Data Privacy - Wild River Games

DATA PRIVACY DECLARATION

Data Privacy Declaration

Contents

Introduction and overview
Scope of application
Legal bases
Contact information for the controller
Contact information for the Data Protection Officer
Storage duration
Rights under the General Data Protection Regulation
Data transmission to third countries
Security of data processing
Communication
Cookies
Web analytics
Facebook Pixel Data Privacy Declaration
Google Analytics Data Privacy Declaration
Google Site Kit Data Privacy Declaration
Google Tag Manager Data Privacy Declaration
Online marketing
Google Ads (Google AdWords) Conversion-Tracking Data Privacy Declaration
Google AdSense Data Privacy Declaration
Cookie Consent Management Platform
YouTube Data Privacy Declaration
Google Maps Data Privacy Declaration
Font Awesome Data Privacy Declaration

Introduction and overview

We have prepared this Data Privacy Declaration (version 25.08.2021-311294634) in order to explain what personal data (abbreviated simply as data) we as the controller – and the contract processors (such as providers) which we commission – process, or will process in the future, and what legal options you have related to this processing, in accordance with the specifications of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and applicable national laws. All terms used here should be understood to be gender neutral.
In short: This document provides you with comprehensive information about the data we process on you.

Data Privacy Declarations usually sound very technical, and use specialist legal terminology. This Data Privacy Declaration, in contrast, is designed to explain the most important concepts to you in the simplest, most transparent way possible. Whenever necessary for the sake of transparency, technical terms are described using easy-to-understand language, links to additional information are provided, and graphics are used for illustration purposes. In this document, we want to inform you in clear and simple language that we only process personal data in the course of our business activities, and only if we have a relevant legal basis for doing so. We wouldn’t be able to do that if we used the kind of terse, confusing, and legal/technical explanations you find so often online when companies talk about data protection. I hope you find the following explanations interesting and informative. You might even learn something you didn’t know before.
If you do still have questions, we ask that you contact the controller named in the Legal Notice, click the available links, and read more information on third-party websites. Our contact information is available in the Legal Notice.

Scope of application

This Data Privacy Declaration applies to all of the personal data we process within our company, as well as to all personal data processed by companies that we commission (contract processors). By personal data, we mean information in the sense of Art. 4 no. 1 GDPR, such as a person’s name, e-mail address, and mailing address. We process personal data so that we can offer products and services for sale and handle billing for those products and services, both online and offline. The scope of this Data Privacy Declaration includes:

All online services (websites, ads) that we operate
Social media pages and e-mail communication

In short: The Data Privacy Declaration applies to all areas where personal data is processed in a structured manner via the channels indicated, throughout the company. If we enter into a legal relationship with you outside of these channels, we will provide you with information separately as needed.

Legal bases

In the following Data Privacy Declaration, we provide you with transparent information on the legal principles and provisions, or the legal bases under the General Data Protection Regulation, that allow us to process personal data.
In terms of EU law, we refer to DIRECTIVE (EU) 2016/679 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLAIMENT AND THE COUNCIL of 27 April 2016. You are also welcome to read this EU General Data Protection Regulation online on EUR-Lex, the portal for accessing EU law, at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/DE/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32016R0679.

We only process your data if one of the following conditions applies:

Consent (Article 6 paragraph 1 lit. a GDPR): you have granted us your consent to process data for a specific purpose. One example would be saving the data that you enter into a contact form.
Contract (Article 6 paragraph 1 lit b GDPR): we process your data to fulfil a contract or a pre-contractual obligation we have towards you. For example, if we conclude a purchasing agreement, we will need some personal information in advance.
Legal obligations (Article 6 paragraph 1 lit c GDPR): we process your data if we are subject to a legal obligation to do so. For example, we are obligated by law to collect invoices for our accounting department. These usually contain personal data.
Legitimate interest (Article 6 paragraph 1 lit. f GDPR): we reserve the right to process personal data if we have a legitimate interest to do so, and if this does not restrict your own basic rights. For example, we have to process certain kinds of data so that we can operate our website in a secure and economically efficient way. This processing is considered part of our legitimate interest.

Usually, other situations like taking recordings in the public interest or exercising public power and protecting vital interests don’t apply to us. If one of these legal bases were relevant, we would indicate this at the point in question.

In addition to the EU regulation, there are national laws which apply:

In Austria, this is the Bundesgesetz zum Schutz natürlicher Personen bei der Verarbeitung personenbezogener Daten (Federal law to protect natural persons with respect to processing personal data (Datenschutzgesetz – Data protection act), or the DSG for short.
In Germany, the German Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (Federal Data Protection Act), or BDSG for short, applies.

If other regional or national laws apply, we will inform you of this in the following sections.

Contact information for the controller

If you have questions regarding data protection, please see the following contact information for the responsible controller or office:

Wild River Games GmbH

Erich-Zeitler Straße 1

85737 Ismaning

Germany

Authorized representatives:

Ralf Gronwald

Controller responsible for the content according to Sec. 5 TMG (Telemedia Act):

Ralf Gronwald

E-Mail: info@wildriver.games

Phone: +49 89 76775458

Impressum: https://wildriver.games/en/imprint

Contact information for the Data Protection Officer

The following is the contact information for our Data Protection Officer.

Elke Osterhaus

ak tronic Software & Services GmbH

Am Steinkreuz 65, 48369 Saerbeck

E-Mail: datenschutz@aktronic.de

Phone: +49 2574 927 0

Storage duration

In general, we only store personal data for as long as is absolutely necessary for us to provide our services and products. This means that we delete personal data once the reason for processing the data no longer applies. In some cases, we are obligated by law to store certain kinds of data even if the original purpose no longer applies, for instance for accounting purposes.

If you want us to delete your data, or if you revoke your consent to data processing, we will delete the data as quickly as possible, as long as we do not have an obligation to store it.

Please see the sections below for more information on specific lengths of time for which we process your data, if we have more information on these areas.

Rights under the General Data Protection Regulation

According to Article 13 of the GDPR, you are entitled to the following rights to ensure the processing of your data is fair and transparent:

According to Article 15 of the GDPR, you have the right to request information as to whether we process your personal data. If we do process it, then you have the right to receive a copy of the data and to learn the following information:
- the purpose for which we process the data;
- the categories, or types of data we process;
- who receives this data and, if the data is transmitted to third countries, how data security is ensured;
- how long the data is stored;
- that you have rights to rectification, deletion, or to restrict processing, as well as a right to object to processing;
- that you can submit a complaint to a supervisory authority (links to the authorities are provided below);
- the origin of the data, if we did not collect it from you;
- whether we carry out profiling, meaning whether the data is evaluated automatically to create a personal profile of you.
According to Article 16 of the GDPR, you have the right to rectify the data; this means that we must correct the data if you find an error.
According to Article 17 of the GDPR, you have the right to deletion (the “right to be forgotten”), which in practice means that you can request that your data be deleted.
According to Article 18 of the GDPR, you have the right to restrict the processing, which means that we may only continue storing the data, but not using it.
According to Article 19 of the GDPR, you have the right to data portability, which means that we must provide your data to you in a commonly-used format if you request.
According to Article 21 of the GDPR, you have a right to object; if you exercise this right, it will change the way your data is processed.
- If we process your data based on Article 6 para. 1 lit. e (public interest, exercising public power) or Article 6 para. 1 lit. f (legitimate interest), then you can object to the processing. After you do so, we will check whether we can fulfil the objection, from a legal standpoint.
- If data is used for the purposes of direct advertising, you can object to this kind of data processing at any time. If you do so, we may not continue using your data for direct marketing.
- If data is used for the purpose of profiling, you can object to this kind of data processing at any time. If you do so, we may not continue using your data for profiling.
According to Article 22 of the GDPR, in some circumstances you have the right to not be subjected to any decision that is based solely on automated processing (such as profiling).

In short: You have rights – Please, don’t hesitate to contact our controller at the information provided above!

If you believe that the processing of your data violates data protection law, or that your claims under data protection law have been violated in some other way, you can submit a complaint to the supervisory authority. For Austria, this is the Data Protection Authority, whose website is https://www.dsb.gv.at/. In Germany, there is a Data Protection Officer for every federal state. For further information, you can contact the Bundesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit (BfDI – Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information). The following local data protection agency is responsible for our company:

Bavarian Data Protection Agency

State Officer for Data Protection : Prof. Dr. Thomas Petri

Aedress: Postfach 221219, 80502 München

Phone: +49 89 212672-0

E-Mail: poststelle@datenschutz-bayern.de

Web: https://www.datenschutz-bayern.de/

Data transmission to third countries

We only transfer or process data in countries outside of the EU (third countries) if you agree to this kind of processing, if this is required by law or necessary to carry out a contract, and in any case only if this is generally permitted. In most cases, your consent is the most important basis that allows us to process data in third countries. Processing personal data in third countries such as the USA, where many software manufacturers offer services and where their servers are located, may mean that personal data is processed and stored in an unexpected way.

We would like to expressly inform you that, according to the European Court of Justice, currently the level of protection for data transfers to the USA is not sufficient. Data processing by US services (such as Google Analytics) may result in data not being processed and stored in anonymized form, in some cases. Furthermore, USA state agencies could access individual pieces of data. In addition, the collected data may be linked with data from other services by the same provider, if you have a user account on those services. Whenever possible, we try to use server locations within the EU if they are available.

We will provide you with more specific information elsewhere in this Data Privacy Declaration on data transmission to third countries, if this applies.

Security of data processing

We have taken both technical and organizational measures to protect personal data. Whenever possible, we encrypt or pseudonymize data. By doing so, we use every tool at our disposal to make it as difficult as possible for third parties to identify personal information from our data.

Art. 25 GDPR calls this “data protection by design and by default”, which means that companies should always think about security both as it relates to their software (such as forms) and hardware (such as access to the server room), and should take appropriate measures. The following section addresses specific measures where necessary.

TLS encryption via https

TLS, encryption and https are all terms that sound very technical – and they are. We use HTTPS (the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) to transmit data on the internet in a way that prevents others from eavesdropping on the transmission.
This means that the complete transmission process for all data from your browser to our web server is secured – no one can “overhear” it.

This is an additional layer of security we have introduced to fulfil the requirement of data protection by design Article 25 paragraph 1 GDPR). Using TLS (Transport Layer Security), which is an encryption protocol for secure data transmission over the internet, allows us to ensure the protection of confidential data.
You can tell whether we are using this security feature for data transmission because you will see a small lock symbol at the top left of your browser, to the left of the web address (such as examplepage.com), and you will see https (instead of http) at the front of our web address.
If you want to know more about the topic of encryption, we recommend doing a Google search for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure wiki” for good links to further information.

Communication

Communication summary
Data subjects: Anyone who communicates with us by phone, e-mail or using an online form
Processed data: such as a telephone number, name, e-mail address, and data entered into a form. For further details, see the specific method of contact
Purpose: Handling communication with customers, business partners, etc.
Storage term: Duration of the business transaction, and as required by legal regulations
Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b GDPR (contract), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest)

If you communicate with us by phone, e-mail or using an online form, your personal data may be processed.

Data is required to handle and answer your question, and for any associated business transactions. The data is stored for as long as required by law.

Data subjects

Anyone who tries to contact us via the communication methods we provide is affected by these processes, and is known as a “data subject”.

Phone

If you call us, the call data is stored in a pseudonymized fashion on the device used for the call, and by our telecommunication provider. In addition, data such as your name and phone number may then be sent by e-mail and stored in order to answer your inquiry. The data is deleted once the transaction is complete, if this is allowed under the law.

E-mail

If you communicate with us via e-mail, data may be stored on the device used (computer, laptop, smartphone, …), and data is stored on the e-mail server. The data is deleted once the transaction is complete, if this is allowed under the law.

Online forms

If you communicate with us via an online form, then data is stored on our web server, and may be forwarded to one of our e-mail addresses. The data is deleted once the transaction is complete, if this is allowed under the law.

Legal bases

This data processing is supported on the following legal bases:

Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (Consent): You give your consent to store your data and to continue using it for reasons related to the transaction in question;
Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b GDPR (contract): The data is required to fulfil a contract with you or with a contract processor, such as a telephone provider, or we have to process the data for pre-contractual work, such as preparing an offer.
Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest): We want to handle customer inquiries and business communication in a professional manner. Certain technical equipment is required to handle communication efficiently, like e-mail programs, exchange servers and cell phone operators.

Cookies

Cookies summary
Data subjects: website visitors
Purpose: dependent on the specific cookie. Further details are provided below, or are available from the manufacturer of the software that sets the cookie.
Processed data: dependent on the specific cookie that is set. Further details are provided below, or are available from the manufacturer of the software that sets the cookie.
Storage term: dependent on the specific cookie, may vary between hours or up to several years
Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit.f GDPR (legitimate interest)

What are cookies?

Our website uses HTTP cookies to save user-specific data.
In the following section, we explain what cookies are and why they are used, so that you can better understand this Data Privacy Declaration.

Whenever you surf online, you use a browser. Popular browsers include, for example, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. Most websites store small text files in your browser. These files are called cookies.

One thing is clear: cookies are enormously helpful tools. Almost all websites use cookies. More specifically, they use HTTP cookies, since there are also other kinds of cookies for other applications. HTTP cookies are small files stored on your computer by our website. These cookie files are stored automatically in a cookie folder, sort of like the “brain” of your browser. A cookie consists of a name and a value. In addition, one or more attributes must also be specified when a cookie is defined.

Cookies store certain pieces of user data about you, such as your language or your personal page settings. When you access our page again, your browser transmits this “user-specific” information back to our page. Thanks to the cookies, our website knows who you are and offers you the setting you are used to seeing. In some browsers, each cookie has its own file; in others like Firefox, all cookies are stored in a single file.

The following graphic shows one potential interaction between a web browser like Chrome and the web server. During the interaction, the web browser requests a website and receives a cookie back from the server; the browser, in turn, uses this again once another page is requested.

There are both first-party and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created directly by our page, while third-party cookies are created by partner websites (such as Google Analytics). Each cookie must be evaluated individually, since each cookie saves different data. The expiration term for a cookie can also vary, between a couple of minutes and a couple of years. Cookies are not software programs, and they don’t contain viruses, Trojan horses, or other kinds of “malware”. Cookies also cannot access information on your PC.

An example cookie file might look like this, for instance:

Name: _ga
Value: GA1.2.1326744211.152311294634-9
Purpose: Differentiate website visitors
Expiration date: After 2 years

Browsers should be able to support these minimum sizes:

At least 4096 bytes per cookie
At least 50 cookies per domain
At least 3000 cookies total

What kinds of cookies are there?

The question of which specific cookies we use depends on the services used, and is explained in the following sections of this Data Privacy Declaration. First, we would like to briefly address the different kinds of HTTP cookies.

We can differentiate between 4 types of cookies:

Strictly necessary cookies
These cookies are required to provide basic website functions. For example, these cookies are necessary if a user places a product in their shopping basket, then surfs on other pages, and comes back later to check out. These cookies ensure the shopping basket is not deleted, even if the user closes their browser window.

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

Preferences cookies
These cookies ensure a more user-friendly experience. For example, they are used to store the user’s entered locations, font sizes, or form data.

Marketing cookies
These cookies are also called targeting cookies. They are used to deliver advertisements that are individually targeted to the user. This can be highly practical, but also very annoying.

Generally, the first time you visit a website you will be asked what kinds of cookies you want to permit. Of course, this decision will also be stored in a cookie.

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

Purpose of processing using cookies

The purpose, ultimately, depends on the specific cookie in question. Further details are provided below, or are available from the manufacturer of the software that sets the cookie.

What data is processed?

Cookies are little helpers used to handle many different tasks. Unfortunately, there is no way to say generally what kinds of data are stored in cookies, but we will inform you about the data that we process and store in the later sections of this Data Privacy Declaration.

Cookie storage duration

The storage duration depends on the specific cookie; we will provide further details later on. Some cookies are deleted after less than one hour, while others may remain stored on a computer for several years.

In addition, you can influence the storage duration yourself. You can use your browser to manually delete all cookies at any time (see also the “Right to object” below). In addition, cookies based on your consent are deleted at the latest after you revoke that consent; the legality of storing the cookies up to that time remains unaffected.

Right to object – How can I delete cookies?

You decide whether you want to use cookies, and how. Regardless of what service or website the cookies come from, you can always delete or deactivate cookies, or allow only certain kinds of cookies. For example, you can block cookies from third parties, but allow all other cookies.

If you want to find out what cookies are stored in your browser, or if you want to change your cookie settings or delete cookies, you can find these options in your browser settings:

Chrome: Clear, enable, and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

If you do not want to have any cookies on your device, you can set your browser to always inform you when a website wants to save a cookie. This allows you to decide whether you want to permit each individual cookie or not. The process can differ depending on the browser. The best approach is to search for instructions on Google, by entering “Delete cookies Chrome” or “Deactivate cookies Chrome”, if you are using Chrome as your browser.

Legal basis

The so-called “Cookie Directive” was enacted in 2009. It stipulates that cookies cannot be saved without your consent (Article 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR). However, companies have reacted very differently to this directive throughout the EU. In Austria, this directive is implemented in Sec. 96 para. 3 of the Telecommunication Act (TKG). In Germany, the Cookie Directive is not enforced under a national law. Instead, this directive is primarily implemented in Sec. 15 para. 3 of the Telemedia Act (TMG).

In the case of strictly necessary cookies, or if we do not have your consent, we have a legitimate interest (Article 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR) in saving the cookie, which in most cases is of an economic nature. We want to ensure that visitors to our website have a pleasant experience, and often certain cookies are essential to do so.

If the cookies we use are not strictly necessary, then we use them only with your consent. The legal basis in this case is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR.

The following sections provide more detail on how cookies are used, if specific software uses cookies.

Web analytics

Web analytics Data Privacy Declaration Summary
Data subjects: Visitors to the website
Purpose: Evaluating visitor information to optimize the website.
Processed data: Access statistics, which contain data like the location of access, device data, the duration and time of access, navigation behavior, click behavior and IP addresses. Further details are provided under the specific web analytics tools we use.
Storage term: dependent on the web analytics tool used
Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest)

What is web analytics?

We use software on our website to evaluate the behavior of website visitors, known as web analytics or web analysis. This software collects data, which the specific provider of the analytic tool (also called a tracking tool) then stores, manages and processes. The data is used to create analyses of user behavior on our website, and these are provided to us as the website operator. In addition, most tools offer a variety of testing options. These allow us to test, for instance, what services or content will be best received by our visitors. To do so, we show website visitors two different offers for a limited amount of time. After the test (called an A/B test), we will know which product or which content our visitors find most interesting. User profiles may be created for these kinds of testing processes and for other analytics processes, and the data may be stored in cookies.

Why do we use web analytics?

We have created our website with a clear goal: we want to deliver the best online services to the market for our industry. To achieve this goal, we want to offer the best and most interesting website, while ensuring that you feel comfortable using our website at all times. We can use web analytics tools to look more closely at the behavior of our website visitors, then improve our website for both you and for ourselves. This allows us to determine, for instance, the average age of our visitors, where they come from, when our website receives the most visitors, or what content or products are especially popular. All of this information helps us to optimize our website, and adapt it to your needs, interests, and preferences as well as possible.

What data is processed?

The specific data that is saved depends, of course, on the analytic tools that are used. However, generally information is saved such as what content you view on our website, what buttons or links you click on, when you access a page, what browser you use, what device (PC, tablet, smartphone, etc.) you use to visit the website, or what computer system you use. If you have consented for location data to be collected, then this information may also be processed by the web analytics tool provider.

Your IP address will also be stored. IP addresses are considered personal data under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, your IP address is usually pseudonymized when it is stored (in a truncated, non-identifiable form). Usually, no direct data such as your name, age, address or e-mail address is stored for the purpose of tests, web analytics and web optimisation. All of this data is stored in a pseudonymized form, if it is collected. This means it cannot be used to identify you personally.

The following diagram explains how Google Analytics works, as an example of client-based web tracking with Javascript code.

How long the data is stored always depends on the provider. Some cookies only store data for a couple of minutes, or until you leave the website. Other cookies can store data for several years.

Duration of data processing

Right to object

You also have the right to object at any time, and the ability to revoke your consent to use cookies and third-party providers. You can do so either using our cookie management tool, or using other opt-out functions. For example, you can prevent cookies from collecting data by managing, deactivating, or deleting cookies in your browser.

Legal basis

Web analytics can only be used based on your consent, which we obtain through our cookie pop-up. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), this consent serves as the legal basis to process the kinds of personal data that may be collected by web analytics tools.

In addition to your consent, we also have a legitimate interest in analysing the behavior of visitors to our website, in order to improve the website from a technical and efficiency-related standpoint. We use web analytics to detect errors on the website, identify attacks and improve efficiency. The legal basis for doing so is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest). However, we only use the tools if you have granted your consent.

Since cookies are used by web analytics tools, we recommend that you read our general Data Privacy Declaration on cookies as well. To find out what specific pieces of your data we save and process, you should read the Data Privacy Declarations for the specific tools.

If available, information on specific web analytics tools is provided in the following sections.

Google Optimize Data Privacy Declaration

We use Google Optimize on our website, which is a website optimisation tool. The service provider is the American company Google Inc. The company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services within Europe.

Google also processes data in the USA, amongst other places. Please note that, according to the European Court of Justice, currently the level of protection for data transfers to the USA is not sufficient. This may result in different kinds of risks related to the legality and security of data processing.

Google uses standard contractual clauses approved by the EU Commission as the basis for data processing for recipients located in third countries (outside of the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, in particular in the USA) or for transmitting data to these third countries (= Art. 46 para. 2 and 3 GDPR). These clauses obligate Google to comply with the level of data protection prevalent within the EU when they process relevant data, even if they process it outside of the EU. These clauses are based on an implementation decision by the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the clauses here, for instance: https://ec.europa.eu/germany/news/20210604-datentransfers-eu_de.

For more information on the data processed through the use of Google Optimize, please see the Privacy Policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US .

Facebook Pixel Data Privacy Declaration

We use Facebook Pixel from Facebook on our website. We have implemented a code on our website for this purpose. Facebook Pixel is a piece of JavaScript code that loads a collection of functions which Facebook can use to track your user activities, if you accessed our website via Facebook Ads. For example, if you purchase a product on our website, the Facebook Pixel is triggered, and stores your activities on our website in one or more cookies. These cookies allow Facebook to compare your user data (customer data such as your IP address and user ID) with the data in your Facebook account. Then, Facebook deletes this data once again. The collected data is anonymous and not accessible to us, and can only be used in order to display advertisements. If you are a Facebook user and are logged into your account, your visit to our website is automatically associated with your Facebook user account.

We want to show our services and products only to people who would actually be interested in them. We use Facebook Pixel to better tailor our advertising measures to your interests and needs. This allows Facebook users (if they have permitted personalized advertising) to see ads that match their interests. In addition, Facebook uses the collected data for analytic purposes and to display its own advertisements.

The following shows the cookies set when we integrated Facebook Pixel on a test page. Please note that these are only example cookies. Different cookies are saved depending on the user’s interaction on our website.

Name: _fbp
Value: fb.1.1568287647279.257405483-6311294634-7
Purpose: Facebook uses this cookie to display advertising products.
Expiration date: after 3 months

Name: fr
Value: 0aPf312HOS5Pboo2r..Bdeiuf…1.0.Bdeiuf.
Purpose: This cookie is used to ensure Facebook Pixel works properly.
Expiration date: after 3 months

Name: comment_author_50ae8267e2bdf1253ec1a5769f48e062311294634-3
Value: Name of the author
Purpose: This cookie stores the text and the name of a user who leaves a comment, for example.
Expiration date: after 12 months

Name: comment_author_url_50ae8267e2bdf1253ec1a5769f48e062
Value: https%3A%2F%2Fwww.testseite…%2F (URL of the author)
Purpose: This cookie saves the URL of the website which the user enters in a text field on our website.
Expiration 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, if they disclosed it on our website.
Expiration date: after 12 months

Note: The cookies above are based on an individual user’s behavior. It is always possible that Facebook may make changes, particularly related to the use of cookies.

If you are registered on Facebook, you can modify your settings for how ads are displayed at https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen. If you are not a Facebook user, you can manage your general usage-based online advertisements at http://www.youronlinechoices.com/de/praferenzmanagement/. You can activate or deactivate providers there.

Please note that, according to the European Court of Justice, currently the level of protection for data transfers to the USA is not sufficient. Most data processing is handled via Facebook Pixel. This may result in data being processed and stored in a non-anonymized form, in some cases. Furthermore, USA state agencies could access individual pieces of data. In addition, it is possible that this data may be linked with data from other Facebook services, if you have a user account with them.

If you want to learn more about data protection at Facebook, we recommend you read the company’s own Data protection guidelines at https://www.facebook.com/policy.php.

Google Analytics Data Privacy Declaration

Google Analytics Data Privacy Declaration Summary
Data subjects: Visitors to the website
Purpose: Evaluating visitor information to optimize the website.
Processed data: Access statistics, which contain data like the location of access, device data, the duration and time of access, navigation behavior, click behavior and IP addresses. Further details are provided later on in this Data Privacy Declaration.
Storage duration: dependent on the properties used
Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest)

What is Google Analytics?

We use the analytic tracking tool Google Analytics (GA) on our website, from the American company Google Inc. The company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services within Europe. Google Analytics collects data on your activities when you use our website. For example, if you click a link, this action is saved in a cookie and sent to Google Analytics. We can use the reports we receive from Google Analytics to better adapt our website and our services to your needs. The following section discusses the tracking tool in more detail, and informs you about the data that is stored, and how you can prevent this.

Google Analytics is a tracking tool used to analyse data traffic on our website. For Google Analytics to work, a tracking code is built into the code for our website. When you visit our website, this code records a variety of actions that you carry out on the website. When you leave our website, this data is transmitted to the Google Analytics server and stored there.

Google processes the data, then we receive reports on your user behavior. These reports may include the following:

Audience reports: We use audience reports to get to know our users better, and to know exactly who is interested in our services.
Ad reports: We use ad reports to more easily analyse and improve our online advertisements.
Acquisition reports: Acquisition reports provide us with helpful information on how we can get more people interested in our services.
Behavior reports: These reports tell us how you interact with our website. They help us track your click path through our page, and what links you click on.
Conversion reports: Conversion is a process by which you carry out a desired action, based on a marketing message. For example, when you become a purchaser or newsletter subscriber, rather than just a website visitor. We use these reports to learn more about how our marketing measures are being received. By doing so, we are trying to improve our conversion rate.
Real time reports: These reports tell us what is happening on our website at any given time. For example, we can see how many users are reading this text right now.

Why do we use Google Analytics on our website?

Our goal for this website is clear: we want to offer you the best service possible. Statistics and data from Google Analytics help us to achieve this goal.

Statistically evaluated data provides us with a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of our website. On the one hand, this allows us to optimize our site, so that it is easier for potential customers to find us on Google. On the other, the data helps us to better understand you as a visitor. It lets us know very precisely what we need to improve about our website in order to offer you the best possible services. We also use the data to handle our advertising and marketing measures in a more personalized and less expensive way. Ultimately, it only makes sense to show our services and products to people who would actually be interested in them.

What data is stored by Google Analytics?

Google Analytics uses a tracking code to generate a random, unique ID that is linked to your browser cookie. This allows Google Analytics to recognize you as a new user. The next time you visit our page, you will be recognized as a “recurring” user. All of the collected data is stored along with this user ID. This is what allows us to analyse pseudonymous user profiles.

To analyse our website using Google Analytics, a property ID must be inserted into the tracking code. Then, the data is stored in the relevant property. The Google Analytics 4 property is the standard for each newly created property. Alternatively, however, we can also generate the universal analytics property. Data is stored for different lengths of time depending on the property used.

Identifiers such as cookies and app instance IDs are used to measure your interactions on our website. An interaction is any kind of action that you carry out on our website. If you also use other Google systems (like a Google account), data generated via Google Analytics can be linked with third-party cookies. Google does not transmit Google Analytics data, unless we approve this as the website operator. There may be exceptions if required by law.

Google Analytics uses the following cookies:

Name: _ga
Value: 2.1326744211.152311294634-5
Purpose: As a default, analytics.js uses the cookie _ga to store the user ID. In general, this is used to differentiate between website visitors.
Expiration date: After 2 years

Name: _gid
Value: 2.1687193234.152311294634-1
Purpose: This cookie is also used to differentiate between website visitors
Expiration date: After 24 hours

Name: _gat_gtag_UA_Value: 1
Purpose: This cookie is used to lower the request rate. If Google Analytics is provided by the Google Tag Manager, then this cookie is assigned the name _dc_gtm_.
Expiration date: After 1 minute

Name: AMP_TOKEN
Value: No information
Purpose: This cookie has a token that can be used to access a user ID from an AMP Client ID service. Other possible values indicate a log off, a request or an error.
Expiration date: After 30 seconds up to one year

Name: __utma
Value: 1564498958.1564498958.1564498958.1
Purpose: This cookie can be used to track your behavior on the website and measure performance. This cookie is updated every time information is transmitted to Google Analytics.
Expiration date: After 2 years

Name: __utmt
Value: 1
Purpose: This cookie is used, like _gat_gtag_UA_, 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 every time new data or information is transmitted to Google Analytics.
Expiration date: After 30 minutes

Name: __utmc
Value: 167421564
Purpose: This cookie is used to define new sessions for recurring visitors. This is a session cookie, and is only stored until you close your browser.
Expiration date: After you close your browser

Name: __utmz
Value: m|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/
Purpose: This cookie is used to identify the source of user traffic to our website. This means that the cookie saves the source from which you accessed our website. This may be another website, or an advertisement.
Expiration date: after 6 months

Name: __utmv
Value: No information
Purpose: This cookie is used to save user-defined user data. It is updated every time information is transmitted to Google Analytics.
Expiration date: After 2 years

Note: This list is not meant to be exhaustive, since Google often changes the cookies it uses.

Here is an overview of the most important kinds of data collected using Google Analytics:

Heatmaps: Google creates so-called heatmaps. Heatmaps indicate precisely which areas you click on. This provides us with information on how you “travel” through our website.

Session duration: Google calls the time you spend on our page without leaving the website your session duration. The session ends automatically after you have been inactive for 20 minutes.

Bounce rate: A bounce is when you only view one page on our website, then leave the website once again.

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

IP address: The IP address is displayed only in truncated form so that it cannot be directly associated with an individual.

Location: Your IP address can be used to determine your country and approximate location. This process is called IP geolocation.

Technical information: Technical information includes, for instance, your browser type, your internet provider and your screen resolution.

Source: Of course, both we and Google Analytics are also interested in knowing from which website or which advertisement you accessed our page.

Further data includes contact information, any ratings, any media played (for instance if you play a video through our website), if you share content via social media or if you add our page to your favourites. This list is not exhaustive, and only provides a general idea of how data is stored by Google Analytics.

Where is data stored, and for how long?

Google has servers distributed all over the world. Most of its servers are located in America, therefore most of the time your data will be stored on American servers. You can read more about exactly where Google’s computing centres are located here: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de

Your data is distributed across different physical data storage media. The advantage of this is that data can be accessed more quickly, and is better protected against manipulation. There are emergency programs to protect your data in every Google computing centre. If Google experiences a hardware failure, or if a natural catastrophe disables servers, for example, there is still a low risk of Google’s services being interrupted.

The length of time for which data is stored depends on the properties used. When using the newer Google Analytics 4 properties, your user data is stored for a fixed term of 14 months. We can choose a storage duration of 2 months or 14 months for other so-called event data.

For universal Analytics properties, Google Analytics has set a standard storage duration for your user data of 26 months. Then your user data will be deleted. However, we can choose the storage duration for user data ourselves. We have five different options:

Deletion after 14 months
Deletion after 26 months
Deletion after 38 months
Deletion after 50 months
No automatic deletion

In addition, there is the option to only delete the data if you do not visit our website again during the time period we select. In this case, the storage duration is reset every time you visit our website again within the defined time period.

Once the defined period has expired, your data is deleted once per month. This storage duration applies to your data that is linked to cookies, user IDs and advertising IDs (such as DoubleClick domain cookies). Report results are based on aggregated data, and are stored independent of user data. Aggregated data is a combination of individual pieces of data to create a larger unit.

How can I delete my data, or prevent data from being stored?

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

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

Chrome: Clear, enable, and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

Legal basis

Google Analytics can only be used based on your consent, which we obtain through our cookie pop-up. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), this consent serves as the legal basis to process the kinds of personal data that may be collected by web analytics tools.

In addition to your consent, we also have a legitimate interest in analysing the behavior of visitors to our website, in order to improve the website from a technical and efficiency-related standpoint. We use Google Analytics to detect errors on the website, identify attacks and improve efficiency. The legal basis for doing so is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest). However, we only use Google Analytics if you have granted your consent.

We hope we have provided you with the most important information you need to know on data processing using Google Analytics. If you want to know 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.

Facebook Automatic Advanced Matching Data Privacy Declaration

As part of the Facebook Pixel function, we have also activated Automatic Advanced Matching. This Pixel function allows us to transmit hashed e-mails, names, genders, cities, states, postal codes and dates of birth or telephone numbers to Facebook as additional information, if you have provided this data to us. Activating this feature allows us to target advertising campaigns on Facebook more precisely to people who are interested in our services or products.

Google Analytics IP anonymisation

We have implemented IP address anonymisation from Google Analytics on this website. This function was developed by Google so that this website can comply with applicable data protection laws and recommendations of local data protection authorities, if they prohibit the storage of complete IP addresses. The IP is anonymised or masked once the IP addresses are received within the Google Analytics data collection network, and before the data is saved or processed.

More information about IP anonymisation is available at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2763052?hl=de.

Google Analytics reports on demographic characteristics and interests

We have activated functions for advertising reports in Google Analytics. These reports on demographic characteristics and interests contain information on the user’s age, gender and interests. We can use this information to get a better sense of who our users are, without associating this data with individual users. You can learn more about the ad functions at auf https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3450482?hl=de_AT&utm_id=ad.

You can end use of the activities and information from your Google account under “Ad personalization” at https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated by checking the box.

Google Analytics deactivation link

If you click the following deactivation link, you can prevent Google from recording further visits to this website. Please note: if you delete cookies, use your browser’s incognito / private mode, or use another browser, this will result in data being collected once again.

Deactivate Google Analytics

Google Site Kit Data Privacy Declaration

Google Site Kit Data Privacy Declaration Summary
Data subjects: Visitors to the website
Purpose: Evaluating visitor information to optimize the website.
Processed data: Access statistics, which contain data like the location of access, device data, the duration and time of access, navigation behavior, click behavior and IP addresses. Further details are provided below and in the Google Analytics Data Privacy Declaration.
Storage duration: dependent on the properties used
Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest)

What is Google Site Kit?

We have integrated the WordPress plug-in Google Site Kit from the US company Google Inc. on our website. The company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services within Europe. We can use Google Site Kit to quickly and easily view statistics generated from a variety of Google products, such as Google Analytics, directly in our WordPress dashboard. This tool and the tools integrated in the Google Site Kit also collect data including personal data from you. In this Data Privacy Declaration, we explain why we use Google Site Kit, for how long and where data is stored, and what other data protection texts are relevant for you in this context.

Google Site Kit is a plug-in for the content management system WordPress. We can use this plug-in to view important web analytics statistics directly on our dashboard. These are statistics collected by other Google products, primarily by Google Analytics. In addition to Google Analytics, the services Google Search Console, Page Speed Insight, Google AdSense, Google Optimize and Google Tag Manager can also be linked to Google Site Kit.

Why do we use Google Site Kit on our website?

As a service provider, it is our mission to offer you the best possible experience on our website. We want you to feel comfortable on our website, and to quickly and easily find exactly what you are looking for. Statistical analyses help us understand you better, and adapt our website to your needs and interests. We use different Google tools for these analyses. Site Kit makes our work in this respect much easier, because we can view and analyse statistics from Google products directly on our dashboard. This means we do not have to log into each tool every time. Site Kit always provides a good overview of the most important analytics data.

What data is stored by Google Site Kit?

If you have actively agreed to the use of tracking tools in the cookie notification (also called a script or banner), then Google products such as Google Analytics set cookies and transmit data about you, for instance on your user behavior, to Google, which saves and processes that data. Personal data such as your IP address is also saved.

We have included separate sections in this Data Privacy Declaration providing further information on the individual services. For example, please see our Data Privacy Declaration for Google Analytics. We address the collected data in detail there. You can read about how long Google Analytics stores, manages, and processes data for, which cookies are used, and how you can prevent data from being saved. Likewise, we have provided separate Data Privacy Declarations for you with comprehensive information on other Google services, such as the Google Tag Manager or Google AdSense.

The following are some example Google Analytics cookies that could be saved in your browser if you have agreed to data processing by Google in general. Please note that these cookies are only a selection:

Name: _ga
Value:2.1326744211.152311294634-2
Purpose: As a default, analytics.js uses the cookie _ga to store the user ID. In general, this is used to differentiate between website visitors.
Expiration date: After 2 years

Name: _gid
Value:2.1687193234.152311294634-7
Purpose: This cookie is also used to differentiate between website visitors.
Expiration date: After 24 hours

Name: _gat_gtag_UA_Value: 1
Purpose: This cookie is used to lower the request rate.
Expiration date: After 1 minute

Where is data stored, and for how long?

Google stores collected data on its own Google servers, which are distributed around the world. Most of its servers are in the United States; therefore, it is definitely possible that your data will be stored there. Please seehttps://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de for detailed information on where the company maintains servers.

Data collected by Google Analytics is stored for 26 months as a standard. Then your user data will be deleted. This storage duration applies to all data that is linked with cookies, user IDs and advertising IDs.

How can I delete my data, or prevent data from being stored?

You always have the right to receive information on your data, to delete or rectify your data, or to restrict its use. In addition, you can also deactivate, delete, or manage cookies in your browser at any time. Here are the instructions for doing so in the most commonly-used browsers:

Chrome: Clear, enable, and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

Please note that, if you use these tools, your data may be stored and processed outside of the EU. Most third states (including the USA) are not considered secure under current German data protection law. This means that data may not simply be transmitted to non-secure third states to be stored and processed there, unless there are appropriate guarantees (such as the EU standard contractual clauses) agreed between us and the non-European service provider.

Legal basis

Google Site Kit can only be used based on your consent, which we obtain through our cookie pop-up. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), this consent serves as the legal basis to process the kinds of personal data that may be collected by web analytics tools.

In addition to your consent, we also have a legitimate interest in analysing the behavior of visitors to our website, in order to improve the website from a technical and efficiency-related standpoint. We use Google Site Kit to detect errors on the website, identify attacks and improve efficiency. The legal basis for doing so is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest). However, we only use Google Site Kit if you have granted your consent.

If you want to learn more about data protection by Google, we recommend you read Google’s comprehensive Data protection guidelines at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.

Google Analytics supplement to data processing

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

Read more about the supplement to data processing for Google Analytics here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3379636?hl=de&utm_id=ad

Google Tag Manager Data Privacy Declaration

Google Tag Manager Data Privacy Declaration Summary
Data subjects: Visitors to the website
Purpose: Organisation of individual tracking tools
Processed data: The Google Tag Manager does not save any data itself. The tags in the web analytics tools used record the data.
Storage term: dependent on the web analytics tool used
Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest)

What is the Google Tag Manager?

We use the Google Tag Manager on our website, from the American company Google Inc. The company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services within Europe. This Tag Manager is one of many helpful marketing products Google offers. We can use the Google Tag Manager to centrally integrate and manage sections of code from different tracking tools that we use on our website.

In this Data Privacy Declaration, we will explain to you in more detail what the Google Tag Manager does, why we use it, and in what form data is processed.

The Google Tag Manager is an organisational tool we can use to integrate and manage website tags in a centralized manner and via a user interface. Tags are small sections of code which, for instance, track your activities on our website. To do so, JavaScript code segments have been integrated into the source text of our page. The tags often come from internal Google products such as Google Ads or Google Analytics, but tags from other companies may be integrated and managed using the Manager. Such tags play different roles. They may collect browser data, feed data to marketing tools, integrate buttons, set cookies, and track users across multiple websites.

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

As they say: good organisation is half the battle! Of course, this applies to maintaining our website as well. To make our website as good as possible for you and everyone who is interested in our products and services, we need to use a variety of tracking tools such as Google Analytics. The data collected by these tools shows us what you are most interested in, where we can improve our services, and which people we still need to show our products and services. We need to integrate relevant JavaScript codes into our website for this tracking process to work properly. We could separately integrate each section of code for each individual tracking tool into our source text. However, that would take a relatively large amount of time, and it is easy to lose sight of the big picture. That is why we use the Google Tag Manager. We can easily integrate the scripts we need and manage them from a single place. In addition, the Google Tag Manager offers an easy to operate user interface, and you don’t need any programming experience to use it. This helps us keep all of our complicated tags in order.

What data is stored by Google Tag Manager?

The Tag Manager itself is a domain, and it does not set any cookies or save any data. It acts as a simple “administrator” for the implemented tags. The individual tags from the different web analytics tools collect data. Data is essentially fed through the Google Tag Manager to the individual tracking tools, and is not saved.

However, the process is different for the tags integrated from the different web analytics tools, such as Google Analytics. Depending on the analytic tool, most of these use cookies to collect, save and process a variety of data about your web use. Please read our data protection statements on the individual analytics and tracking tools we use on our website for more information.

In the account settings for the Tag Manager, we have permitted Google to receive anonymized data from us. However, this data relates only to the use of our Tag Manager, and is not your data saved via the sections of code. We allow Google and other entities to receive select data in an anonymized form. By doing so, we agree to the anonymous disclosure of our website data. Despite carefully researching the issue, we were not able to determine what summarized and anonymous data exactly is transmitted. In any case, Google deletes all information that could be used to identify our website during the transmission. Google combines the data with data from hundreds of other websites, then generates user trends based on benchmarking measures. During benchmarking, our own results are compared with those of our competitors. The collected information can be used to optimize processes.

Where is data stored, and for how long?

When Google saves data, this data is stored on Google’s own servers. These servers are distributed all over the world. Most of them are located in America. Please see https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de for detailed information on where Google’s servers are located.

See the individual data protection texts for the different tools for information on how long the individual tracking tools store your data.

How can I delete my data, or prevent data from being stored?

The Google Tag Manager itself does not set any cookies; instead, it manages tags from different tracking websites. Our data protection texts for the individual tracking tools provide detailed information on how you can delete and manage your data.

Legal basis

Google Tag Manager can only be used based on your consent, which we obtain through our cookie pop-up. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), this consent serves as the legal basis to process the kinds of personal data that may be collected by web analytics tools.

In addition to your consent, we also have a legitimate interest in analysing the behavior of visitors to our website, in order to improve the website from a technical and efficiency-related standpoint. We use Google Tag Manager to improve the efficiency of the site. The legal basis for doing so is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest). However, we only use the Google Tag Manager if you have granted your consent.

If you want to learn more about the Google Tag Manager, we recommend you read the FAQs at https://www.google.com/intl/de/tagmanager/faq.html.

Google Analytics Google-Signals Privacy Declaration

We have activated Google-Signals in Google Analytics. With Google Signals, existing Google Analytics functions (advertising reports, remarketing, cross-device reports and reports on interests and demographic characteristics) are updated in order to obtain summarized, anonymized data about you, if you have permitted personalized ads in your Google account.

The unique thing about this feature is that it offers cross-device tracking. This means that your data can be analysed across all of your devices. Because Google Signals is activated, data is recorded and linked to your Google account. This allows Google to see, for instance, if you view a product on our website using a smartphone, but then purchase the product later using a laptop. Because Google Signals is activated, we are able to launch cross-device remarketing campaigns that would otherwise not be possible. Remarketing means that we can show you our services even on other websites.

In addition, Google Signals collects further user data on you, such as your location, search history, YouTube click path, and data about your activities on our website. This allows Google to provide us with better advertising reports and more useful information on your interests and demographic characteristics. These include your age, what language you speak, where you live, or what your gender is. Furthermore, this also includes social criteria such as your profession, your marital status or your income. All of these characteristics help Google Analytics to define groups of people or target audiences.

The reports also help us to better assess your behavior, your needs and your interests. This allows us to optimize and adapt our services and products for you. This data expires after 26 months as a standard. Please note that this data is only recorded if you have allowed personalized advertisements in your Google account. The data is always summarized and anonymous data, and never data regarding individual persons. You can manage or delete this data in your Google account.

Online marketing

Online marketing Data Privacy Declaration Summary
Data subjects: Visitors to the website
Purpose: Evaluating visitor information to optimize the website.
Processed data: Access statistics, which contain data like the location of access, device data, the duration and time of access, navigation behavior, click behavior and IP addresses. Personal data, such as your name or e-mail address, may also be processed. Further details are provided under the specific online marketing tools we use.
Storage duration: dependent on the online marketing tools used
Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest)

What is online marketing?

Online marketing is defined as all measures that are carried out online in order to achieve marketing objectives, such as increasing brand awareness or concluding a business transaction. Furthermore, the purpose of our online marketing measures is to make people aware of our website. We engage in online marketing so that we can show our services to as many people as possible who would be interested in them. This mainly involves online advertisements, content marketing or search engine optimisation. We store and process personal data so that we can use online marketing in an efficient and targeted manner. The data helps us to only display our content to people who would actually be interested in it, on the one hand, while allowing us to evaluate the success of our online marketing measures on the other.

Why do we use online marketing tools?

We want to show our website to every person who would be interested in our services. We are aware that this is not possible without taking certain measures. That is why we engage in online marketing. There are different tools that make our work related to online marketing measures easier, and that provide suggestions for improvement based on the data available. This allows us to better align our campaigns to our target audiences. The purpose of the online marketing tools we use is, ultimately, to optimize our website.

What data is processed?

In order for our online marketing measures to work properly and for us to be able to measure their success, we need to create user profiles and store data, for instance in cookies (which are small text files). We can use this data to not only display advertisements in a classic sense, but also to display our website and its content directly in the way our target audience would prefer. There are various third-party tools that offer these functions, and that collect and store your data to do so. For example, the cookies we described above save what pages you visited on our website, how long you viewed these pages for, which buttons or links you clicked, or which website you accessed our site from. In addition, technical information may also be saved. This includes, for instance, your IP address, which browser you use, the device from which you visit our website, or the time at which you accessed our website and when you left it. If you have consented that we can also determine your location, then we may also store and process this information.

Your IP address is stored in pseudonymized form (truncated). Unique data that identifies you personally and directly, such as your name, address or e-mail address, is also stored only in pseudonymized form during advertising and online marketing processes. This means that we cannot identify you personally. Instead, we only have pseudonymized information stored in user profiles.

In some circumstances, the cookies may also be implemented, analysed, and used for advertising purposes on other websites that work with the same advertising tools. The data may, then, be saved on the advertising tool provider’s servers.

In exceptional cases, unique data (names, e-mail addresses, etc.) may also be stored in the user profiles. This data is stored, for instance, if you are active on a social media channel that we use for our online marketing measures, and if the network already links previously received data with the user profile.

For all of the advertising tools that save your data on our own servers, we only receive summarized information, never data that can be used to identify you as an individual. This data only helps us understand how well our advertising measures are working. For instance, we can see which measures motivated you or other users to visit the website and purchase a service or product there. We can use the analyses to improve our advertising in the future, and better adjust it to the needs and desires of potential customers.

Duration of data processing

Please see the sections below for more information on the lengths of time for which we process your data, if we have more information on these areas. In general, we only process personal data for as long as is absolutely necessary for us to provide our services and products. Data stored in cookies is stored for different lengths of time. Some cookies are deleted after you leave our website, while others may remain stored in your browser for several years. Generally, the specific Data Privacy Declarations of the individual providers provide further information on the individual cookies the provider uses.

Right to object

Since cookies can generally be used in online marketing tools, we recommend that you read our general Data Privacy Declaration on cookies as well. To find out what specific pieces of your data we save and process, you should read the Data Privacy Declarations for the specific tools.

Legal basis

If you have consented that third-party providers may be implemented, then the legal basis for this data processing is your consent. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), this consent serves as the legal basis to process the kinds of personal data that may be collected by online marketing tools.

In addition, we have a legitimate interest in measuring our online marketing measures in an anonymized form, in order to optimize our website and our measures using the data collected. The legal basis for doing so is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest). However, we only use the tools if you have granted your consent.

If available, information on specific online marketing tools is provided in the following sections.

Facebook Conversions API Data Privacy Declaration

We use Facebook Conversions API, a server-side event tracking tool, on our website. The service provider is the American company Facebook Inc. The company Facebook Ireland Ltd. (4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland) is responsible for the European region.

Facebook Conversions API processes data in the USA as well in some cases. Please note that, according to the European Court of Justice, currently the level of protection for data transfers to the USA is not sufficient. This may result in different kinds of risks related to the legality and security of data processing.

Facebook Conversions API uses standard contractual clauses approved by the EU Commission as the basis for data processing for recipients located in third countries (outside of the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, in particular in the USA) or for transmitting data to these third countries (= Art. 46 para. 2 and 3 GDPR). These clauses obligate Facebook Conversions API to comply with the level of data protection prevalent within the EU when they process relevant data, even if they process it outside of the EU. These clauses are based on an implementation decision by the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the clauses here, for instance: https://ec.europa.eu/germany/news/20210604-datentransfers-eu_de.

For more information on the data processed through the use of Facebook Conversions API, please see the Privacy Policy at https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy .

Facebook Custom Audiences Data Privacy Declaration

We use Facebook Custom Audiences, a server-side event tracking tool, on our website. The service provider is the American company Facebook Inc. The company Facebook Ireland Ltd. (4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland) is responsible for the European region.

Facebook processes data in the USA as well in some cases. Please note that, according to the European Court of Justice, currently the level of protection for data transfers to the USA is not sufficient. This may result in different kinds of risks related to the legality and security of data processing.

Facebook uses standard contractual clauses approved by the EU Commission as the basis for data processing for recipients located in third countries (outside of the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, in particular in the USA) or for transmitting data to these third countries (= Art. 46 para. 2 and 3 GDPR). These clauses obligate Facebook to comply with the level of data protection prevalent within the EU when they process relevant data, even if they process it outside of the EU. These clauses are based on an implementation decision by the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the clauses here, for instance: https://ec.europa.eu/germany/news/20210604-datentransfers-eu_de.

For more information on the data processed through the use of Facebook Custom Audiences, please see the Privacy Policy at https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy .

Google Ads (Google AdWords) Conversion-Tracking Data Privacy Declaration

Google Ads (Google AdWords) conversion tracking Data Privacy Declaration Summary
Data subjects: Visitors to the website
Purpose: Economic success and optimising our services.
Processed data: Access statistics, which contain data like the location of access, device data, the duration and time of access, navigation behavior, click behavior and IP addresses. Personal data, such as your name or e-mail address, may also be processed.
Storage duration: Conversion cookies generally expire after 30 days, and do not transmit any personal data
Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit.f GDPR (legitimate interest)

What is Google Ads conversion tracking?

We use Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) to advertise for our products and services as part of our online marketing measures. By doing so, we intend to make more people online aware of the high quality of our services. As part of our advertising measures through Google Ads, we use conversion tracking on our website from the American company Google Inc. The company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland), however, is responsible for all Google services within Europe. We can use this free tracking tool to better adapt our advertisements to your interests and your needs. The following article discusses why we use conversion tracking in more detail, what data is stored in this context, and how you can prevent this data from being stored.

Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), is the in-house online advertising system of Google Inc. We are convinced that we offer high-quality services and products, and we want to make as many people aware of our website as possible. Google Ads offers the best online platform for doing so. Of course, we also want to have a detailed overview of the cost-benefit factor of our advertising activities. That is why we use the conversion tracking tool from Google Ads.

But what is conversion? Conversion occurs when you turn from simply an interested website visitor into a visitor who takes action. This happens when you click on our ad and then take another action, such as visiting our website. The conversion tracking tool from Google allows us to record what appears after a user clicks our Google ad. For example, we can see whether users purchase products, take advantage of services, or register for our newsletter.

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

We use Google Ads to make people who are on other websites aware of our services as well. The goal is for our advertising campaigns to only reach people who would actually be interested in our services. The conversion tracking tool allows us to see which keywords, ads, groups of ads and campaigns resulted in the desired customer actions. We see how many customers interact with our ads on a device, and whether conversion then takes place. We can use this data to calculate our cost-benefit factor, to measure the success of individual advertising measures, and to then optimize our online marketing measures. Furthermore, we can use the collected data to make our website more interesting for you and to adapt our advertising services better to your specific needs.

What data is stored by Google Ads conversion tracking?

We have integrated a conversion tracking tag or code snippet on our website to better analyse certain user actions. If you click on one of our Google Ads, the “Conversion” cookie is stored on your computer (usually in your browser) by a Google Domain. Cookies are small text files that store information on your computer.

Here is the information on the most important Google conversion tracking cookies:

Name: Conversion
Value: EhMI_aySuoyv4gIVled3Ch0llweVGAEgt-mr6aXd7dYlSAGQ311294634-3
Purpose: This cookie stores each instance of conversion on our website after you access our page via a Google Ad.
Expiration date: after 3 months

Name: _gac
Value: 1.1558695989.EAIaIQobChMIiOmEgYO04gIVj5AYCh2CBAPrEAAYASAAEgIYQfD_BwE
Purpose: This is a classic Google Analytics cookie, and is used to record a variety of actions on our website.
Expiration date: after 3 months

Note: The cookie _gac only appears in conjunction with Google Analytics. The list above is not exhaustive, since Google often uses other cookies for analytic evaluations as well.

Once you complete an action on our website, Google detects 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 yet expired, we and Google can tell that you found our page via our Google Ads ad. The cookie is read out and returned to Google Ads with the conversion data. It is also possible that other cookies may be used to measure conversion. Google Analytics can be used to further refine and improve conversion tracking by Google Ads. Cookies may be saved under our domain named “_gads” or “gac” for ads that Google displays at different locations online. Since September 2017, a variety of campaign information from analytics.js has been saved using the _gac cookie. This cookie stores this data once you access one of our pages for which automatic tag identification has been set up by Google Ads. In contrast to cookies used for Google domains, Google can only read this conversion cookie if you are on our website. We do not collect or receive any personal data. We receive a report from Google with statistical analyses. This allows us to see, for instance, the total number of users who clicked our ad, and which advertising measures were well-received.

Where is data stored, and for how long?

We would like to take this opportunity to note that we have no influence over 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. Cookies with the names “conversion” and “_gac” (this cookie is used in conjunction with Google Analytics) expire after 3 months.

How can I delete my data, or prevent data from being stored?

You have the option of not taking part in conversion tracking by Google Ads. If you deactivate the Google conversion tracking cookie in your browser, you can block conversion tracking. In this case, you will not be included in the statistics delivered by the tracking tool. You can change the cookie settings in your browser at any time. This works differently for each different browser. Here are instructions for managing cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Clear, enable, and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

If you do not want to have any cookies on your device, you can set your browser to always inform you when a website wants to save a cookie. This allows you to decide whether you want to permit each individual cookie or not. If you download and install the browser plug-in at https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996, all “advertising cookies” will also be deactivated. Please note that deactivating these cookies will not prevent advertisements from being displayed, only personalized advertisements.

Legal basis

If you have consented that Google Ads conversion tracking may be used, then the legal basis for this data processing is your consent. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), this consent serves as the legal basis to process the kinds of personal data that may be collected through Google Ads conversion tracking.

In addition, we have a legitimate interest in using Google Ads conversion tracking, in order to optimize our online services and our marketing activities. The legal basis for doing so is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest). However, we only use Google Ads conversion tracking if you have granted your consent.

If you want to learn more about data protection by Google, we recommend you read Google’s comprehensive Data protection guidelines at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.

BorlabsCookie Data Privacy Declaration

We use BorlabsCookie on our website, which is a tool to carry out functions like storing your consent to save cookies. The provider is the German company Borlabs – Benjamin A. Bornschein, Rübenkamp 32, 22305 Hamburg, Germany. For more information on the data processed through the use of BorlabsCookie, please see the Privacy Policy at https://de.borlabs.io/datenschutz/.

Cookie Consent Management Platform

Cookie Consent Management Platform Summary
Data subject: Website visitors
Purpose: Obtaining and managing consent for specific cookies, and thereby for the use of specific tools
Processed data: data to manage the selected cookie settings, such as your IP address, the time of consent, the type of consent and individual consents granted. Further details are provided under the specific tools.
Storage term: dependent on the tool used, up to several years should be expected.
Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit.f GDPR (legitimate interest)

What is a cookie consent management platform?

We use consent management platform (CMP) software on our website to help us and you to handle the scripts and cookies used in a correct and secure manner. The software automatically creates a cookie pop-up, scans and controls all scripts and cookies, offers a cookie consent request to you as required under data protection law, and helps us and you maintain an overview of all of the cookies involved. Most cookie consent management tools identify and categorize all available cookies. As the website visitor, you then decide whether you want to permit scripts and cookies or not, as well as which ones you want to permit. The following graphic illustrates the relationship between the browser, web server and CMP.

Why do we use a cookie management tool?

Our goal is to offer you the highest possible transparency in the area of data protection. In addition, we are legally obligated to do so. We want to inform you as thoroughly as possible about all of the tools and all of the cookies that could store and process your data. You also have the right to decide which cookies you want to accept, and which you will not accept. To give you this right, we first need to know exactly which cookies you used to access our website. A cookie management tool that regularly scans the website for all available cookies lets us know how all of the cookies are working, and allows us to provide you information that fulfils the requirements of the GDPR. You can then accept or reject cookies via the consent system.

What data is processed?

You can manage each individual cookie yourself through our cookie management tool, providing you with complete control over how your data is stored and processed. Your declaration of consent is stored so that we do not have to request it each time you visit our website, and so that we have verification of your consent if this is required by law. Your consent is stored either in an opt-in cookie or on a server. The length of time for which your cookie consent is stored varies, depending on the provider of the cookie management tool. Usually, this data (such as a pseudonymized user ID, the time of consent, detailed information on the cookie categories or tools, browsers, device information) is stored for up to two years.

Duration of data processing

Please see the sections below for more information on the lengths of time for which we process your data, if we have more information on these areas. In general, we only process personal data for as long as is absolutely necessary for us to provide our services and products. Data that is saved in cookies is stored for different lengths of time. Some cookies are deleted after you leave our website, while others may remain stored in your browser for several years. The exact length of data processing depends on the tool used, but you should expect this information to be stored for several years. Generally, the specific Data Privacy Declarations of the individual providers provide further information on the duration of data processing.

Right to object

You also have the right to object at any time, and the ability to revoke your consent to use cookies. You can do so either using our cookie management tool, or using other opt-out functions. For example, you can prevent cookies from collecting data by managing, deactivating, or deleting cookies in your browser.

If available, information on specific cookie management tools is provided in the following sections.

Legal basis

If you consent to cookies, then your personal data is processed and saved using these cookies. If we are permitted to use cookies based on your consent (Article 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR), then this consent also serves as the legal basis for the use of cookies or to process your data. We use cookie consent management platform software to manage your consent to use cookies and allow you to provide this consent. Using this software allows us to efficiently operate the website in a manner that conforms to legal requirements, which we have a legitimate interest in doing (Article 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR).

YouTube Data Privacy Declaration

YouTube Data Privacy Declaration Summary
Data subjects: Website visitors
Purpose: Optimising our services
Processed data: data such as contact information, data on user behavior, information on your device and your IP address may be saved.
Further details are provided later on in this Data Privacy Declaration.
Storage duration: Generally, data is stored for as long as necessary for the providing our services
Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest)

What is YouTube?

We have embedded YouTube videos on our website. This allows us to present interesting videos to you directly on our page. YouTube is a video portal, and has been a subsidiary of Google since 2006. The video portal is operated by YouTube, LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA. If you access a page on our website which has an embedded YouTube video, your browser automatically connects to YouTube or Google’s servers. Depending on the settings, a variety of data is transmitted. Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all data processing that takes place within Europe.

The following section explains in more detail which data is processed, why we have integrated YouTube videos, and how you can manage or delete your data.

Users can view, rate, comment on and upload videos free of charge on YouTube. YouTube has become one of the world’s most important social media channels in recent years. YouTube provides a code snippet we have integrated into our website so that we can display videos.

Why do we use YouTube videos on our website?

YouTube is the video platform with the most visitors and the best content. We want to offer you the best possible user experience on our website. Of course, interesting videos are an important part of doing so. In addition to our texts and images, our embedded videos provide you with further helpful content. Embedded videos also make it easier for potential customers to find our website through Google’s search engine. Although we place ads via Google Ads, thanks to the collected data, Google is able to only show these ads to people who are interested in our services.

What data is stored by YouTube?

If you access one of our pages which has an embedded YouTube video, YouTube saves at least one cookie which stores your IP address and our URL. If you are logged into your YouTube account, YouTube can generally associate your interaction on our website with your profile using cookies. This includes data like your session duration, bounce rate, approximate location, technical information such as your browser type, screen resolution or your internet provider. Additional data may include contact information, any ratings, sharing content via social media or adding content to your favourites on YouTube.

If you are not logged into a Google account or YouTube account, Google stores data with a clear identifier that is linked to your device, browser, or app. This allows your preferred language setting, for instance, to be retained. However, much interaction data cannot be saved, since fewer cookies are used.

The following is a list of cookies that were saved on a browser during a test. Some of these are cookies that are set even if the user is not logged into a YouTube account. Some are cookies that are set if the user has an account and is logged in. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, because user data always depends on their interactions on YouTube.

Name: YSC
Value: b9-CV6ojI5Y311294634-1
Purpose: This cookie registers a unique ID to save statistics on the video the user views.
Expiration date: After the end of the session

Name: PREF
Value: f1=50000000
Purpose: This cookie also registers your unique ID. Google receives statistics on how you use YouTube videos on our website via PREF.
Expiration date: after 8 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 attempts to assess the range of users of our website (with the embedded YouTube video).
Expiration date: after 8 months

Additional cookies that will be set if you are logged into your YouTube account:

Name: APISID
Value: zILlvClZSkqGsSwI/AU1aZI6HY7311294634-
Purpose: This cookie is used to create a profile of your interests. The data is used for personalized ads.
Expiration date: After 2 years

Name: CONSENT
Value: YES+AT.de+20150628-20-0
Purpose: The cookie stores the status of a user’s consent to use different services from Google. CONSENT is also used for security purposes, to check users and protect user data from unauthorized attacks.
Expiration date: After 19 years

Name: HSID
Value: AcRwpgUik9Dveht0I
Purpose: This cookie is used to create a profile regarding your interests. This data helps us display personalized advertisements.
Expiration date: After 2 years

Name: LOGIN_INFO
Value: AFmmF2swRQIhALl6aL…
Purpose: Information on your login data is saved in this cookie.
Expiration date: After 2 years

Name: SAPISID
Value: 7oaPxoG-pZsJuuF5/AnUdDUIsJ9iJz2vdM
Purpose: This cookie works by uniquely identifying your browser and your device. It is used to create a profile regarding your interests.
Expiration date: After 2 years

Name: SID
Value: oQfNKjAsI311294634-
Purpose: This cookie stores your Google account ID and last login time in a digitally signed and encrypted format.
Expiration date: After 2 years

Name: SIDCC
Value: AN0-TYuqub2JOcDTyL
Purpose: This cookie stores information on how you use the website and which advertisements you may have viewed before visiting our page.
Expiration date: after 3 months

Where is data stored, and for how long?

Data which YouTube receives and processes from you is stored on Google’s servers. Most of these servers are located in America. Please see https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de for the exact locations of Google’s computing centres. Your data is distributed across the servers. This allows data to be accessed more quickly, and it is better protected against manipulation.

Google stores the collected data for different lengths of time. You can delete some of this data at any time, while other data is automatically deleted after a limited time period; Google stores other data for longer. Some data (such as elements from “My Activity”, photos or documents, products) that are stored in your Google account, remain stored until you delete them. Eve if you are not logged into a Google account, you can delete some data that is linked to your device, browser or app.

How can I delete my data, or prevent data from being stored?

In general, you can delete data in your Google account manually. Following the introduction of the automatic deletion function for location and activity data in 2019, information is stored for either 3 or 18 months, depending on your decision, and then deleted.

Regardless of whether you have a Google account or not, you can configure your browser so that Google cookies will be deleted or deactivated. This is done differently depending on which browser you use. The following instructions explain how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Clear, enable, and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

Legal basis

If you have consented that your data may be processed and saved by embedded YouTube elements, then this consent serves as the legal basis for data processing (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR). In general, your data is also saved and processed based on our legitimate interest (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR) in fast and good communication with you and other customers and business partners. However, we only use the embedded YouTube elements if you have granted your consent. YouTube also saves cookies in your browser to store data. Because of this, we recommend that you read our data protection information on cookies carefully, and review the data protection declarations or cookie guidelines of the different service providers as well.

YouTube processes data in the USA as well in some cases. Please note that, according to the European Court of Justice, currently the level of protection for data transfers to the USA is not sufficient. This may result in different kinds of risks related to the legality and security of data processing.

YouTube uses standard contractual clauses approved by the EU Commission as the basis for data processing for recipients located in third countries (outside of the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, in particular in the USA) or for transmitting data to these third countries (= Art. 46 para. 2 and 3 GDPR). These clauses obligate YouTube to comply with the level of data protection prevalent within the EU when they process relevant data, even if they process it outside of the EU. These clauses are based on an implementation decision by the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the clauses here, for instance: https://ec.europa.eu/germany/news/20210604-datentransfers-eu_de.

Since YouTube is a subsidiary of Google, they have a joint Data Privacy Declaration. If you want to learn more about how your data is used, we recommend reading the Data Privacy Declaration at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.

Google Maps Data Privacy Declaration

Google Maps Data Privacy Declaration
Summary
Data subjects: Website visitors
Purpose: Optimising our services
Processed data: Data such as any search terms entered, your IP address, and latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates.
Further details are provided later on in this Data Privacy Declaration.
Storage duration: Dependent on the type of data saved
Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest)

What is Google Maps?

We use Google Maps from company Google Inc. on our website. The company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services within Europe. We can use Google Maps to better display locations to you and better adapt our services to your needs. Data is transmitted to Google in conjunction with the use of Google maps, and stored on Google servers. In this section, we will explain what Google Maps is in more detail why we use this Google service, what data is stored, and how you can prevent the data from being saved.

Google maps is an online map service from Google. You can use Google Maps to search for the exact locations of cities, tourist attractions, lodging or companies online using a PC, a tablet or an app. If companies are represented on Google My Business, then further company information is displayed in addition to their location. Map views for a location may be integrated into a website using HTML code in order to display directions to the site. Google Maps displays the surface of the earth as a street map, or as aerial or satellite maps. Street View images and high-quality satellite images make it possible to achieve highly detailed displays.

Why do we use Google Maps on our website?

everything we do on this page is done with the goal of ensuring your time spent on our website is useful and helps you achieve your goals. Integrating Google Maps allows us to deliver important information to you on various locations. You can easily view where our company headquarters are located. The directions always show you the best and fastest way to reach us. You can access directions for routes by car, using public transportation, by foot or by bicycle. Providing Google Maps is part of our customer service.

What data is stored by Google Maps?

For Google Maps to offer all of its services, the company must collect and store your data. This includes the search terms you enter, your IP address, and your latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates. If you use the route planner function, then the start address you enter is also saved. This data is stored on the Google Maps website, however. We can inform you about this data storage, but we have no influence over it. Since we have integrated Google Maps into our website, Google sets at least one cookie (name: NID) in your browser. This cookie stores data on your user behavior. Google primarily uses this data to optimize its own services and to provide customized, personalized advertisements for you.

The following cookie is set in your browser due to the integration of Google Maps on our website:

Name: NID
Value: 188=h26c1Ktha7fCQTx8rXgLyATyITJ311294634-5
Purpose: NID is used by Google to adjust the ads displayed to your Google search. Google uses these cookies to “remember” your most frequently entered search inquiries, or your previous interactions with ads. This allows you to always receive customized advertising. The cookie contains a unique ID, which Google uses to collect your personal settings for advertising purposes.
Expiration date: after 6 months

Note: We cannot ensure that the data stored is complete. It is always possible that changes may be made, particularly related to the use of cookies. To identify the NID cookie, we created our own test page, on which only Google Maps was integrated.

Where is data stored, and for how long?

Google’s servers are distributed throughout computing centres all over the world. Most of the servers are located in America, however. Because of this, the majority of the time your data will be saved in the USA. You can read more about exactly where Google’s computing centres are located here: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de

Google distributes the data on various data storage media. This allows data to be accessed more quickly, and ensures it is better protected against manipulation. Each computing centre has specialized emergency programs as well. For example, if there are problems with Google’s hardware or if a natural catastrophe disables servers, the data will still be protected with a fairly good level of security.

Google stores some data for a specific length of time. In other cases, Google only offers the option of deleting data manually. Furthermore, the company anonymizes information (such as advertising data) in server protocols by deleting some of the IP addresses and cookie information after 9 to 18 months.

How can I delete my data, or prevent data from being stored?

Following the introduction of the automatic deletion function for location and activity data in 2019, location determination and web/app activity information is stored for either 3 or 18 months, depending on your decision, and then deleted. In addition, you can delete this data manually from the process at any time via your Google account. If you want to always prevent Google from identifying your location, you must pause the “Web and App Activity” tab in your Google account. Click “Personal info & privacy” and then the “Activity controls” option. You can turn activities on and off here.

You can also deactivate, delete or manage individual cookies in your browser. This requires a different process, depending on which browser you use. The following instructions explain how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Clear, enable, and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

Legal basis

If you have consented for Google Maps to be implemented, then the legal basis for this data processing is your consent. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), this consent serves as the legal basis to process the kinds of personal data that may be collected by Google Maps.

In addition, we have a legitimate interest in using Google Maps, in order to optimize our online services. The legal basis for doing so is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest). However, we only use Google Maps if you have granted your consent.

If you want to learn more about data protection by Google, we recommend you read the company’s own Data Privacy Declaration at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.

Font Awesome Data Privacy Declaration

Font Awesome Data Privacy Declaration
Summary
Data subjects: Visitors to the website
Purpose: Optimising our services
Processed data: Includes IP addresses and which icon files are loaded
Further information is provided below in this Data Privacy Declaration.
Storage duration: Files in an identifiable form are saved for a few weeks
Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest)

What is Font Awesome?

On our website, we use Font Awesome from the American company Fonticons (307 S. Main St., Suite 202, Bentonville, AR 72712, USA). When you access one of our websites, the web font Font Awesome (in specialized icons) is loaded from the Font Awesome Content Delivery Network (CDN). This allows texts, fonts and icons to be displayed appropriately on every device. This Data Privacy Declaration provides further information on how this service saves and processes data.

Icons are playing an ever more important role for websites. Font Awesome is a web font specially developed for web designers and web developers. Font Awesome can be used, for instance, to scale and colour icons as desired using the style sheet language CSS. It replaces old image icons. Font Awesome CDN is the easiest way to load icons or fonts to your website. To use it, all we have to do is integrate a small line of code in our website.

Why do we use Font Awesome on our website?

Font Awesome makes it easier to process content on our website. This helps you to more easily understand the content and navigation on our website. In some cases, the icons can be used to replace entire words and save space. This is particularly practical when optimising content specifically for smartphones. These icons are inserted as HTML code instead of as an image. This allows us to edit the icons with CSS precisely to meet our needs. At the same time, we use Font Awesome to improve our loading speed – since it involves only HTML elements, not icon images. All of these advantages help us make our website easier for you to understand, more up to date and faster to use.

What data is stored by Font Awesome?

The Font Awesome Content Delivery Network (CDN) is used to load icons and symbols. CDNs are networks of servers distributed around the world that make it possible to quickly load files from a nearby location. When you access one of our pages, the relevant icons are provided by Font Awesome using this process.

For the web fonts to be loaded, your browser must connect to servers owned by the company Fonticons, Inc. Your IP address will be identified in the process. Font Awesome also collects data on which icon files are downloaded, and when. In addition, technical data such as your browser version, screen resolution and the time of page access is transmitted.

This data is collected and saved for the following reasons:

to optimize content delivery networks
to detect and correct technical errors
to protect CDNs against misuse and attacks
to calculate per-customer fees from Font Awesome
to determine how popular icons are
to know which computer and which software you are using

If your browser does not permit web fonts, then a standard font from your PC is automatically used. Based on our current knowledge, no cookies are set. We are in contact with Font Awesome’s data protection department, and will inform you once we have further information.

Where is data stored, and for how long?

Font Awesome stores data on the use of the content delivery network on servers in the United States of America. However, the CDN servers are also distributed worldwide, and save user data where they are located. Generally, data is only stored in an identifiable form for a few weeks. Aggregated statistics on use of the CDNs can also be stored for longer periods of time. This does not include any personal data.

How can I delete my data, or prevent data from being stored?

To our current knowledge, Font Awesome does not store any personal data via the content delivery networks. If you do not want data on the icons used to be stored, unfortunately you cannot visit our website. If your browser does not permit web fonts, no data will be transmitted or saved. In this case, the standard font for your computer will be used.

Legal basis

If you have consented for Font Awesome to be implemented, then the legal basis for this data processing is your consent. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), this consent serves as the legal basis to process the kinds of personal data that may be collected by Font Awesome.

In addition, we have a legitimate interest in using Font Awesome, in order to optimize our online services. The legal basis for doing so is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interest). However, we only use Font Awesome if you have granted your consent.

Please note that, according to the European Court of Justice, currently the level of protection for data transfers to the USA is not sufficient. Most data processing is handled via Font Awesome. This may result in data being processed and stored in a non-anonymized form, in some cases. Furthermore, USA state agencies could access individual pieces of data. In addition, it is possible that this data may be linked with data from other Font Awesome services, if you have a user account with them.

If you want to learn more about Font Awesome and how it handles data, we recommend that you review the Data Privacy Declaration at https://fontawesome.com/privacy and the help page at https://fontawesome.com/help.

All texts are copyright protected.

Source: created with the Data Protection Generator by AdSimple