in, Instagram stores much more information about you.

Facebook differentiates between customer data and event data. We assume that this is the case with Instagram. Customer data includes, for example, name, address, phone number, and IP address. It is important to note that this customer data is only submitted to Instagram after you have been “hashed.” Hashing means that a data set is transformed into a string. This allows you to encrypt the contact information. In addition, the “event data” mentioned above is also transmitted. By “event data,” Facebook – and, consequently, Instagram – understands data about your user behavior. It can also happen that contact data is combined with event data. The contact data collected will be compared with the data that Instagram already has about you.

Via small text files (cookies), which are usually set in your browser, the collected data are transmitted to Facebook. Depending on the Instagram functions used and whether you have an Instagram account yourself, different amounts of data are stored.

We assume that data processing at Instagram works the same way as on Facebook. This means: if you have an Instagram account or have visited www.instagram.com, Instagram has at least one cookie set. If this is the case, your browser sends information to Instagram via the cookie as soon as you come into contact with an Instagram feature. After 90 days (after matching) at the latest, this data is deleted or anonymized. Although we have studied Instagram’s data processing, we cannot say exactly what data Instagram collects and stores.

In the following, we show you cookies that are set in your browser at least when you click on an Instagram function (such as a button or an Insta image). In our test, we assume that you do not have an Instagram account. Of course, if you are logged in to Instagram, significantly more cookies will be set in your browser.

These cookies were used in our test:

Name: csrftoken

Value: “”

Purpose: This cookie is most likely set for security reasons to prevent fake requests. However, we could not find out more about this.

Expiry date: after one year

Name: mid

Value: “”

Purpose: Instagram uses this cookie to optimize its own services and offerings inside and outside Instagram. The cookie defines a unique user ID.

Expiry date: after the end of the session

Name: fbsr_311171316124024

Value: not specified

Purpose: This cookie stores the log-in request for users of the Instagram app.

Expiry date: after the end of the session

Name: rur

Value: ATN

Purpose: This is an Instagram cookie that ensures functionality on Instagram.

Expiry date: after the end of the session

Name: urlgen

Value: “{\”194.96.75.33\”: 1901}:1iEtYv:Y833k2_UjKvXgYe311171316″

Purpose: This cookie is used for Instagram’s marketing purposes.

Expiry date: after the end of the session

Note: We cannot claim completeness here. Which cookies are set in each individual case depends on the embedded functions and your use of Instagram.

How long and where is the data stored?

Instagram shares the information it receives between the Facebook companies with external partners and with people you connect with around the world. Data processing is done in accordance with our own data policy. For security reasons, among others, your data is distributed on Facebook servers around the world. Most of these servers are located in the USA.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

Thanks to the Data Protection Basic Regulation, you have the right to information, transferability, correction, and deletion of your data. You can manage your data in the Instagram settings. If you want to completely delete your data on Instagram, you must permanently delete your Instagram account.

And this is how the Instagram account deletion works:

First, open the Instagram app. On your profile page, go down and click on “Help Area.” You will now be taken to the company’s website. On the website, click on “Manage your account” and then click on “Delete your account.”

If you completely delete your account, Instagram will delete posts such as your photos and status updates. Information that other people have shared about you is not part of your account and will not be deleted.

As mentioned above, Instagram stores your information primarily through cookies. You can manage, disable, or delete these cookies in your browser. Depending on your browser, the administration always works a little bit differently. Here we show you the instructions of the most important browsers.

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

Firefox: Delete cookies to remove data that websites have placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

You can also basically set up your browser so that you are always informed when a cookie is to be set. Then you can always decide individually whether you want to accept the cookie or not.

Instagram is a subsidiary of Facebook Inc., and Facebook is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. This framework ensures correct data transmission between the USA and the European Union. You can learn more about it at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000GnywAAC. We have tried to provide you with the most important information about data processing by Instagram. At https://help.instagram.com/519522125107875

you can learn more about Instagram’s data policies.

Newsletter Privacy Policy

If you subscribe to our newsletter, you provide the above personal data and give us the right to contact you by e-mail. We use the data stored during the registration for the newsletter exclusively for our newsletter and do not pass them on.

If you unsubscribe from the newsletter – you will find the link for this at the bottom of every newsletter – we will delete all data that was saved when you registered for the newsletter.

Twitter Privacy Policy

On our website, we have integrated functions of Twitter. These are, for example, embedded tweets, timelines, buttons, or hashtags. Twitter is a short message service and social media platform of the company Twitter Inc, One Cumberland Place, Fenian Street, Dublin 2 D02 AX07, Ireland.

To our knowledge, in the European Economic Area and in Switzerland, the mere inclusion of Twitter functionality does not yet transfer any personal data or data relating to your web activities to Twitter. Only when you interact with the Twitter functions, such as clicking a button, can data be sent to Twitter, stored, and processed there. We have no influence on this data processing and bear no responsibility for it. Within the scope of this privacy policy, we would like to give you an overview of which data Twitter stores, what Twitter does with this data, and how you can protect yourself to a large extent from data transfer.

What is Twitter?

For some, Twitter is a news service, for others it is a social media platform and yet others speak of a microblogging service. All these terms have their justification and mean more or less the same thing.

Both private individuals and companies use Twitter to communicate with interested people via short messages. Twitter only allows 280 characters per message. These messages are called “tweets”. Unlike Facebook, for example, the service does not focus on expanding a network for “friends”, but wants to be understood as a worldwide and open message platform. With Twitter, it is also possible to have an anonymous account and tweets can be deleted by the company on the one hand and by the users themselves on the other.

Why do we use Twitter on our website?

Like many other websites and companies, we try to offer our services through different channels and communicate with our customers. Twitter in particular has grown dear to our hearts as a useful “little” news service. Again and again we tweet or retweet exciting, funny or interesting content. We are aware that you cannot follow every channel separately. After all, you also have something else to do. That’s why we have also integrated Twitter functions on our website. You can experience our Twitter activity “on site” or come to our Twitter page via a direct link. Through the integration we want to strengthen our service and the user-friendliness on our website.

What data is stored by Twitter?

On some of our subpages you will find the built-in Twitter functions. When you interact with Twitter content, such as clicking a button, Twitter can collect and store data. Even if you do not have a Twitter account yourself. Twitter calls this data “log data”. This includes demographic data, browser cookie IDs, your smartphone ID, hashed email addresses, and information about which pages you visited on Twitter and what actions you took. Twitter naturally stores more data if you have a Twitter account and are logged in. Most of the time this storage is done via cookies. Cookies are small text files that are usually set in your browser and transmit various information to Twitter.

We will now show you which cookies are set when you are not logged in to Twitter but visit a website with built-in Twitter functions. Please consider this enumeration as an example. We can in no way guarantee a claim to completeness here, as the choice of cookies is always changing and depends on your individual actions with the Twitter content.

These cookies were used in our test:

Name: personalization_id

Value: “v1_cSJIsogU51SeE311171316”

Purpose: This cookie stores information on how you use the website and which advertisements you may have used to come to Twitter.

Expiry date: after 2 years

Name: long

Value: de

Purpose: This cookie saves your preset or preferred language.

Expiry date: after the end of the meeting

Name: guest_id

Value: 311171316v1%3A157132626

Purpose: This cookie is set to identify you as a guest.

Expiry date: after 2 years

Name: fm

Value: 0

Purpose: Unfortunately we could not find out the purpose of this cookie.

Expiry date: after the end of the meeting

Name: external_referer

Value: 3111713162beTA0sf5lkMrlGt

Purpose: This cookie collects anonymous data, such as how often you visit Twitter and how long you visit Twitter.

Expiration date: After 6 days

Name: eu_cn

Value: 1

Purpose: This cookie stores user activity and serves various advertising purposes of Twitter.

Expiry date: After one year

Name: ct0

Value: c1179f07163a365d2ed7aad84c99d966

Purpose: Unfortunately we have not found any information about this cookie.

Expiry date: after 6 hours

Name: _twitter_sess

Value: 53D%253D-dd0248311171316-

Purpose: With this cookie you can use functions within the Twitter website.

Expiry date: after the end of the meeting

Note: Twitter also works with third party providers. That’s why our test also recognized the three Google Analytics cookies _ga, _gat, _gid.

Twitter uses the collected data on the one hand to better understand user behaviour and thus improve its own services and advertising offers, and on the other hand the data also serves internal security measures.

How long and where is the data stored?

If Twitter collects data from other websites, it will be deleted, aggregated or otherwise concealed after a maximum of 30 days. The Twitter servers are located at various server centers in the United States. It can therefore be assumed that collected data is collected and stored in America. After our research, we were not able to clearly determine whether Twitter also has its own servers in Europe. In principle, Twitter can store the collected data until they are no longer useful to the company, you delete the data or a legal period of deletion applies.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

Twitter emphasizes in its privacy policy that it does not store any data from external website visits if you or your browser is located in the European Economic Area or in Switzerland. However, if you interact directly with Twitter, Twitter will of course also store data about you.

If you have a Twitter account, you can manage your data by clicking on “More” under the “Profile” button. Then click on “Settings and privacy”. Here you can manage your data individually.

If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can go to twitter.com and then click on “Individualization”. Under the point “Individualization and data” you can manage your collected data.

Most of the data, as mentioned above, is stored via cookies and you can manage, deactivate or delete them in your browser. Please note that you can only “edit” the cookies in the browser you have selected. This means: if you use another browser in the future, you will have to manage your cookies there again according to your wishes. Here you can find the instructions for cookie management of the most popular browsers.

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

Firefox: Delete cookies to remove data that websites have placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

You can also manage your browser in such a way that you are informed about every single cookie. Then you can always decide individually whether you want to accept a cookie or not.

Twitter also uses the data for personalised advertising inside and outside Twitter. You can turn off personalized advertising under “Individualization and data” in the settings. If you use Twitter on a browser, you can deactivate personalised advertising at http://optout.aboutads.info/?c=2ang=EN.

Twitter is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. This framework ensures correct data transmission between the USA and the European Union. You can learn more about it at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000TORzAAO.

We hope we have given you a basic overview of the data processing by Twitter. We do not receive any data from Twitter and are not responsible for what Twitter does with your data. If you have any further questions on this topic, we recommend that you read the Twitter privacy policy at https://twitter.com/de/privacy.

Amazon Partner Program Privacy Policy

We use the Amazon Partner Program of Amazon.com, Inc. on our website. The responsible parties within the meaning of the data protection declaration are Amazon Europe Core S.à.r.l., Amazon EU S.à.r.l., Amazon Services Europe S.à.r.l. and Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., all four of which are located at 5, Rue Plaetis, L-2338 Luxembourg and Amazon Instant Video Germany GmbH, Domagkstr. 28, 80807 Munich. The data processor is Amazon Deutschland Services GmbH, Marcel-Breuer-Str. 12, 80807 Munich. By using this Amazon partner program, data from you can be transferred to Amazon, stored and processed.

In this data protection declaration we inform you what data is involved, why we use the program and how you can manage or prevent data transfer.

What is the Amazon affiliate program?

The Amazon Partner Program is an affiliate marketing program of the online mail order company Amazon.de. Like every affiliate program, the Amazon partner program is based on the principle of commission. Amazon or we place advertising or partner links on our website and if you click on them and buy a product through Amazon, we receive a refund of advertising costs (commission).

Why do we use the Amazon affiliate program on our website?

Our goal is to provide you with a pleasant time with lots of helpful content. Therefore we put a lot of work and energy into the development of our website. With the help of the Amazon partner program we have the possibility to get a little reward for our work. Every partner link to Amazon has of course always to do with our topic and shows offers that might be of interest to you.

What data is stored by the Amazon affiliate program?

When you interact with Amazon’s products and services, Amazon collects information from you. Amazon distinguishes between information that you actively provide to the company and information that is automatically collected and stored. Active information” includes, for example, name, e-mail address, telephone number, age, payment information or location information. So-called “automatic information” is primarily stored via cookies. This includes information on user behavior, IP address, device information (browser type, location, operating systems) or the URL. Amazon also stores the clickstream. This refers to the path (sequence of pages) that you as a user take to get to a product. Amazon also stores cookies in your browser to be able to trace the origin of an order. In this way, the company recognizes that you have clicked on an Amazon advertisement or a partner link via our website.

If you have an Amazon account and are logged in while browsing our site, the information collected may be associated with your account. You can prevent this by logging out of Amazon before surfing our site.

Here we show you exemplary cookies that are set in your browser when you click on an Amazon link on our website.

Name: uid

Value: 3230928052675285215311171316-9

Purpose: This cookie stores a unique user ID and collects information about your website activity.

Expiry date: after 2 months

Name: ad-id

Value: AyDaInRV1k-Lk59xSnp7h5o

Purpose: This cookie is provided by amazon-adsystem.com and serves the company for various advertising purposes.

Expiry date: after 8 months

Name: uuid2

Value: 8965834524520213028311171316-2

Purpose: This cookie enables targeted and interest-related advertising via the AppNexus platform. The cookie collects and stores anonymous data via the IP address, for example, which advertisements you have clicked on and which pages you have visited.

Expiry date: after 3 months

Name: session-id

Value: 262-0272718-2582202311171316-1

Purpose: This cookie stores a unique user ID that the server assigns to you for the duration of a website visit (session). If you visit the same page again, the information stored in it will be retrieved.

Expiry date: after 15 years

Name: APID

Value: UP9801199c-4bee-11ea-931d-02e8e13f0574

Purpose: This cookie stores information about how you use a website and which advertisements you viewed before visiting the website.

Expiry date: after one year

Name: session-id-time

Value: tb:s-STNY7ZS65H5335FZEVPE|1581329862486&t:1581329864300&adb:adblk_no

Purpose: This cookie records the time you spend on a web site using a unique cookie ID.

Expiry date: after 2 years

Name: csm-hit

Value: 2082754801l

Purpose: We would not be able to obtain precise information about this cookie.

Expiry date: after 15 years

Note: Please note that this list only shows cookie examples and cannot claim to be complete.

Amazon uses this information to tailor advertisements more precisely to the interests of users.

How long and where is the data stored?

Personal data is stored by Amazon for as long as it is necessary for Amazon’s business services or for legal reasons. Since Amazon is headquartered in the USA, the collected data is also stored on American servers.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You have the right to access and delete your personal data at any time. If you have an Amazon account, you can manage or delete much of the data collected in your account.

Your browser offers another option to manage Amazon’s data processing and storage according to your preferences. There you can manage, deactivate or delete cookies. This works a little differently with each browser. Here you will find instructions for the most common browsers:

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

Firefox: Delete cookies to remove data that websites have placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

Amazon is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct transfer of personal data between the USA and the EU. You can find more information on https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000TOWQAA4. We hope we have provided you with the most important information about data transfer through the use of the Amazon affiliate program. You can find more information at https://www.amazon.de/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201909010.

Facebook Social Plug-ins Privacy Policy

So-called social plug-ins of the company Facebook Inc. are integrated on our website. You can recognize these buttons by the classic Facebook logo, such as the “Like” button (the hand with the thumb raised) or by a clear “Facebook Plug-in” label. A social plugin is a small part of Facebook that is integrated into our site. Each plug-in has its own function. The most commonly used functions are the familiar “Like” and “Share” buttons.

The following social plug-ins are offered by Facebook:

• “Save” button

• “Like” button, share, send and quote

• Page plug-in

• Comments

• Messenger plug-in

• Embedded contributions and video players

• Group plug-in

At https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins you can find more information on how to use the individual plug-ins. We use the social plug-ins on the one hand to offer you a better user experience on our site, on the other hand because Facebook can use them to optimize our ads.

If you have a Facebook account or have visited facebook.com before, Facebook has already set at least one cookie in your browser. In this case, your browser sends information to Facebook via this cookie as soon as you visit our site or interact with social plug-ins (e.g. the “Like” button).

The information received will be deleted or made anonymous within 90 days. According to Facebook, this data includes your IP address, which website you visited, the date, time and other information concerning your browser.

In order to prevent Facebook from collecting a lot of data during your visit to our website and connecting it with Facebook data, you must log off (log out) from Facebook during your visit to the website.

If you are not logged in to Facebook or do not have a Facebook account, your browser sends less information to Facebook because you have fewer Facebook cookies. However, data such as your IP address or which website you visit may be sent to Facebook. We would like to point out that we do not know the exact content of the data. However, according to our current state of knowledge, we try to inform you as well as possible about data processing. How Facebook uses the data, you can also read about in the company’s data policy at https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/update.

The following cookies are set in your browser at least when you visit a website with social plug-ins from Facebook:

Name: dpr

Value: not specified

Purpose: This cookie is used to make the social plug-ins on our website work.

Expiry date: after the end of the meeting

Name: fr

Value: 0jieyh4311171316c2GnlufEJ9..Bde09j…1.0.Bde09j

Purpose: The cookie is also necessary for the plug-ins to work properly.

Expiry date:: after 3 months

Note: These cookies were set after a test, even if you are not a Facebook member.

If you are logged in to Facebook, you can change your settings for advertisements yourself at https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen. If you are not a Facebook user, you can manage your usage-based online advertising at http://www.youronlinechoices.com/de/praferenzmanagement/grundsätzlich There you have the option to deactivate or activate providers.

If you would like to learn more about Facebook’s privacy policy, we recommend that you read the company’s own privacy policy at https://www.facebook.com/policy.php.

YouTube Privacy Policy

We have included YouTube videos on our website. So we can present you interesting videos directly on our site. YouTube is a video portal, which is a subsidiary of Google since 2006. The video portal is operated by YouTube, LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA. When you visit a page on our website that has an embedded YouTube video, your browser automatically connects to the servers of YouTube or Google. In the process, various data is transferred (depending on the settings). Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all data processing in Europe.

In the following, we would like to explain to you in more detail what data is processed, why we have included YouTube videos and how you can manage or delete your data.

What is YouTube?

On YouTube, users can view, rate, comment on, and upload videos for free. Over the last few years, YouTube has become one of the most important social media channels worldwide. To enable us to display videos on our website, YouTube provides a code snippet that we have integrated on our site.

Why do we use YouTube videos on our website?

YouTube is the video platform with the most visitors and the best content. We strive to provide you with the best possible user experience on our website. And of course, interesting videos should not be missing. With the help of our embedded videos, we provide you with further helpful content in addition to our texts and images. In addition, the embedded videos make our website easier to find on the Google search engine. Even if we use Google Ads to place advertisements, Google can – thanks to the data collected – really only show these ads to people who are interested in our offers.

What data is stored on YouTube?

When you visit one of our sites that has a YouTube video embedded, YouTube at least sets a cookie that stores your IP address and our URL. If you are logged in to your YouTube account, YouTube can associate your interactions on our site with your profile, usually using cookies. This includes information such as session duration, bounce rate, approximate location, technical information such as browser type, screen resolution, or your Internet service provider. Other data may include contact information and ratings, sharing content through social media or adding to your favorites on YouTube.

If you’re not signed in to a Google Account or a YouTube account, Google stores data with a unique identifier associated with your device, browser, or app. For example, your preferred language setting is preserved. But much interaction data can’t be stored because fewer cookies are set.

In the following list, we show cookies that were set in a test in the browser. On the one hand, we show cookies that are set without a registered YouTube account. On the other hand, we show cookies that are set with a registered account. The list cannot claim to be complete because the user data always depends on the interactions on YouTube.

Name: YSC

Value: b9-CV6ojI5Y311171316-1

Purpose: This cookie registers a unique ID to store statistics of the video viewed.

Expiry date: after the end of the meeting

Name: PREF

Value: f1=50000000

Purpose: This cookie also registers your unique ID. Google gets statistics about how you use YouTube videos on our website via PREF.

Expiry date: after eight months

Name: GPS

Value: 1

Purpose: This cookie registers your unique ID on mobile devices to track your GPS location.

Expiration date: after 30 minutes

Name: VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE

Value: 95Chz8bagyU

Purpose: This cookie tries to estimate the bandwidth of the user on our websites (with built-in YouTube video).

Expiry date: after eight months

Other cookies that are set when you are logged in with your YouTube account:

Name: APISID

Value: zILlvClZSkqGsSwI/AU1aZI6HY7311171316-

Purpose: This cookie is used to create a profile about your interests. The data is used for personalized advertisements.

Expiry date: after two years

Name: CONSENT

Value: YES+AT.de+20150628-20-0

Purpose: The cookie stores the status of a user’s consent to use various Google services. CONSENT is also used for security purposes of verifying users and protecting user data from unauthorized attacks.

Expiry date: after 19 years

Name: HSID

Value: AcRwpgUik9Dveht0I

Purpose: This cookie is used to create a profile about your interests. This data helps us to display personalized advertising.

Expiry date: after two years

Name: LOGIN_INFO

Value: AFmmF2swRQIhALl6aL…

Purpose: Information about your login data is stored in this cookie.

Expiry date: after two years

Name: SAPISID

Value: 7oaPxoG-pZsJuuF5/AnUdDUIsJ9iJz2vdM

Purpose: This cookie works by uniquely identifying your browser and device. It is used to create a profile about your interests.

Expiry date: after two years

Name: SID

Value: oQfNKjAsI311171316-

Purpose: This cookie stores your Google Account ID and your last sign-in time in digitally signed and encrypted form.

Expiry date: after two years

Name: SIDCC

Value: AN0-TYuqub2JOcDTyL

Purpose: This cookie stores information about how you use the website and what advertisements you may have seen before visiting our site.

Expiry date: after three months

How long and where is the data stored?

The data that YouTube receives from you and processes are stored on Google’s servers. Most of these servers are located in America. You can see exactly where Google’s data centers are located at https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de. Your data is distributed across the servers. So the data can be retrieved faster and is better protected against manipulation.

Google stores the collected data for different lengths of time. Some data can be deleted at any time, others are automatically deleted after a limited time, and some are stored by Google for a longer time. Some data (such as items from “My activity,” photos or documents, products) stored in your Google Account will remain stored until you delete them. Even if you’re not signed in to a Google Account, you can delete some data associated with your device, browser, or app.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

Basically, you can manually delete data in your Google Account. With the automatic deletion function of location and activity data introduced in 2019, information is stored for either 3 or 18 months, depending on your decision, and then deleted.

Whether or not you have a Google Account, you can configure your browser to delete or disable Google cookies. This works in different ways, depending on the browser you use. The following instructions will show you how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

Firefox: Delete cookies to remove data that websites have placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. In this way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether you want to allow it or not. Since YouTube is a subsidiary of Google, there is a common privacy policy. If you’d like to learn more about how we handle your information, we recommend you read the privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.

Vimeo Privacy Policy

We also use videos from the company Vimeo on our website. The video portal is operated by Vimeo LLC, 555 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011, USA. With the help of a plug-in, we can display interesting video material directly on our website. Certain data may be transferred from you to Vimeo. In this privacy statement, we will show you what data is involved, why we use Vimeo, and how you can manage or stop your data or data transfer.

What is Vimeo?

Vimeo is a video platform that was founded in 2004 and since 2007 has enabled the streaming of videos in HD quality. Since 2015 it is also possible to stream in 4k Ultra HD. The use of the portal is free of charge, but content with costs can also be published. In comparison to the market leader YouTube, Vimeo places a priority on high-quality content in good quality. Thus, the portal offers a lot of artistic content such as music videos and short films on the one hand, but on the other hand, also documentation worth knowing about various topics.

Why do we use Vimeo on our website?

The goal of our website is to provide you with the best possible content. And as easily as accessible as possible. Only when we have achieved this are we satisfied with our service. The video service Vimeo supports us in achieving this goal. Vimeo gives us the opportunity to present you with high-quality content directly on our website. Instead of just giving you a link to an interesting video, you can watch the video right here. This extends our service and makes it easier for you to access interesting content. Therefore we offer the video content in addition to our texts and images.

What data is stored on Vimeo?

When you visit a web page on our site that has a Vimeo video embedded, your browser connects to the Vimeo servers. This results in a data transfer. This data is collected, stored, and processed on the Vimeo servers. Whether or not you have a Vimeo account, Vimeo collects information about you. This includes your IP address, technical information about your browser type, operating system, or very basic device information. In addition, Vimeo stores information about which website you use the Vimeo service and which actions (web activities) you perform on our website. These web activities include, for example, session duration, bounce rate, or which button you clicked on our website with a built-in Vimeo function. Vimeo can track and store these actions using cookies and similar technologies.

If you are logged in as a registered member of Vimeo, more data can usually be collected because more cookies may already have been set in your browser. In addition, your actions on our website are directly linked to your Vimeo account. To prevent this, you must log out of Vimeo while you are “surfing” our website.

Below we show you cookies that are set by Vimeo when you are on a website with integrated Vimeo functions. This list is not exhaustive and assumes that you do not have a Vimeo account.

Name: player

Value: “”

Purpose: This cookie saves your settings before you play an embedded Vimeo video. This means that the next time you watch a Vimeo video, you will get your preferred settings back.

Expiry date: after one year

Name: vuid

Value: pl1046149876.614422590311171316-4

Purpose: This cookie collects information about your actions on websites that have embedded a Vimeo video.

Expiry date: after two years

Note: These two cookies are always set once you are on a web page with an embedded Vimeo video. When you view the video and click the button, for example, to “share” or “link” the video, additional cookies are set. These are also third-party cookies such as _ga or _gat_UA-76641-8 from Google Analytics or _fbp from Facebook. Exactly which cookies are set here depends on your interaction with the video.

The following list shows a sample of possible cookies that are set when you interact with the Vimeo video:

Name: _abexps

Value: %5B%5D

Purpose: This Vimeo cookie helps Vimeo remember the settings you have made. This could be a preset language, region, or user name, for example. In general, the cookie stores information about how you use Vimeo.

Expiry date: after one year

Name: continuous_play_v3

Value: 1

Purpose: This cookie is a first-party cookie from Vimeo. The cookie collects information about how you use the Vimeo service. For example, the cookie stores when you pause or resume playing a video.

Expiry date: after one year

Name: _ga

Value: GA1.2.1522249635.1578401280311171316-7

Purpose: This cookie is a third-party cookie from Google. By default, analytics.js uses the _ga cookie to store the user ID. Basically, it is used to differentiate between website visitors.

Expiry date: after two years

Name: _gcl_au

Value: 1.1.770887836.1578401279311171316-3

Purpose: This third-party cookie from Google AdSense is used to improve the efficiency of ads on websites.

Expiry date: after three months

Name: _fbp

Value: fb.1.1578401280585.310434968

Purpose: This is a Facebook cookie. This cookie is used to display advertisements or promotional products from Facebook or other advertisers.

Expiry date: after three months

Vimeo uses this data to improve its own service, to communicate with you, and to implement its own targeted advertising measures, among other things. Vimeo emphasizes on its website that only first-party cookies (i.e., cookies from Vimeo itself) are used for embedded videos, as long as you do not interact with the video.

How long and where is the data stored?

Vimeo is headquartered in White Plains, New York State (USA). However, the services are offered worldwide. The company uses computer systems, databases, and servers in the USA and in other countries. Your data can, therefore, also be stored and processed on servers in America. The data will remain stored by Vimeo until the company no longer has an economic reason for storing it. Then the data is deleted or made anonymous. Vimeo complies with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework and is therefore permitted to collect, use, and transfer data from users in the EU to the USA.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You always have the possibility to manage cookies in your browser according to your wishes. For example, if you do not want Vimeo to set cookies and thus collect information about you, you can delete or deactivate cookies in your browser settings at any time. Depending on your browser, this works slightly differently. Please note that it is possible that after deactivating/deleting cookies, various functions may no longer be available to the full extent. The following instructions show you how to manage or delete cookies in your browser.

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

Firefox: Delete cookies to remove data that websites have placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you are a registered Vimeo member, you can also manage the cookies used in the Vimeo settings.

Vimeo is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. For more information, please visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt00000008V77AAEtatus=Active. You can learn more about the use of cookies at Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/cookie_policy. Information about data protection at Vimeo can be found at https://vimeo.com/privacy.

Pinterest Privacy Policy

We use buttons and widgets of the social media network Pinterest, the company Pinterest Inc.,808 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, the USA, on our site.

By calling up pages that use such functions, data (IP address, browser data, date and time, cookies) are transmitted to Pinterest, stored, and evaluated.

The privacy policy, what information Pinterest collects, and how it uses it can be found at https://policy.pinterest.com/de/privacy-policy.

Gravatar Privacy Policy

On our website, we have the Gravatar plug-in from Automattic Inc. (60 29th Street #343, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA) on our website. Gravatar is automatically activated on all WordPress websites. This function allows user images (avatars) to be displayed in published articles or comments, provided the corresponding e-mail address is.

This function sends data to Gravatar or Automattic Inc., where it is stored and processed. In this data protection declaration, we would like to inform you which data is involved, how the network uses this data, and how you can manage or stop the data storage.

What is Gravatar?

Gravatar basically stands for “Globally Recognized Avatar,” and this means a globally available avatar (a user image) that is linked to the email address. The company Gravatar is the world’s leading provider of this service. As soon as a user enters the e-mail address on a website, which is also registered with Gravatar at www.gravatar.com, a previously stored image is automatically displayed together with a published article or comment.

Why do we use Gravatar on our website?

There is often talk about anonymity on the Internet. Through an avatar, users get a face to the persons commenting. In addition, one is generally more easily recognized on the net and can thus build up a certain degree of familiarity. Many users enjoy the advantages of such a user image and also want to appear personally and authentically on the net. Of course, we want to offer you the possibility to display your gravatar on our website. We also like to see faces to our commenting users. With the activated Gravatar function, we are also expanding our service on our website. After all, we want you to feel comfortable on our website and to receive a comprehensive and interesting offer.

What data is stored by Gravatar?

For example, when you post a comment on a blog post that requires an email address, WordPress checks to see if the email address is linked to an avatar on Gravatar. For this request, your email address is sent to the Gravatar or Automattic servers in encrypted or hashed form, including your IP address and our URL. This is to verify that this email address is registered with Gravatar.

If this is the case, the image (gravatar) stored there will be displayed together with the published comment. If you have registered an e-mail address with Gravatar and comment on our website, further data will be transmitted to Gravatar, stored and processed. In addition to IP address and data on user behavior, this includes, for example, browser type, unique device ID, preferred language, date and time of page entry, operating system, and information on the mobile network. Gravatar uses this information to improve its own services and offers and to gain better insight into the use of its own service.

The following cookies are set by Automattic when a user uses an email address registered with Gravatar for a comment:

Name: gravatar

Value: 16b3191024acc05a238209d51ffcb92bdd710bd19311171316-7

Purpose: We were not able to obtain exact information about the cookie.

Expiry date: after 50 years

Name: is-logged-in

Value: 1311171316-1

Purpose: This cookie stores the information that the user is logged in via the registered e-mail address.

Expiry date: after 50 years

How long and where is the data stored?

Automattic will delete the collected data when it is no longer used for its own services, and the Company is not legally required to retain the data. Web server logs such as IP address, browser type, and operating system are deleted after approximately 30 days. Until then, Automattic uses the data to analyze traffic on its own websites (for example, all WordPress pages) and to troubleshoot potential problems. The data is also stored on Automattic’s American servers.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You have the right to access and delete your personal data at any time. If you have registered with Gravatar with an email address, you can delete your account or email address at any time.

Since only when using an email address registered with Gravatar will an image be displayed, and data be transferred to Gravatar, you can also prevent the transfer of your data to Gravatar by commenting or posting on our website using an email address not registered with Gravatar.

You can manage, deactivate, or delete possible cookies that are set during commenting in your browser. Please note that any comment functions will then no longer be available to the full extent. Depending on which browser you are using, the cookie management works a little differently. The instructions for the most common browsers can be found here:

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

Firefox: Delete cookies to remove data that websites have placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

Automattic is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. For more information, please visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000CbqcAAC .

For more details on the privacy policy and what data is collected by Gravatar in what way, please visit https://automattic.com/privacy/, general information about Gravatar can be found at http://de.gravatar.com/.

Subscribe to YouTube Button Privacy Policy

We have integrated the YouTube Subscribe button on our website. You can usually recognize the button by the classic YouTube logo. The logo shows the words “Subscribe” or “YouTube” in white letters on a red background and the white “Play” symbol to the left. The button can also be displayed in a different design.

Our YouTube channel always offers you funny, interesting, or exciting videos. With the built-in “Subscribe” button, you can subscribe to our channel directly from our website and do not need to visit the YouTube website. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to access our extensive content. Please note that YouTube may store and process data about you.

If you see a built-in subscription button on our site, YouTube – according to Google – sets at least one cookie. This cookie stores your IP address and our URL. YouTube can also learn information about your browser, your approximate location, and your default language. In our test, the following four cookies were set without being logged into YouTube:

Name: YSC

Value: b9-CV6ojI5311171316Y

Purpose: This cookie registers a unique ID to store statistics of the video viewed.

Expiry date: after the end of the meeting

Name: PREF

Value: f1=50000000

Purpose: This cookie also registers your unique ID. Google gets statistics about how you use YouTube videos on our website via PREF.

Expiry date: after eight months

Name: GPS

Value: 1

Purpose: This cookie registers your unique ID on mobile devices to track your GPS location.

Expiration date: after 30 minutes

Name: VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE

Value: 31117131695Chz8bagyU

Purpose: This cookie tries to estimate the bandwidth of the user on our websites (with built-in YouTube video).

Expiry date: after eight months

Note: These cookies were set after a test and cannot claim to be complete.

If you are logged into your YouTube account, YouTube may use cookies to store many of your actions/interactions on our site and associate them with your YouTube account. This allows YouTube to learn, for example, how long you have been browsing our site, what type of browser you are using, what screen resolution you prefer, or what actions you take.

YouTube uses this information to improve its own services and offerings and to provide analysis and statistics for advertisers (who use Google Ads).

Google reCAPTCHA Privacy Policy

Our primary goal is to secure and protect our website for you and for us in the best possible way. To ensure this, we use Google reCAPTCHA from Google Inc. For the European region, the company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services. With reCAPTCHA, we can determine whether you are really a flesh and blood human being and not a robot or other spam software. By spam, we mean any unsolicited information sent to us by electronic means. With the classic CAPTCHAS, you usually had to solve text or image puzzles to check. With reCAPTCHA from Google, we usually do not have to bother you with such puzzles. In most cases, it is sufficient to simply check the box and confirm that you are not a bot. With the new Invisible reCAPTCHA version, you don’t even have to put a checkmark. How this works exactly and especially which data is used for this purpose, you will learn in the course of this privacy policy.

What is reCAPTCHA?

reCAPTCHA is a free captcha service from Google that protects websites from spam software and abuse by non-human visitors. This service is most often used when you fill out forms on the Internet. A captcha service is a kind of automatic Turing test, which is meant to ensure that an action on the internet is done by a human and not by a bot. In the classic Turing test (named after the computer scientist Alan Turing), a human being determines the difference between a bot and a human being. With Captchas, this is also done by a computer or a software program. Classical Captchas work with small tasks that are easy to solve for humans but have considerable difficulties for machines. With reCAPTCHA, you don’t have to actively solve puzzles anymore. The tool uses modern risk techniques to distinguish humans from bots. Here you only have to tick the text field “I am not a robot,” or with Invisible reCAPTCHA, even this is no longer necessary. With reCAPTCHA, a JavaScript element is integrated into the source code, and then the tool runs in the background and analyses your user behavior. From these user actions, the software calculates a so-called captcha score. Google uses this score to calculate the probability that you are a human being even before you enter the captcha. reCAPTCHA or captchas, in general, are always used when bots could manipulate or abuse certain actions (such as registrations, surveys, etc.).

Why do we use reCAPTCHA on our website?

We only want to welcome people of flesh and blood on our side. Bots or spam software of various kinds can safely stay at home. That’s why we do everything we can to protect ourselves and offer the best possible user-friendliness for you. For this reason, we use Google reCAPTCHA from the company Google. So we can be pretty sure that we remain a “bot-free” website. Through the use of reCAPTCHA, data is transmitted to Google to determine whether you are really a human being. reCAPTCHA serves the security of our website and, consequently, your security. For example, without reCAPTCHA, it could happen that a bot registers as many e-mail addresses as possible during registration, in order to “spam” forums or blogs with unwanted advertising content. With reCAPTCHA, we can avoid such bot attacks.

Which data is stored by reCAPTCHA?

reCAPTCHA collects personal data from users to determine whether the actions on our website are actually from people. Thus, the IP address and other data that Google requires for the reCAPTCHA service can be sent to Google. IP addresses are almost always shortened within the member states of the EU or other signatory states to the Agreement on the European Economic Area before the data lands on a server in the USA. The IP address is not combined with any other data held by Google unless you are signed in with your Google Account while using reCAPTCHA. First, the reCAPTCHA algorithm checks whether Google cookies from other Google services (Youtube, Gmail, etc.) are already placed on your browser. Then reCAPTCHA sets an additional cookie in your browser and takes a snapshot of your browser window.

The following list of collected browser and user data does not claim to be complete. Rather, they are examples of data that, to our knowledge, are processed by Google.

• Referrer URL (the address of the page the visitor comes from)

• IP address (e.g. 256.123.123.1)

• Information about the operating system (the software that enables your computer to operate. Known operating systems are Windows, Mac OS X or Linux)

• Cookies (small text files that store data in your browser)

• Mouse and keyboard behavior (every action you perform with the mouse or keyboard is stored)

• Date and language settings (which language or date you have preset on your PC is stored)

• All Javascript objects (JavaScript is a programming language that allows websites to adapt to the user. JavaScript objects can collect all kinds of data under one name)

• Screen resolution (shows how many pixels the image consists of)

It is indisputable that Google uses and analyzes this data even before you click on the checkbox, “I am not a robot.” With the Invisible reCAPTCHA version, even the ticking is omitted, and the whole recognition process runs in the background. How much and what kind of data Google exactly stores is not known by Google in detail.

The following cookies are used by reCAPTCHA: Here, we refer to the reCAPTCHA demo version from Google at https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api2/demo. All these cookies require a unique identifier for tracking purposes. Here is a list of cookies that Google reCAPTCHA has set on the demo version

Name: IDE

Value: WqTUmlnmv_qXyi_DGNPLESKnRNrpgXoy1K-pAZtAkMbHI-311171316-8

Purpose: This cookie is set by the company DoubleClick (also owns Google) to register and report the actions of a user on the website in dealing with advertisements. In this way, the advertising effectiveness can be measured, and appropriate optimization measures can be taken. IDE is stored in browsers under the domain doubleclick.net.

Expiry date: after one year

Name: 1P_JAR

Value: 2019-5-14-12

Purpose: This cookie collects statistics on website usage and measures conversions. A conversion occurs, for example, when a user becomes a buyer. The cookie is also used to show users relevant advertisements. Furthermore, the cookie can be used to prevent a user from seeing the same ad more than once.

Expiry date: after one month

Name: ANID

Value: U7j1v3dZa3111713160xgZFmiqWppRWKOr

Purpose: We could not find out much information about this cookie. In Google’s privacy policy, the cookie is mentioned in connection with “advertising cookies” such as “DSID,” “FLC,” “AID,” “TAID.” ANID is stored at domain google.com.

Expiry date: after nine months

Name: CONSENT

Value: YES+AT.de+20150628-20-0

Purpose: The cookie stores the status of a user’s consent to use various Google services. CONSENT is also used for security purposes of verifying users, to prevent fraudulent use of credentials, and to protect user data from unauthorized attacks.

Expiry date: after 19 years

Name: NID

Value: 0WmuWqy311171316zILzqV_nmt3sDXwPeM5Q

Purpose: NID is used by Google to adapt advertisements to your Google search. Google uses the cookie to “remember” your most commonly entered search queries or your previous interaction with ads. So you always get customized ads. The cookie contains a unique ID to collect user preferences for advertising purposes.

Expiry date: after six months

Name: DV

Value: gEAABBCjJMXcI0dSAAAANbqc311171316-4

Purpose: As soon as you have checked the “I am not a robot” checkbox, this cookie will be set. The cookie is used by Google Analytics for personalized advertising. DV collects information in an anonymous form and is also used to make user distinctions.

Expiration date: after 10 minutes

Note: This list cannot claim to be exhaustive, as experience has shown that Google always changes the choice of its cookies.

How long and where is the data stored?

By inserting reCAPTCHA, data from you is transferred to the Google server. Where exactly this data is stored is not clearly shown by Google, even after repeated requests. Without having received confirmation from Google, it can be assumed that data such as mouse interaction, time spent on the website, or language settings are stored on Google’s European or American servers. The IP address that your browser transmits to Google is generally not merged with other Google data from other Google services. However, if you are logged into your Google account while using the reCAPTCHA plug-in, the data will be merged. Google’s different privacy policies apply.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

If you do not want any data about you or your behavior to be transmitted to Google, you must log out of Google completely and delete all Google cookies before you visit our website or use the reCAPTCHA software. In principle, the data is automatically transmitted to Google as soon as you visit our website. To delete this data again, you must contact Google support at https://support.google.com/?hl=deid=311171316.

So when you use our website, you agree that Google LLC and its agents may automatically collect, process, and use data.

You can find out more about reCAPTCHA on Google’s web development page at https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/. Google will explain the technical development of reCAPTCHA in more detail here, but you will not find detailed information about data storage and data protection issues there. A good overview of the basic use of data at Google can be found in the company’s own privacy policy at https://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/.

Source: Created with the privacy generator of AdSimple in cooperation with bauenwir.de