Privacy Policy

We have written this privacy policy (version 16.03.2021-111677938) to provide you with information in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 as well as to explain what information we collect, how we use data, and what choices you have as a visitor to this website. Privacy policies usually sound very technical. However, this version should describe the most important things as simply and clearly as possible. Moreover, technical terms are explained in a reader-friendly manner whenever possible. We would also like to convey that we only collect and use information via this website if there is a corresponding legal basis for it. This is certainly not possible if you give very brief technical explanations, as are often standard on the Internet when it comes to data protection. We hope you find the following explanations interesting and informative. Maybe you will also find some information that you did not know yet. Should you still have questions, we kindly ask you to follow the existing links to see further information on third-party websites, or to simply write us an email. You can find our contact information in our website’s legal notice.

Automatic Data Retention

Every time you visit a website nowadays, certain information is automatically created and stored, just as it happens on this website. This data should be collected as sparingly as possible, and only with good reason. By website, we mean the entirety of all websites on your domain, i.e. everything from the homepage to the very last subpage (like this one here). By domain, we mean example.uk or examplepage.com. Even while you are currently visiting our website, our web server – this is the computer this website is stored on, usually automatically retains data such as the below – for reasons such as operational security or for creating access statistics, etc.
  • the full address (URL) of the accessed website (e.g., https://www.examplepage.uk/examplesubpage.html/)
  • browser and browser version (e.g., Chrome 87)
  • the operating system used (e.g., Windows 10)
  • the address (URL) of the previously visited site (referrer URL) (e.g. https://www.examplepage.uk/icamefromhere.html/)
  • the host name and the IP address of the device the website is accessed from (e.g., COMPUTERNAME and 194.23.43.121)
  • date and time
  • in so-called web server log files.
Generally, these files are stored for two weeks and are then automatically deleted. We do not pass these data to others, but we cannot exclude the possibility that this data may be looked at by the authorities in case of illegal conduct. In short: your visit is logged by our provider (the company that runs our website on servers), but we do not pass on your data!

Cookies

Our website uses HTTP cookies to store user-specific data. For your better understanding of the following Privacy Policy statement, we will explain to you below what cookies are and why they are in use.

What exactly are cookies?

Every time you surf the internet, you use a browser. Common browsers are for example Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. Most websites store small text files in your browser. These files are called cookies. What should not be dismissed, is that cookies are very useful little helpers. Nearly all websites use cookies. More accurately speaking these are HTTP cookies since there are also different cookies for other uses. http cookies are small files that our website stores on your computer. These cookie files are automatically put into the cookie folder, which is like the “brain” of your browser. A cookie consists of a name and a value. Moreover, to define a cookie, one or multiple attributes must be specified. Cookies save certain parts of your user data, such as e.g. language or personal page settings. When you re-open our website, your browser submits this “user-specific” information back to our site. Thanks to cookies, our website knows who you are and offers you the settings you are familiar with. In some browsers every cookie has its own file, in others such as Firefox, all cookies are stored in one single file. There are both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created directly by our site, while third-party cookies are created by partner websites (e.g., Google Analytics). Every cookie is individual, since every cookie stores different data. The expiration time of a cookie also varies – it can be a few minutes, or up to a few years. Cookies are no software programs and contain no computer viruses, trojans, or any other malware. Cookies also cannot access your PC’s information. This is an example of what cookie files can look like: name: _ga value: GA1.2.1326744211.152111677938-9 purpose: differentiation between website visitors expiration date: after 2 years A browser should support these minimum sizes:
  • at least 4096 bytes per cookie
  • at least 50 cookies per domain
  • at least 3000 cookies in total

Which types of cookies are there?

What exact cookies we use, depends on the used services. We will explain this in the following sections of the Privacy Policy statement. Firstly, we will briefly focus on the different types of HTTP cookies. There are 4 different types of cookies:

Essential Cookies

These cookies are necessary to ensure the basic function of a website. They are needed when a user for example puts a product into their shopping cart, then continues surfing on different websites and comes back later in order to proceed to the checkout. Even when the user closed their window priorly, these cookies ensure that the shopping cart does not get deleted.

Purposive Cookies

These cookies collect info about user behavior and record if the user potentially receives any error messages. Furthermore, these cookies record the website’s loading time as well as its behavior within different browsers.

Target-Orientated Cookies

These cookies care for improved user-friendliness. Thus, information such as previously entered locations, fonts, or data in forms stays saved.

Advertising Cookies

These cookies are also known as targeting-Cookies. They serve the purpose of delivering individually adapted advertisements to the user. This can be very practical, but also rather annoying. Upon your first visit to a website, you are usually asked which of these cookie types you want to accept. Furthermore, this decision will of course also be saved in a cookie.

How can I delete cookies?

You yourself take the decision if and how you want to use cookies. Thus, no matter what service or website cookies are from, you always have the option to delete, deactivate or only partially allow them. Therefore, you can for example block cookies of third parties but allow any other cookies. If you want to change or delete cookie settings and would like to determine which cookies have been saved to your browser, you can find this info in your browser settings: Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge If you generally do not want to allow any cookies at all, you can set up your browser in a way, to notify you whenever a potential cookie is about to be set. This gives you the opportunity to manually decide to either permit or deny the placement of every single cookie. The settings for this differ from browser to browser. Therefore, it might be best for you to search for the instructions on Google. If you are using Chrome, you could for example put the search phrase “delete cookies Chrome” or “deactivate cookies Chrome” into Google.

How is my data protected?

There is a “cookie policy” that has been in place since 2009. It states that the storage of cookies requires the user’s consent. However, among the countries of the EU, these guidelines are often met with mixed reactions. In Austria, the guidelines have been implemented in § 96 section 3 of the Telecommunications Act (TKG). If you want to learn more about cookies and do not mind technical documentation, we recommend https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6265, the Request for Comments of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) called “HTTP State Management Mechanism”.

Storage of Personal Data

Any personal data you electronically submit to us on this website, such as your name, email address, home address, or other personal information you provide via the transmission of a form or via any comments to the blog, are solely used for the specified purpose and get stored securely along with the respective submission times and IP-address. These data do not get passed on to third parties. Therefore, we use personal data for the communication with only those users, who have explicitly requested being contacted, as well as for the execution of the services and products offered on this website. We do not pass your personal data to others without your approval, but we cannot exclude the possibility this data will be looked at in case of illegal conduct. If you send us personal data via email – and thus not via this website – we cannot guarantee any safe transmission or protection of your data. We recommend you, to never send confidential data via email.

Rights in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation

You are granted the following rights in accordance with the provisions of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and the Austrian Data Protection Act (DSG):
  • right to rectification (article 16 GDPR)
  • right to erasure (“right to be forgotten“) (Article 17 GDPR)
  • right to restrict processing (Article 18 GDPR)
  • right to notification – notification obligation regarding rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing (Article 19 GDPR)
  • right to data portability (article 20 GDPR)
  • Right to object (article 21 GDPR)
  • right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing – including profiling – (article 22 GDPR)
If you think that the processing of your data violates the data protection law, or that your data protection rights have been infringed in any other way, you can lodge a complaint with your respective regulatory authority. For Austria, this is the data protection authority, whose website you can access at https://www.data-protection-authority.gv.at/.

Evaluation of Visitor Behavior

In the following Privacy Policy, we will inform you on if and how we evaluate the data of your visit to this website. The evaluation is generally made anonymously, and we cannot link to you personally based on your behavior on this website. You can find out more about how to disagree with the evaluation of visitor data, in the Privacy Policy below.

TLS encryption with https

The terms TLS, encryption, and https sound very technical, which they are indeed. We use HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) to securely transfer data on the Internet. This means that the entire transmission of all data from your browser to our web server is secured – nobody can “listen in”. We have thus introduced an additional layer of security and meet privacy requirements through technology design Article 25 Section 1 GDPR). With the use of TLS (Transport Layer Security), which is an encryption protocol for safe data transfer on the internet, we can ensure the protection of confidential information. You can recognize the use of this safeguarding tool by the little lock-symbol , which is situated in your browser’s top-left corner in the left of the internet address (e.g. example page.uk), as well as by the display of the letters https (instead of http) as a part of our web address. If you want to know more about encryption, we recommend you do a Google search for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure wiki” to find good links to further information.

Google Fonts Privacy Policy

On our website, we use Google Fonts, from the company Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA). To use Google Fonts, you must log in and set up a password. Furthermore, no cookies will be saved in your browser. The data (CSS, Fonts) will be requested via the Google domains fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com. According to Google, all requests for CSS and fonts are fully separated from any other Google services. If you have a Google account, you do not need to worry that your Google account details are transmitted to Google while you use Google Fonts. Google records the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) as well as the utilized fonts and stores these data securely. We will have a detailed look at how exactly the data storage works.

What are Google Fonts?

Google Fonts (previously Google Web Fonts) is a list of over 800 fonts which Google LLC provides to its users for free. Many of these fonts have been published under the SIL Open Font License license, while others have been published under the Apache license. Both are free software licenses.

Why do we use Google Fonts on our website?

With Google Fonts we can use different fonts on our website and do not have to upload them to our own server. Google Fonts is an important element that helps to keep the quality of our website high. All Google fonts are automatically optimized for the web, which saves data volume and is an advantage especially for the use of mobile terminal devices. When you use our website, the low data size provides fast loading times. Moreover, Google Fonts are secure Web Fonts. Various image synthesis systems (rendering) can lead to errors in different browsers, operating systems, and mobile terminal devices. These errors could optically distort parts of texts or entire websites. Due to the fast Content Delivery Network (CDN), there are no cross-platform issues with Google Fonts. All common browsers (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera) are supported by Google Fonts, and it reliably operates on most modern mobile operating systems, including Android 2.2+ and iOS 4.2+ (iPhone, iPad, iPod). We also use Google Fonts for presenting our entire online service as pleasantly and as uniformly as possible.

Which data is saved by Google?

Whenever you visit our website, the fonts are reloaded by a Google server. Through this external cue, data gets transferred to Google’s servers. Therefore, this makes Google recognize that you (or your IP address) are visiting our website. The Google Fonts API was developed to reduce the usage, storage, and gathering of end-user data to the minimum needed for the proper depiction of fonts. What is more, API stands for Application Programming Interface and works as a software data intermediary. Google Fonts stores CSS and font requests safely with Google, and therefore it is protected. Using its collected usage figures, Google can determine how popular the individual fonts are. Google publishes the results on internal analysis pages, such as Google Analytics. Moreover, Google also utilizes data of its own web crawler, in order to determine which websites are using Google fonts. This data is published in Google Fonts’ BigQuery database. Entrepreneurs and developers use Google’s web services BigQuery to be able to inspect and move big volumes of data. One more thing that should be considered, is that every request for Google Fonts automatically transmits information such as language preferences, IP address, browser version, as well as the browser’s screen resolution and name to Google’s servers. It cannot be clearly identified if this data is saved, as Google has not directly declared it.

How long and where is the data stored?

Google saves requests for CSS assets for one day in a tag on their servers, which are primarily located outside of the EU. This makes it possible for us to use the fonts by means of a Google stylesheet. With the help of a stylesheet, e.g. designs or fonts of a website can get changed swiftly and easily. Any font-related data is stored with Google for one year. This is because Google’s aim is to fundamentally boost websites’ loading times. With millions of websites referring to the same fonts, they are buffered after the first visit and instantly reappear on any other websites that are visited thereafter. Sometimes Google updates font files to either reduce the data sizes, increase the language coverage, or improve the design.

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

The data Google stores for either a day or a year cannot be deleted easily. Upon opening the page this data is automatically transmitted to Google. In order to clear the data ahead of time, you have to contact Google’s support. The only way for you to prevent the retention of your data is by not visiting our website. Unlike other web fonts, Google offers us unrestricted access to all its fonts. Thus, we have a vast sea of font types at our disposal, which helps us to get the most out of our website. You can find more answers and information on Google Fonts here. While Google does address relevant elements on data protection at this link, it does not contain any detailed information on data retention. It proofs rather difficult to receive any precise information on stored data by Google. You can read more about what data is generally collected by Google and what this data is used for on the Google website.

Google Analytics Privacy Policy

We use the tracking and analysis tool Google Analytics (GA) of the US-American company Google LLC (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA). Google Analytics collects data on your actions on our website. Whenever you click a link, for example, this action is saved in a cookie and transferred to Google Analytics. With the help of reports which we receive from Google Analytics, we can adapt our website and our services better to your wishes. In the following, we will explain the tracking tool in more detail, and most of all, we will inform you what data is saved and how you can prevent this.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a tracking tool with the purpose of conducting data traffic analysis of our website. For Google Analytics to work, there is a tracking code integrated into our website. Upon your visit to our website, this code records various actions you perform on your website. As soon as you leave our website, this data is sent to the Google Analytics server, where it is stored. Google processes this data and we then receive reports on your user behavior. These reports can be one of the following:
  • Target audience reports: With the help of target audience reports we can get to know our users better and can therefore better understand who is interested in our service.
  • Advertising reports: Through advertising reports, we can analyze our online advertising better and hence improve it.
  • Acquisition reports: Acquisition reports provide us helpful information on how we can get more people enthusiastic about our service.
  • Behavior reports: With these reports, we can find out how you interact with our website. By the means of behavior reports, we can understand what path you go on our website and what links you click.
  • Conversion reports: A conversion is a process of leading you to carry out the desired action due to a marketing message. An example of this would be transforming you from a mere website visitor into a buyer or a newsletter subscriber. Hence, with the help of these reports, we can see in more detail, if our marketing measures are successful with you. Our aim is to increase our conversion rate.
  • Real-time reports: With the help of these reports, we can see in real time, what happens on our website. It makes us for example see, we can see how many users are reading this text right now.

Why do we use Google Analytics on our website?

The objective of our website is clear: We want to offer you the best possible service. Google Analytics’ statistics and data help us with reaching this goal. Statistically evaluated data give us a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of our website. On the one hand, we can optimize our page in a way, that makes it easier to be found by interested people on Google. On the other hand, the data helps us to get a better understanding of you as our visitor. Therefore, we can very accurately find out what we must improve on our website, in order to offer you the best possible service. The analysis of that data also enables us to carry out our advertising and marketing measures in a more individual and more cost-effective way. After all, it only makes sense to show our products and services exclusively to people who are interested in them.

What data gets stored by Google Analytics?

With the aid of a tracking code, Google Analytics creates a random, unique ID that is connected to your browser cookie. That way, Google Analytics recognizes you as a new user. The next time you visit our site, you will be recognized as a “recurring” user. All data that is collected gets saved together with this very user ID. Only this is how it is made possible for us to evaluate and analyze pseudonymous user profiles. Your interactions on our website are measures by tags such as cookies and app instance IDs. Interactions are all kinds of actions that you perform on our website. If you are also using other Google systems (such as a Google Account), data generated by Google Analytics can be linked with third-party cookies. Google does not pass on any Google Analytics data unless we as the website owners authorize it. In case it is required by law, exceptions can occur. The following cookies are used by Google Analytics: Name: _ga Value:2.1326744211.152111677938-5 Purpose: By default, analytics.js uses the cookie _ga, to save the user ID. It generally serves the purpose of differentiating between website visitors. Expiration date: After 2 years Name: _gid Value:2.1687193234.152111677938-1 Purpose: This cookie also serves the purpose of differentiating between website users Expiration date: After 24 hours Name: _gat_gtag_UA_ Value: 1 Purpose: It is used for decreasing the demand rate. If Google Analytics is provided via Google Tag Manager, this cookie gets the name _dc_gtm_. Expiration date: After 1 minute Name: AMP_TOKEN Value: No information Purpose: This cookie has a token that is used to retrieve the user ID by the AMP Client ID Service. Other possible values suggest a logoff, a request, or an error. Expiration date: After 30 seconds up to one year Name: __utma Value:1564498958.1564498958.1564498958.1 Purpose: With this cookie, your behavior on the website can be tracked and the site performance can be measured. The cookie is updated every time the information is sent to Google Analytics. Expiration date: After 2 years Name: __utmt Value: 1 Purpose: Just like _gat_gtag_UA_ this cookie is used for keeping the requirement rate in check. Expiration date: Afer 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 gets sent to Google Analytics. Expiration date: After 30 minutes Name: __utmc Value: 167421564 Purpose: This cookie is used to determine new sessions for recurring visitors. It is therefore a session cookie, and only stays saved until you close the browser again. Expiration date: After closing the browser Name: __utmz Value: m|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/ Purpose: This cookie is used to identify the source of our website’s visitor number. This means, that the cookie saves information on where you came to our website from. This could be another site or an advertisement. Expiration date: After 6 months Name: __utmv Value: No information Purpose: The cookie is used to store custom user data. It gets updated whenever information is sent to Google Analytics. Expiration date: After 2 years Note: This list is by no means exhaustive since Google is repeatedly changing the use of its cookies. Below we will give you an overview of the most important data that can be evaluated by Google Analytics: Heatmaps: Google creates so-called Heatmaps. These Heatmaps make it possible to see the exact areas you click on, so we can get information on what routes you make on our website. Session duration: Google calls the time you spend on our website without leaving it session duration. Whenever you are inactive for 20 minutes, the session ends automatically. Bounce rate If you only look at one page of our website and then leave our website again, it is called a bounce. Account creation: If you create an account or make an order on our website, Google Analytics collects this data. IP-Address: The IP address is only shown in a shortened form, to make it impossible to clearly allocate it. Location: Your approximate location and the country you are in can be defined by the IP address. This process is called IP location determination. Technical information: Information about your browser type, your internet provider, and your screen resolution is called technical information. Source: Both, Google Analytics as well as ourselves, are interested in what website or what advertisement led you to our site. Further, possibly stored data includes contact data, potential reviews, playing media (e.g., when you play a video on our site), sharing of content via social media, or adding our site to your favorites. This list is not exhaustive and only serves as general guidance on Google Analytics’ data retention.

How long and where is the data saved?

Google has servers across the globe. Most of them are in America and therefore your data is mainly saved on American servers. Here you can read detailed information on where Google’s data centers are located. Your data is allocated to various physical data mediums. This has the advantage of allowing to retrieve the data faster, and of protecting it better from manipulation. Every Google data center has respective emergency programs for your data. Hence, in case of a hardware failure at Google or a server error due to natural disasters, the risk for a service interruption stays relatively low. Google Analytics has a 26-month standardized period of retaining your user data. After this time, your user data is deleted. However, we have the possibility to choose the retention period of user data ourselves. There are the following five options:
  • Deletion after 14 months
  • Deletion after 26 months
  • Deletion after 38 months
  • Deletion after 50 months
  • No automatic deletion
As soon as the chosen period is expired, the data is deleted once a month. This retention period applies to any of your data that is linked to cookies, user identification, and advertisement IDs (e.g. cookies of the DoubleClick domain). Any report results are based on aggregated information and are stored independently of any user data. Aggregated information is a merge of individual data into a single and bigger unit.

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

Under the provisions of the European Union’s data protection law, you have the right to obtain information on your data and to update, delete or restrict it. With the help of a browser add-on that can deactivate Google Analytics’ JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, dc.js), you can prevent Google Analytics from using your data. You can download this add-on here. Please consider that this add-on can only deactivate any data collection by Google Analytics. Should you generally want to deactivate, delete, or manage all cookies (independently of Google Analytics), you can use one of the guides that are available for any browser: Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge Google Analytics is an active participant of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and safe transfer of personal data. You can find more information on this here. We hope we were able to make you more familiar with the most important information on Google Analytics’ data processing. If you want to learn more about the tracking service, we recommend both of the following links: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/gb/ and https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=en.

Google Analytics IP Anonymisation

We implemented Google Analytics’ IP address anonymization to this website. Google developed this function, so this website can comply with the applicable privacy laws and the local data protection authorities’ recommendations, should they prohibit the retention of any full IP addresses. The anonymization or masking of IP addresses takes place, as soon as they reach Google Analytics’ data collection network, but before the data would be saved or processed. You can find more information on IP anonymization here.

Google Analytics Reports on demographic characteristics and interests

We have turned on Google Analytics’ functions for advertising reports. These reports on demographic characteristics and interests contain details about age, gender, and interests. Through them, we can get a better picture of our users – without being able to allocate any data to individual persons. You can learn more about advertising functions here. You can terminate the use of your Google Account’s activities and information using a checkbox in the Ads Settings.

Google Analytics Google Signals Privacy Policy

We have activated Google signals in Google Analytics. Through this, any existing Google Analytics functions (advertising reports, remarketing, cross-device reports, and reports on interests and demographic characteristics) are updated, to result in the summary and anonymization of your data, should you have permitted personalized ads in your Google Account. The special aspect of this is that it involves cross-device tracking. That means your data can be analyzed across multiple devices. Through the activation of Google signals, data is collected and linked to the Google account. For example, it enables Google to recognize when you look at a product on a smartphone and later buy the product on a laptop. Due to activating Google signals, we can start cross-device remarketing campaigns, which would otherwise not be possible to this extent. Remarketing means, that we can show you our products and services across other websites as well. Moreover, further visitor data such as location, search history, YouTube history, and data about your actions on our website are collected in Google Analytics. As a result, we receive improved advertising reports and more useful information on your interests and demographic characteristics. These include your age, the language you speak, where you live, or what your gender is. Certain social criteria such as your job, your marital status, or your income are also included. All these characteristics help Google Analytics to define groups of persons or target audiences. Those reports also help us to better assess your behavior, as well as your wishes and interests. As a result, we can optimize and customize our products and services for you. By default, this data expires after 26 months. Please consider, that this data is only collected if you have agreed to personalized advertisements in your Google Account. The retained information is always exclusively summarized and anonymous data, and never any data on individual persons. You can manage or delete this data in your Google Account.

Facebook Pixel Privacy Policy

We use Facebook’s Facebook pixel on our website. For that, we have implemented a code on our website. The Facebook pixel is a segment of a JavaScript code, which, in case you arrived on our website via Facebook ads, loads an array or functions that enable Facebook to track your user actions. For example, if you buy a product on our website, the Facebook pixel is triggered and then saves your actions on our website in one or more cookies. These cookies enable Facebook to match your user data (customer data such as IP address, user ID) with the data of your Facebook account. After that, Facebook deletes your data again. The collected data is anonymous as well as inaccessible and can only be used for ad placement purposes. If you are a Facebook user and you are logged in, your visit to our website is automatically assigned to your Facebook user account. We exclusively want to show our products or services to persons, who are interested in them. With the aid of the Facebook pixel, our advertising measures can get better adjusted to your wishes and interests. Therefore, Facebook users get to see suitable advertisements (if they allowed personalized advertisements). Moreover, Facebook uses the collected data for analytical purposes and for its own advertisements. In the following, we will show you the cookies, which were set on a test page through the integration of the Facebook pixel. Please consider that these cookies are only examples. Depending on the interaction that is made on our website, different cookies are set. Name: _fbp Value: fb.1.1568287647279.257405483-6111677938-7 Purpose: This cookie is used by Facebook to show adverts. Expiration date: after 3 months Name: fr Value: 0aPf312HOS5Pboo2r..Bdeiuf…1.0.Bdeiuf. Purpose: This cookie is used to ensure that Facebook Pixel functions properly. Expiration date: after 3 months Name: comment_author_50ae8267e2bdf1253ec1a5769f48e062111677938-3 Value: Name of the author Purpose: This cookie saves the text and 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 that the user types into a text box on our website. Expiration date: after 12 months Name: comment_author_email_50ae8267e2bdf1253ec1a5769f48e062 Value: email address of the author Purpose: This cookie saves the email address of the user if they provided it on the website. Expiration date: after 12 months Note: The above-mentioned cookies relate to individual user behavior. Moreover, especially concerning the usage of cookies, changes at Facebook can never be ruled out. If you are registered at Facebook, you can change the settings for advertisements in your preferences. If you are not a Facebook user, you can manage your user-based online advertising here. You have the option to activate or deactivate any providers there. If you want to learn more about Facebook’s data protection, we recommend you view the company’s in-house data policies.

Google Tag Manager Privacy Policy

We use Google Tag Manager by the company Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA) for our website. This Tag Manager is one of Google’s many helpful marketing products. With it, we can centrally integrate and manage code sections of various tracking tools, that we use on our website. In this privacy statement, we will explain in more detail, what Google Tag Manager does, why we use it, and to what extent your data is processed.

What is Google Tag Manager?

Google Tag Manager is an organizing tool with which we can integrate and manage website tags centrally and via a user interface. Tags are little code sections that track your activities on our website, for example. For this, segments of JavaScript code are integrated into our site’s source text. The tags often come from Google’s intern products, such as Google Ads or Google Analytics, but tags from other companies can also be integrated and managed via the manager. Since the tags have different tasks, they can collect browser data, feed marketing tools with data, embed buttons, set cookies, and track users across several websites.

Why do we use Google Tag Manager for our website?

Everybody knows: Being organized is important! Of course, this also applies to the maintenance of our website. In order to organize and design our website as well as possible for you and anyone who is interested in our products and services, we rely on various tracking tools, such as Google Analytics. The collected data shows us what interests you most, which of our services we should improve, and which other persons we should also display our services to. Furthermore, for this tracking to work, we must implement relevant JavaScript Codes to our website. While we could theoretically integrate every code section of every tracking tool separately into our source text, this would take too much time and we would lose the overview. This is the reason why we use Google Tag Manager. We can easily integrate the necessary scripts and manage them from one place. Additionally, Google Tag Manager’s user interface is easy to operate and requires no programming skills. Therefore, we can easily keep order in our jungle of tags.

What data is saved by Google Tag Manager?

Tag Manager itself is a domain that neither uses cookies nor stores data. It merely functions as an administrator of implemented tags. Data is collected by the individual tags of the different web analysis tools. Therefore, in Google Tag Manager the data is sent to the individual tracking tools and does not get saved. However, with the integrated tags of different web analytics tools such as Google Analytics, this is quite different. Depending on the analysis tool used, various data on your internet behavior is collected, stored, and processed with the help of cookies. Please read our texts on data protection for more information on the articular analysis and tracking tools we use on our website. We allowed Google via the account settings for the Tag Manager to receive anonymized data from us. However, this exclusively refers to the use of our Tag Manager and not to your data, which are saved via code sections. We allow Google and others, to receive selected data in an anonymous form. Therefore, we agree to the anonymized transfer of our website data. However, even after extensive research, we could not find out what summarized and anonymous data it is exactly that gets transmitted. What we do know is that Google deleted any info that could identify our website. Google combines the data with hundreds of other anonymous website data and creates user trends as part of benchmarking measures. Benchmarking is the process of comparing a company’s results with the ones of competitors. As a result, processes can be optimized based on the collected information.

How long and where is the data saved?

When Google stores data, this is done on Google’s own servers. These servers are located all over the world, with most of them being in America. You can read in detail where Google’s servers are here. In our individual data protection texts on the different tools, you can find out how long the respective tracking tools save your data.

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

Google Tag Manager itself does not set any cookies but manages different tracking websites’ tags. In our data protection texts on the different tracking tools, you can find detailed information on how you can delete or manage your data. Google actively participates in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the safe transfer of personal data. You can find more information here. If you want to learn more about Google Tag Manager, go here.

Hotjar Privacy Policy

We use Hotjar of the company Hotjar Limited (Level 2, St Julian’s Business Centre, 3, Elia Zammit Street, St Julian’s STJ 1000, Malta) on our website, to statistically evaluate visitor data. Hotjar is a service that analyses the behavior and feedback of you as a user of our website by combining analysis and feedback tools. We receive reports as well as visual displays from Hotjar, which show us how you move on our site. Personal data is anonymized automatically and never reaches Hotjar’s servers. This means you as the website user are not personally identified, while we can still learn much about your user behavior.

What is Hotjar?

As mentioned in the above paragraph, Hotjar helps us analyze the behavior of our site visitors. Some of the tools Hotjar offers are e.g. heatmaps, conversion funnels, visitor recording, incoming feedback, feedback polls, and surveys. Therewith, Hotjar helps us to provide you a better user experience as well as an improved service. On the one hand, it offers a good analysis of online behavior and on the other hand, it gives us good feedback on our website’s quality. Besides the analytical aspects we of course also want to know your opinion about our website. This is possible thanks to the feedback tool.

Why do we use Hotjar on our website?

Within the last years, the importance of websites’ user experience has gained importance. And justifiably so – a website should be structured in a way that makes the user feel comfortable and is easy to navigate. Thanks to Hotjar’s analysis and the feedback tools, we can make our website and our offer more attractive. To us, Hotjar’s Heatmaps has proven particularly valuable, as it helps with presenting and visualizing data. In that sense, Hotjar’s Heatmaps help us see what you like to click on and where you scroll to, for example.

What data is saved by Hotjar?

Hotjar automatically collects information on your user behavior while you surf our website. In order to be able to collect this information, we implemented a tracking code. We integrated a tracking code, to be able to collect this information. The following data can be gathered via your computer or your browser:
  • Your computer’s IP address (is collected and saved in an anonymous format)
  • Screen size
  • Browser information (which browser and version etc.)
  • Your location (but only the country)
  • Your language preference
  • Visited websites (subpages)
  • Date and time of access to one of our subpages (websites)
Moreover, cookies also save data that have been placed on your computer (mostly your browser), although no personal data is collected. Generally, Hotjar does not pass collected data to third parties. However, Hotjar explicitly emphasizes that it is sometimes necessary to share data with Amazon Web Services. _ parts of your information are saved on its servers. Nonetheless, Amazon is bound to a confidentiality obligation and cannot disclose these data. Only a limited number of people (employees of Hotjar) have access to the stored information. Furthermore, Hotjar’s servers are protected by firewalls and IP restrictions (only authorized IP addresses have access). Firewalls are security systems that protect computers from unwanted network access. They serve as barriers between Hotjar’s secure internal network and the internet. Moreover, Hotjar also uses third-party companies for their services, such as Google Analytics or Optimizely. These firms can also save information that your browser sends to our website. The following cookies are used by Hotjar. Since we refer to the cookie list in Hotjar’s privacy statement, not every cookie has a sample value. The list shows examples of utilized Hotjar cookies and does not claim to be exhaustive. Name: ajs_anonymous_id Value: %2258832463-7cee-48ee-b346-a195f18b06c3%22111677938-5 Purpose: This cookie is generally used for analysis purposes and helps with counting our website’s visitors by tracking whether they have been to the website before. Expiry date: after one year Name: ajs_group_id Value: 0 Purpose: This cookie collects data on user behavior. Based on the similarities between website visitors, the data can then be assigned to a specific visitor group. Expiry date: after one year Name: _hjid Value: 699ffb1c-4bfb-483f-bde1-22cfa0b59c6c Purpose: This cookie is used to maintain a Hotjar user ID, which is unique for the website in the browser. That way, upon the next website visit, the user behavior can be assigned to the same user ID. Expiry date: after one year Name: _hjMinimizedPolls Value: 462568111677938-8 Purpose: Every time you minimize a feedback poll widget, Hotjar sets this cookie. It ensures that the widget stays minimized when you browse our sites. Expiry date: after one year Name: _hjIncludedInSample Value: 1 Purpose: This session cookie is used to inform Hotjar if you are part of the selected individuals (sample), who are used for the creation of funnels. Expiry date: after one year Name: _hjClosedSurveyInvites Purpose: This cookie is set when you see an invitation to a feedback poll in a popup window. It is used to ensure that this invitation appears to you only once. Expiry date: after one year Name: _hjDonePolls Purpose: This cookie is set in your browser whenever you finish a round of questions for feedback in a poll widget. Therewith, Hotjar prevents you from receiving the same polls in the future. Expiry date: after one year Name: _hjDoneTestersWidgets Purpose: This cookie is used when you enter your data in the “recruit user tester” widget. With this widget, we want to engage you as a tester. The cookie is used to prevent the form from reappearing repeatedly. Expiry date: after one year Name: _hjMinimizedTestersWidgets Purpose: This cookie is set to keep the “recruit user tester“ widget minimized across all our pages. The cookie is set upon you minimizing this widget once. Expiry date: after one year Name: _hjShownFeedbackMessage Purpose: This cookie is set if you minimize or amend the given feedback. This is done so the feedback is instantly loaded as minimized when you navigate to another page, on which it is displayed. Expiry date: after one year

How long and where is the data saved?

We integrated a tracking code to our website, which is transmitted to Hotjar’s servers in Ireland (EU). This tracking code contacts Hotjar’s servers and sends a script to your computer or any terminal device with which you are accessing our website. The script collects certain data concerning your interaction with our website. Then, the data is sent to Hotjar’s servers for processing. Moreover, Hotjar imposed a limit of retaining data for up to 365 days on itself. This means that all data collected by Hotjar which is over one year old are deleted automatically.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

Hotjar saves none of your personal data for its analysis. The company even advertises with the slogan We track behavior, not individuals. In addition, it is always possible for you to prevent the collection of your data. For this, you simply need to visit Hotjar’s Opt-out page and click Deactivate Hotjar. Please note that deleting cookies, using your browser’s private mode, or utilizing a different browser will result in the collection of data again. Furthermore, you can activate the Do Not Track button in your browser. To do this in Chrome, for example, you must click on the three bars and select Settings. In the Data Protection section, you will find the Send a ‘Do Not Track’ Request with Your Browsing Traffic option. Finally, you must click on this button and no data will be collected by Hotjar. You can find more details on the privacy policy and on what data Hotjar uses and how it is utilized here.

Newsletter Privacy Policy

When you subscribe to our Newsletter you submit your personal data and give us the right to contact you via email. We use the data that is stored for the registration for the Newsletter exclusively for our Newsletter and do not pass them on. If you unsubscribe from the newsletter – for which you can find a link at the bottom of every newsletter – we will delete all data that was saved when you registered for the newsletter.

Google Ads (Google AdWords) Conversion Tracking Privacy Policy

We use Google Ads (previously Google AdWords) as an online marketing measure, to advertise our products and services. Thus, we want to draw more people’s attention on the internet to the high quality of our offers. As part of our advertising measures with Google Ads, we use the conversion tracking of Google LLC., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA (“Google”) on our website. With the aid of this free tracking tool, we can tailor our advertising offer better to your interests and needs. In the following article, we will explain, why we use conversion tracking, what data gets saved and how you can prevent this data retention.

What is Google Ads conversion tracking?

Google Ads (previously Google AdWords) is the internal online advertising system of the company Google LLC. We are convinced of our offer’s quality and would like as many people as possible to discover our website. For this, Google Ads offers the best platform within the online environment. Of course, we also want to get an overview of the cost-benefit factor of our advertising campaigns. Thence, we use Google Ads’ conversion tracking tool. But what is a conversion actually? A conversion occurs when you turn from an interested visitor into an acting website visitor. This happens every time you click on our ad and then make another action, such as paying a visit to our website. With Google’s conversion tracking tool, we can understand what happens after a user clicks our Google ad. It shows us for instance if products get bought, services are used, or whether users have subscribed to our newsletter.

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

We use Google Ads to show our offer also across other websites. Our aim is for our advertising campaigns to reach only those people, who are interested in our offers. With the conversion tracking tool, we see what keywords, ads, ad groups, and campaigns lead to the desired customer actions. We see how many customers interact with our ads on a device, to then convert. With this data, we can calculate our cost-benefit factor, measure the success of individual ad campaigns, and therefore optimize our online marketing measures. With the help of the obtained data, we can give our website a more interesting design and customize our advertising offer better to your needs.

What data is stored with Google Ads conversion tracking?

For a better analysis of certain user actions, we have integrated a conversion tracking tag or code snippet into our website. Therefore, if you click one of our Google ads, a Google domain stores the cookie “conversion” on your computer (usually in the browser) or on your mobile device. Cookies are little text files that save information on your computer. Here are data of the most significant cookies for Google’s conversion tracking: Name: Conversion Value: EhMI_aySuoyv4gIVled3Ch0llweVGAEgt-mr6aXd7dYlSAGQ111677938-3 Purpose: This cookie saves every conversion you make on our website after you came to us via a Google ad. Expiry date: after 3 months Name: _gac Value: 1.1558695989.EAIaIQobChMIiOmEgYO04gIVj5AYCh2CBAPrEAAYASAAEgIYQfD_BwE Purpose: This is a classic Google Analytics Cookie that records various actions on our website. Expiry date: after 3 months Note: The cookie _gac only appears in connection with Google Analytics. The above list does not claim to be exhaustive, as Google repeatedly changes the cookies they use for analytical evaluation. As soon as you complete an action on our website, Google identifies the cookie and saves your action as a so-called conversion. For as long as you surf our website, provided the cookie has not expired, both Google and us can determine that you found your way to us via a Google ad. Then, the cookie is read and sent back to Google Ads, together with the conversion data. Moreover, other cookies may also be used for measuring conversions. Google Ads conversion tracking can be fine-tuned and improved with the aid of Google Analytics. Furthermore, ads that Google displays in various places across the web, might be placed under our domain with the name “__gads” or “_gac”. Since September 2017, analytics.js retains various campaign information with the _gac cookie. This cookie stores data as soon as you open one of our sites that has been set up for Google Ads’ auto-tagging. In contrast to cookies that are placed for Google domains, Google can only read these conversion cookies when you are on our website. We do neither collect nor receive any personal data. We do obtain a report with statistical evaluations by Google. With the help thereof, we can not only see the total number of users who clicked our ad but also what advertising measures were well received.

How long and where is the data stored?

At this point, we want to reiterate, that we have no influence on how Google uses the collected data. According to Google, the data are encrypted and saved on a secure server. In most cases, conversion cookies expire after 30 days and do not transmit any personalized data. The cookies named “conversion“ and “_gac“ (which is used with Google Analytics) have an expiry date of 3 months.

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

You have the possibility to opt out of Google Ads’ conversion tracking. The conversion tracking can be blocked by deactivating the conversion tracking cookie via your browser. If you do this, you will not be considered for the statistic of the tracking tool. You can change the cookie settings in your browser anytime. Doing so works a little differently in every browser. Hence, in the following you will find an instruction on how to manage cookies in your browser: Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge If you generally do not want to allow any cookies at all, you can set up your browser to notify you whenever a potential cookie is about to be set. This lets you decide upon permitting or denying the cookie’s placement. By downloading and installing the browser plugin you can also deactivate all “advertising cookies”. Please consider that by deactivating these cookies, you cannot prevent all advertisements, only personalized ads. Due to the certification for the American-European data protection convention “Privacy Shield”, the American corporation Google LLC must comply with the EU’s applicable data protection laws. If you want to find out more about data protection at Google, we recommend Google’s general Privacy Policy.

Embedded Social Media elements Privacy Policy

We have embedded elements from social media services on our website, to display pictures, videos, and texts. By visiting pages that present such elements, data is transferred from your browser to the respective social media service, where it is stored. We do not have access to this data. The following links lead to the respective social media services’ sites, where you can find a declaration on how they handle your data:

Facebook Data Policy

We use selected Facebook tools on our website. Facebook is a social media network of the company Facebook Ireland Ltd., 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2 Ireland. With the aid of this tool, we can provide the best possible offers to you and anyone interested in our products and services. In the following, we will give you an overview of the different Facebook tools, as well as on what data is sent to Facebook and how you can delete these data.

What are Facebook tools?

Along with many other products, Facebook also offers so-called “Facebook Business Tools”. This is Facebook’s official name for the tools, but it is not very common. Therefore, we decided to merely call them “Facebook tools”. They include the following:
  • Facebook Pixel
  • Social plugins, such as the Like or Share button
  • Facebook Login
  • Account Kit
  • APIs (application programming interface)
  • SDKs (software development kits)
  • Platform integrations
  • Plugins
  • Codes
  • Specifications
  • Documentations
  • Technologies and services
With these tools, Facebook can extend its services and is able to receive information on user activities outside of Facebook.

Why do we use Facebook tools on our website?

We only want to show our services and products to people who are genuinely interested in them. With the help of advertisements (Facebook Ads), we can reach exactly these people. However, to be able to show suitable adverts to users, Facebook requires additional information on people’s needs and wishes. Therefore, information on the user behavior (and contact details) on our website, are provided to Facebook. Consequently, Facebook can collect better user data and is able to display suitable adverts for our products or services. Thanks to the tools it is possible to create targeted, customized ad campaigns for Facebook. Facebook calls data about your behavior on our website “event data” and uses them for analytics services. That way, Facebook can create “campaign reports” about our ad campaigns’ effectiveness on our behalf. Moreover, by analyses, we can get a better insight into how you use our services, our website, or our products. Therefore, some of these tools help us optimize your user experience on our website. With the social plugins, for instance, you can share our site’s contents directly on Facebook.

What data is saved by the Facebook tools?

With the use of the Facebook tools, personal data (customer data) may be sent to Facebook. Depending on the tools used, customer data such as name, address, telephone number, and IP address may be transmitted. Facebook uses this information to match the data with the data it has on you (if you are a Facebook member). However, before the customer data is transferred to Facebook, a so-called “Hashing” takes place. This means, that a data record of any size is transformed into a string of characters, which also has the purpose of encrypting data. Moreover, not only contact data but also “event data“ are transferred. These data are the information we receive about you on our website. To give an example, it allows us to see what subpages you visit or what products you buy from us. Facebook does not disclose the obtained information to third parties (such as advertisers) unless the company has explicit permission or is legally obliged to do so. Also, “event data“ can be linked to contact information, which helps Facebook to offer improved, customized adverts. Finally, after the previously mentioned matching process, Facebook deletes the contact data. To deliver optimized advertisements, Facebook only uses event data, if they have been combined with other data (that have been collected by Facebook in other ways). Facebook also uses event data for the purposes of security, protection, development, and research. Many of these data are transmitted to Facebook via cookies. Cookies are little text files, that are used for storing data or information in browsers. Depending on the tools used, and on whether you are a Facebook member, a different number of cookies are placed in your browser. In the descriptions of the individual Facebook tools, we will go into more detail on Facebook cookies. You can also find general information about the use of Facebook cookies here.

How long and where are the data saved?

Facebook fundamentally stores data, until they are no longer of use for their own services and products. Facebook has servers for storing its data all around the world. However, customer data is cleared within 48 hours after they have been matched with their own user data.

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have the right to information, rectification, transfer, and deletion of your data. The collected data is only fully deleted when you delete your entire Facebook account. Deleting your Facebook account works as follows:
  1. Click on Settings on the top right side of Facebook.
  2. Then, click “Your Facebook information“ in the left column.
  3. Now click on “Deactivation and deletion”.
  4. Choose “Permanently delete account“ and then click on “Continue to account deletion“.
  5. Enter your password, click “Continue“ and then “Delete account“.
The retention of data Facebook receives via our site is done via cookies (with social plugins, for example), among others. You can deactivate, clear, or manage both all and individual cookies in your browser. How this can be done differs depending on the browser you use. The following instructions show, how to manage cookies in your browser: Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge If you generally do not want to allow any cookies at all, you can set up your browser to notify you whenever a cookie is about to be set. This gives you the opportunity to decide upon the permission or deletion of every single cookie. Facebook is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information here. We hope we could give you an understanding of the most important information about the use of Facebook tools and data processing. If you want to find out more about how Facebook uses your data, we recommend reading the data policies.

Facebook Social Plugins Privacy Policy

We installed so-called social plugins from Facebook Inc. to our website. You can recognize these buttons by the classic Facebook logo, the “Like” button (hand with raised thumb), or by a “Facebook plugin” label. A social plugin is a small part of Facebook that is integrated into our page. Each plugin has its own function. The most used functions are the well-known “Like” and “Share” buttons. Facebook offers the following social plugins:
  • “Save” button
  • “Like” button, Share, Send and Quote
  • Page plugin
  • Comments
  • Messenger plugin
  • Embedded posts and video player
  • Group plugin
You will find more information on how the individual plugins are used here. On the one hand, we use the social plug-ins to offer you a better user experience on our site, and on the other hand because Facebook can optimize our advertisements with it. If you have a Facebook account or have already visited facebook.com, Facebook has already placed at least one cookie in your browser. In this case, your browser sends information to Facebook via this cookie as soon as you visit our website or interact with social plugins (e.g. the “Like” button). The received information will be deleted or anonymized within 90 days. According to Facebook, this data includes your IP address, the websites you have visited, the date, time, and other information relating to your browser. In order to prevent Facebook from collecting much data and matching it with your Facebook data during your visit to our website, you must log out of Facebook while you visit our website. If you are not logged in to Facebook or do not have a Facebook account, your browser sends less information to Facebook because you have fewer Facebook cookies. Nevertheless, data such as your IP address or which website you are visiting can be transmitted to Facebook. We would like to explicitly point out that we do not know what exact data is collected. However, based on our current knowledge, we want to try to inform you as best we can about data processing. You can also read about how Facebook uses the data in the company’s data policy. At least the following cookies are set in your browser when you visit a website with social plugins from Facebook: Name: dpr Value: no information Purpose: This cookie is used to make the social plugins work on our website. Expiry date: after the end of the session Name: fr Value: 0jieyh4111677938c2GnlufEJ9..Bde09j…1.0.Bde09j Purpose: The cookie is also necessary for the plugins to function properly Expiry date: after 3 months Note: These cookies were set after our test and may be placed even if you are not a Facebook member. If you are registered with Facebook, you can change your settings for advertisements in your preferences . If you are not a Facebook user, you can go here and manage your usage-based online advertising. There you have the option to deactivate or activate providers. If you want to learn more about Facebook’s data protection, we recommend reading the company’s data policies.

Twitter Privacy Policy

We have incorporated Twitter functions on our website. These are, for example, embedded tweets, timelines, buttons, or hashtags. Twitter is a short message service and social media platform from the firm Twitter Inc., One Cumberland Place, Fenian Street, Dublin 2 D02 AX07, Ireland. To our knowledge, in the European Economic Area and Switzerland, a mere integration of the Twitter function does not transfer any personal data or data about your web activities to Twitter. Only when you interact with the Twitter functions, such as by clicking a button, data could be sent to Twitter and get saved as well as processed there. We have no influence on this processing of data and do not bear any responsibility for it. Within this privacy statement, we want to give you an overview of what data Twitter stores, what Twitter does with this data, and how you can largely protect yourself from data transmission.

What is Twitter?

For some, Twitter is a news service, for others, a social media platform, and for others still, it is a microblogging service. All these terms are justified and mean pretty much the same. Both individuals, as well as companies, use Twitter for communicating with interested people via short messages. Twitter only allows 280 characters per message. These messages are called “tweets”. In contrast to Facebook, for example, the service does not focus on the expansion of a network of “friends”, but strives to be regarded as an open, worldwide news platform. On Twitter you can also have an anonymous account and tweets can be deleted by both, either the company or the users themselves.

Why do we use Twitter on our website?

Like many other websites and companies, we try to use different channels for offering our services and communicating with our customers. Twitter is a truly useful “small” news service, which is why it has grown dear to us. We regularly tweet or retweet exciting, funny, or interesting content. We understand that you do not have the time to follow every channel after channel, as you surely have enough other things to do. That is why we also have integrated Twitter functions into our website. That way, you can experience our Twitter activities “on-site” or come to our Twitter page via a direct link. With the integration, we want to strengthen the service and user-friendliness of our website.

What data is stored by Twitter?

You will find integrated Twitter functions on some of our subpages. If you interact with Twitter content, such as by clicking a button, Twitter may collect and save data. This can happen even if you don’t have a Twitter account yourself. Twitter calls this data “log data”. It includes demographic data, browser cookie IDs, your smartphone’s ID, hashed email addresses, and information on which pages you have visited on Twitter and what actions you have taken there. Of course, Twitter stores more data if you have a Twitter account and are logged in. This retention is usually done via cookies. Cookies are small text files that are usually set in your browser and transmit various information to Twitter. We will now show you which cookies are placed if you are not logged in to Twitter but visit a website with built-in Twitter functions. Please consider this list as an example. We do not claim for this list to be extensive, since the array of cookies always changes and depends on your individual actions with Twitter content. The following cookies have been used in our test: Name: personalization_id Value: “v1_cSJIsogU51SeE111677938” Purpose: This cookie stores information on how you use the website and what ad may have led you to Twitter. Expiry date: after 2 years Name: lang Value: en Purpose: This cookie stores your default or preferred language. Expiry date: after the end of the session Name: guest_id Value: 111677938v1%3A157132626 Purpose: This cookie is set to identify you as a guest. Expiry date: after 2 years Name: fm Value: 0 Purpose: Unfortunately, we could not find out the purpose of this cookie. Expiry date: after the end of the session Name: external_referer Value: 1116779382beTA0sf5lkMrlGt Purpose: This cookie collects anonymous data, such as how often you visit Twitter and how long you visit Twitter. Expiry date: after 6 days Name: eu_cn Value: 1 Purpose: This cookie stores user activity and is used for Twitter’s various advertising purposes. Expiry date: after one year Name: ct0 Value: c1179f07163a365d2ed7aad84c99d966 Purpose: Unfortunately, we could not find any information on this cookie. Expiry date: after 6 hours Name: _twitter_sess Value: 53D%253D–dd0248111677938- Purpose: With this cookie, you can use functions within Twitter’s website. Expiry date: after the end of the session Note: Twitter also works with third parties. Therefore, we have recognized the three Google Analytics cookies _ga, _gat, _gid in our test. On the one hand, Twitter uses the collected data for gaining a better understanding of user behavior, and thus to improve their own services and advertising offers. On the other hand, the data are also used for internal security measures.

How long and where are the data stored?

When Twitter collects data from other websites, after a maximum of 30 days, they will be deleted, summarized, or otherwise concealed. Twitter’s servers are in various server centers in the United States. Accordingly, it can be assumed that the gathered data will be collected and stored in America. In our research, we could not clearly determine whether Twitter also owns servers in Europe. Generally, Twitter may keep collected data stored until either the data are no longer useful to the company until you delete the data or until a potential legal deletion period has been reached.

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

In their Privacy Policy, Twitter repeatedly emphasizes that they do not save data from external website visits, provided you or your browser are in the European Economic Area or Switzerland. However, if you interact directly with Twitter, the company will of course store your data. If you have a Twitter account, you can manage your data by clicking on “More” under the “Profile” button. Then click on “Settings and privacy”. Here you can manage data processing individually. If you do not have a Twitter account, you can go to twitter.com and click “Settings”. Go to “Personalization and data” to manage your data. As mentioned above, most data are stored via cookies, which you can manage, deactivate or delete in your browser. Please note that when changing cookie settings in your browser, the edits will only affect that very browser. This means that if you use another browser in the future, you will have to manage your cookie settings there again. In the following, you will find instructions for managing cookies in the most popular browsers. Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge You can also set your browser to notify you about each individual cookie. This lets you decide individually whether you want to allow or deny a cookie. Twitter also uses the data for personalized advertising in- and outside of Twitter. You can switch off personalized advertising in the settings under “Personalization and data”. If you use Twitter on a browser, you can deactivate personalized advertising here. Twitter is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. This framework ensures correct data transmission between the USA and the European Union. We hope we could give you a basic overview of Twitter’s data processing. We do not receive any data from Twitter and are not responsible for what Twitter does with your data. If you have any further questions on this topic, we recommend reading Twitter’s privacy statement.

LinkedIn Privacy Policy

On our website, we use social plugins from the social media network LinkedIn, of the LinkedIn Corporation, 2029 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Social plugins can be feeds, content sharing, or a link to our LinkedIn page. Social plugins are clearly marked with the well-known LinkedIn logo and for example, allow sharing interesting content directly via our website. Moreover, LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company Wilton Place in Dublin is responsible for data processing in the European Economic Area and Switzerland. By embedding these plugins, data can be sent to, as well as stored and processed by LinkedIn. In this privacy policy, we want to inform you what data this is, how the network uses this data and how you can manage or prevent data retention.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the largest social network for business contacts. In contrast to e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn focuses exclusively on establishing business connections. Therefore, companies can present services and products on the platform and establish business relationships. Many people also use LinkedIn to find a job or to find suitable employees for their own company. In Germany alone, the network has over 11 million members. In Austria, there are about 1.3 million.

Why do we use LinkedIn on our website?

We know how busy you are. You just cannot keep up with following every single social media channel. Even if it would really be worth it, as it is with our channels since we keep posting interesting news and articles worth spreading. Therefore, on our website, we have created the opportunity to share interesting content directly on LinkedIn, or to refer directly to our LinkedIn page. We consider built-in social plugins as an extended service on our website. The data LinkedIn collects also help us to display potential advertising measures only to people who are interested in our offer.

What data are stored by LinkedIn?

LinkedIn stores no personal data due to the mere integration of social plugins. LinkedIn calls the data generated by plugins passive impressions. However, if you click on a social plugin to e.g. share our content, the platform stores personal data as so-called “active impressions”. This happens regardless of whether you have a LinkedIn account or not. If you are logged in, the collected data will be assigned to your account. When you interact with our plugins, your browser establishes a direct connection to LinkedIn’s servers. Through that, the company logs various usage data. These may include your IP address, login data, device information, or information about your internet or cellular provider. If you use LinkedIn services via your smartphone, your location may also be identified (after you have given permission). Moreover, LinkedIn can share these data with third-party advertisers in “hashed” form. Hashing means that a data set is transformed into a character string. This allows data to be encrypted, which prevents persons from getting identified. Most data on your user behavior is stored in cookies. These are small text files that usually get placed in your browser. Furthermore, LinkedIn can also use web beacons, pixel tags, display tags, and other device recognitions. Various tests also show which cookies are set when a user interacts with a social plug-in. We do not claim the information we found to be exhaustive, as it only serves as an example. The following cookies were set without being logged in to LinkedIn: Name: bcookie Value: =2&34aab2aa-2ae1-4d2a-8baf-c2e2d7235c16111677938- Purpose: This cookie is a so-called “browser ID cookie” and stores your identification number (ID). Expiry date: after 2 years Name: lang Value: v=2&lang=en-gb Purpose: This cookie saves your default or preferred language. Expiry date: after the end of the session Name: lidc Value: 1818367:t=1571904767:s=AQF6KNnJ0G111677938… Purpose: This cookie is used for routing. Routing records how you found your way to LinkedIn and how you navigate through the website. Expiry date: after 24 hours Name: rtc Value: kt0lrv3NF3x3t6xvDgGrZGDKkX Purpose: No further information could be found about this cookie. Expiry date: after 2 minutes Name: JSESSIONID Value: ajax:1116779382900777718326218137 Purpose: This is a session cookie that LinkedIn uses to maintain anonymous user sessions through the server. Expiry date: after the end of the session Name: bscookie Value: “v=1&201910230812… Purpose: This cookie is a security cookie. LinkedIn describes it as a secure browser ID cookie. Expiry date: after 2 years Name: fid Value: AQHj7Ii23ZBcqAAAA… Purpose: We could not find any further information about this cookie. Expiry date: after 7 days Note: LinkedIn also works with third parties. That is why we identified the Google Analytics cookies _ga and _gat in our test.

How long and where are the data stored?

In general, LinkedIn retains your personal data for as long as the company considers it necessary for providing its services. However, LinkedIn deletes your personal data when you delete your account. In some exceptional cases, LinkedIn keeps some summarised and anonymized data, even account deletions. As soon as you delete your account, it may take up to a day until other people can no longer see your data. LinkedIn generally deletes the data within 30 days. However, LinkedIn retains data if it is necessary for legal reasons. Also, data that can no longer be assigned to any person remain stored even after the account is closed. The data are stored on various servers in America and presumably also in Europe.

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

You have the right to access and delete your personal data at any time. In your LinkedIn account, you can manage, change and delete your data. Moreover, you can request a copy of your personal data from LinkedIn. How to access account data in your LinkedIn profile: In LinkedIn, click on your profile icon and select the “Settings & Privacy” section. Now click on “Privacy” and then on the section “How LinkedIn uses your data on”. Then, click “Change” in the row with “Manage your data and activity”. There you can instantly view selected data on your web activity and your account history. In your browser, you also have the option of preventing data processing by LinkedIn. As mentioned above, LinkedIn stores most data via cookies that are placed in your browser. You can manage, deactivate or delete these cookies. Depending on which browser you have, these settings work a little differently. You can find the instructions for the most common browsers here: Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge You can generally set your browser to always notify you when a cookie is about to be set. Then you can always decide individually whether you want to allow the cookie or not. LinkedIn is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Frameworks. This framework ensures correct data transmission between the USA and the European Union. We gave our best to provide you the most essential information about LinkedIn’s data processing. We recommend you read LinkedIn’s privacy policy to find out more about the data processing of the social media network LinkedIn.

XING Privacy Policy

On our website, we use social plugins from the social media network Xing, by the company Xing SE, Dammtorstrasse 30, 20354 Hamburg, Germany. Their functions allow you to for example share content and follow interesting content on Xing directly via our website, or to log in to Xing via our site. You can recognize the plugins by the company name or the Xing logo. If you open a website that uses a Xing plugin, data can be transmitted to, and saved as well as evaluated by the “Xing server”. In this privacy policy, we will inform you on what data this is and how you can manage or prevent data retention.

What is Xing?

Xing is a social network with its headquarters in Hamburg. The company specializes in managing professional contacts. That means, that as opposed to other networks, Xing is primarily about professional networking. The platform is often used for job hunting or for companies to find employees. Moreover, Xing offers interesting content on various professional topics. The global counterpart of Xing is the American company LinkedIn.

Why do we use Xing on our website?

Nowadays, there is a flood of social media channels, and we understand that your time is very precious. It is simply not possible for you to closely follow every social media channel of a company. Therefore, we want to make your life as easy as possible and enable you to share or follow interesting content on Xing directly via our website. With these so-called “social plugins” we are expanding the service on our website. Additionally, the data collected by Xing help us to create targeted advertising on the platform. This means that our services are only displayed to people who are genuinely interested in them.

What data is saved by Xing?

As for plugins for websites, Xing offers the share, follow, and login buttons. As soon as you open a page with an integrated Xing social plugin, your browser will connect to servers in a Xing data center. Xing claims that upon using the share button, no data that could directly relate to a person is stored. Furthermore, Xing does not save your IP address, neither do any cookies get set upon using the share button. This means that your user behavior is not analyzed. You can find more information here. With Xing’s other plugins, cookies only get set in your browser if you interact with the plugin or click on it. Personal data such as your IP address, browser data, as well as the date and time of your visit to Xing may be stored. If you have a XING account and are logged in, the collected data will be assigned to your personal account and matched with the data stored in it. If you click on the follow or log-in button and are not yet logged in to Xing, the following cookies are set in your browser. Please keep in mind that this is an indicative list and we do not claim for it to be exhaustive: Name: AMCVS_0894FF2554F733210A4C98C6%40AdobeOrg Value: 1 Purpose: This cookie is used to create and store identification details for website visitors. Expiry date: after session ends Name: c_ Value: 157c609dc9fe7d7ff56064c6de87b019111677938-8 Purpose: We were unable to find out more information on this cookie. Expiry date: after one day Name: prevPage Value: wbm%2FWelcome%2Flogin Purpose: This cookie stores the URL of the previous website you visited. Expiry date: after 30 minutes Name: s_cc Value: true Purpose: This Adobe Site Catalyst cookie determines whether cookies are generally activated in the browser. Expiry date: after the end of the session Name: s_fid Value: 6897CDCD1013221C-39DDACC982217CD1111677938-2 Purpose: This cookie is used to identify a unique visitor. Expiry date: after 5 years Name: visitor_id Value: fe59fbe5-e9c6-4fca-8776-30d0c1a89c32 Purpose: The visitor cookie contains a unique visitor ID and a unique identifier for your account. Expiry date: after 2 years Name:_session_id Value: 533a0a6641df82b46383da06ea0e84e7111677938-2 Purpose: This cookie creates a temporary session ID that is used as the in-session user ID. The cookie is vital to provide the functions of Xing. Expiry date: after the end of the session When you are logged in to Xing or are a member of the platform, further personal data will be collected, processed, and saved. Xing also passes personal data to third parties if it is either necessary for its own business purposes, if you have given your consent or if there is a legal obligation.

How long and where is the data stored?

Xing stores data on different servers in various data centers. The company stores this data until you delete it or until you delete your user account. Of course, this only applies to users who are already Xing members.

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

You have the right to access and delete your personal data at any time. Even if you are not a Xing member, you can prevent potential data processing via your browser or manage it as you wish. Most data are stored via cookies. Depending on which browser you are using, the settings work a little differently. You can find the instructions for the most common browsers here: Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge You can also set up your browser to notify you whenever a cookie is about to be placed. Then you can always decide individually whether you want to allow or deny a cookie. We tried to make you familiar with the most important information on data processing by Xing. We recommend you read Xing’s privacy policy to find out more about data processing by the social media network Xing.

YouTube Privacy Policy

We have integrated YouTube videos into our website. Therefore, we can show you interesting videos directly on our site. YouTube is a video portal, which has been a subsidiary company of Google LLC since 2006. The video portal is operated by YouTube, LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA. When you visit a page on our website that contains an embedded YouTube video, your browser automatically connects to the servers of YouTube or Google. Thereby, certain data are transferred (depending on the settings). Google is responsible for YouTube’s data processing and therefore Google’s data protection applies. In the following, we will explain in more detail which data is processed, why we have integrated YouTube videos, and how you can manage or clear your data.

What is YouTube?

On YouTube, users can watch, rate, comment, or upload videos for free. Over the past few years, YouTube has become one of the most important social media channels worldwide. For us to be able to display videos on our website, YouTube provides a code snippet that we have integrated into our website.

Why do we use YouTube videos on our website?

YouTube is the video platform with the most visitors and best content. We strive to offer you the best possible user experience on our website, which of course includes interesting videos. With the help of our embedded videos, we can provide you other helpful content in addition to our texts and images. Additionally, embedded videos make it easier for our website to be found on the Google search engine. Moreover, if we place ads via Google Ads, Google only shows these ads to people who are interested in our offers, thanks to the collected data.

What data is stored by YouTube?

As soon as you visit one of our pages with an integrated YouTube, YouTube places at least one cookie that stores your IP address and our URL. If you are logged into your YouTube account, by using cookies YouTube can usually associate your interactions on our website with your profile. This includes data such as session duration, bounce rate, approximate location, technical information such as browser type, screen resolution, or your Internet provider. Additional data can include contact details, potential ratings, shared content via social media, or YouTube videos you added to your favorites. If you are not logged in to a Google or YouTube account, Google stores data with a unique identifier linked to your device, browser, or app. Thereby, e.g. your preferred language setting is maintained. However, many interaction data cannot be saved since fewer cookies are set. In the following list, we show you cookies that were placed in the browser during a test. On the one hand, we show cookies that were set without being logged into a YouTube account. On the other hand, we show you what cookies were placed while being logged in. We do not claim for this list to be exhaustive, as user data always depend on how you interact with YouTube. Name: YSC Value: b9-CV6ojI5Y111677938-1 Purpose: This cookie registers a unique ID to store statistics of the video that was viewed. Expiry date: after the end of the session Name: PREF Value: f1=50000000 Purpose: This cookie also registers your unique ID. Google receives statistics via PREF on how you use YouTube videos on our website. Expiry date: after 8 months Name: GPS Value: 1 Purpose: This cookie registers your unique ID on mobile devices to track GPS locations. Expiry date: after 30 minutes Name: VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE Value: 95Chz8bagyU Purpose: This cookie tries to estimate the user’s internet bandwidth on our sites (that have built-in YouTube videos). Expiry date: after 8 months Further cookies that are placed when you are logged into your YouTube account: Name: APISID Value: zILlvClZSkqGsSwI/AU1aZI6HY7111677938- Purpose: This cookie is used to create a profile on your interests. This data is then used for personalized advertisements. Expiry 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 the use of various Google services. CONSENT also provides safety measures to protect users from unauthorized attacks. Expiry date: after 19 years Name: HSID Value: AcRwpgUik9Dveht0I Purpose: This cookie is used to create a profile on your interests. This data helps to display customized ads. Expiry date: after 2 years Name: LOGIN_INFO Value: AFmmF2swRQIhALl6aL… Purpose: This cookie stores information on your login data. Expiry date: after 2 years Name: SAPISID Value: 7oaPxoG-pZsJuuF5/AnUdDUIsJ9iJz2vdM Purpose: This cookie identifies your browser and device. It is used to create a profile on your interests. Expiry date: after 2 years Name: SID Value: oQfNKjAsI111677938- Purpose: This cookie stores your Google Account ID and your last login time, in a digitally signed and encrypted form. Expiry date: after 2 years Name: SIDCC Value: AN0-TYuqub2JOcDTyL Purpose: This cookie stores information on how you use the website and on what advertisements you may have seen before visiting our website. Expiry date: after 3 months

How long and where is the data stored?

The data YouTube receive and process on you are stored on Google’s servers. Most of these servers are in America. Here you can see where Google’s data centers are located. Your data is distributed across the servers. Therefore, the data can be retrieved quicker and is better protected against manipulation. Google stores collected data for different periods of time. You can delete some data anytime, while other data are automatically deleted after a certain time, and still, other data are stored by Google for a long time. Some data (such as elements on “My activity”, photos, documents, or products) that are saved in your Google account are stored until you delete them. Moreover, you can delete some data associated with your device, browser, or app, even if you are not signed in to a Google Account.

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

Generally, you can delete data manually in your Google account. Furthermore, in 2019 an automatic deletion of location and activity data was introduced. Depending on what you decide on, it deletes stored information either after 3 or 18 months. Regardless of whether you have a Google account or not, you can set your browser to delete or deactivate cookies placed by Google. These settings vary depending on the browser you use. The following instructions will show how to manage cookies in your browser: Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge If you generally do not want to allow any cookies, you can set your browser to always notify you when a cookie is about to be set. This will enable you to decide to either allow or permit each individual cookie. Since YouTube is a subsidiary company of Google, Google’s privacy statement applies to both. If you want to learn more about how your data is handled, we recommend reading Google’s privacy policy.

Google reCAPTCHA Privacy Policy

Our primary goal is to provide you an experience on our website that is as secure and protected as possible. To do this, we use Google reCAPTCHA from Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheater Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA). With reCAPTCHA, we can determine whether you are a real person from flesh and bones, and not a robot or spam software. By spam, we mean any electronically undesirable information we receive involuntarily. Classic CAPTCHAS usually needed you to solve text or picture puzzles to check. But thanks to Google’s reCAPTCHA you usually do have to do such puzzles. Most of the time it is enough to simply tick a box and confirm you are not a bot. With the new Invisible reCAPTCHA version, you don’t even have to tick a box. In this privacy policy, you will find out how exactly this works, and what data is used for it.

What is reCAPTCHA?

reCAPTCHA is a free captcha service from Google that protects websites from spam software and misuse by non-human visitors. This service is used the most when you fill out forms on the Internet. A captcha service is a type of automatic Turing-test that is designed to ensure specific actions on the Internet are done by human beings and not bots. During the classic Turing test (named after computer scientist Alan Turing), a person differentiates between bot and human. With Captchas, a computer or software program does the same. Classic captchas function with small tasks that are easy to solve for humans but provide considerable difficulties to machines. With reCAPTCHA, you no longer must actively solve puzzles. The tool uses modern risk techniques to distinguish people from bots. The only thing you must do there is to tick the text field “I am not a robot”. However, with Invisible reCAPTCHA, even that is no longer necessary. reCAPTCHA, integrates a JavaScript element into the source text, after which the tool then runs in the background and analyses your user behavior. The software calculates a so-called captcha score from your user actions. Google uses this score to calculate the likelihood of you being a human, before entering the captcha. reCAPTCHA and Captchas, in general, are used every time bots could manipulate or misuse certain actions (such as registrations, surveys, etc.).

Why do we use reCAPTCHA on our website?

We only want to welcome people from flesh and bones on our side and want bots or spam software of all kinds to stay away. Therefore, we are doing everything we can to stay protected and to offer you the highest possible user-friendliness. For this reason, we use Google reCAPTCHA from Google. Thus, we can be pretty sure that we will remain a “bot-free” website. Using reCAPTCHA, data is transmitted to Google to determine whether you genuinely are human. reCAPTCHA thus ensures our website’s and subsequently your security. Without reCAPTCHA, it could e.g. happen that a bot would register as many email addresses as possible when registering, in order to subsequently “spam” forums or blogs with unwanted advertising content. With reCAPTCHA, we can avoid such bot attacks.

What data is stored by reCAPTCHA?

reCAPTCHA collects personal user data to determine whether the actions on our website are made by people. Thus, IP addresses and other data Google needs for its reCAPTCHA service may be sent to Google. Within member states of the European Economic Area, IP addresses are almost always compressed before the data makes its way to a server in the USA. Moreover, your IP address will not be combined with any other of Google’s data, unless you are logged into your Google account while using reCAPTCHA. Firstly, the reCAPTCHA algorithm checks whether Google cookies from other Google services (Youtube, Gmail, etc.) have already been placed in your browser. Then reCAPTCHA sets an additional cookie in your browser and takes a snapshot of your browser window. The following list of collected browser and user data is not exhaustive. Rather, it provides examples of data, which to our knowledge, is processed by Google.
  • Referrer URL (the address of the page the visitor has come from)
  • IP-address (z.B. 256.123.123.1)
  • Information on the operating system (the software that enables the operation of your computers. Popular operating systems are Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux)
  • Cookies (small text files that save data in your browser)
  • Mouse and keyboard behavior (every action you take with your mouse or keyboard is stored)
  • Date and language settings (the language and date you have set on your PC is saved)
  • All Javascript objects (JavaScript is a programming language that allows websites to adapt to the user. JavaScript objects can collect all kinds of data under one name)
  • Screen resolution (shows how many pixels the image display consists of)
Google may use and analyze this data even before you click on the “I am not a robot” checkmark. In the Invisible reCAPTCHA version, there is no need to even tick at all, as the entire recognition process runs in the background. Moreover, Google has not given details on what information and how much data they retain. The following cookies are used by reCAPTCHA: With the following list, we are referring to Google’s reCAPTCHA demo version. For tracking purposes, all these cookies require a unique identifier. Here is a list of cookies that Google reCAPTCHA has set in the demo version: Name: IDE Value: WqTUmlnmv_qXyi_DGNPLESKnRNrpgXoy1K-pAZtAkMbHI-111677938-8 Purpose: This cookie is set by DoubleClick (which is owned by Google) to register and report a user’s interactions with advertisements. With it, ad effectiveness can be measured, and appropriate optimization measures can be taken. IDE is stored in browsers under the domain doubleclick.net. Expiry date: after one year Name: 1P_JAR Value: 2019-5-14-12 Purpose: This cookie collects website usage statistics and measures conversions. A conversion e.g. takes place, when a user becomes a buyer. The cookie is also used to display relevant adverts to users. Furthermore, the cookie can prevent a user from seeing the same ad more than once. Expiry date: after one month Name: ANID Value: U7j1v3dZa1116779380xgZFmiqWppRWKOr Purpose: We could not find out much about this cookie. In Google’s privacy statement, the cookie is mentioned in connection with “advertising cookies” such as “DSID”, “FLC”, “AID”, and “TAID”. ANID is stored under the domain google.com. Expiry date: after 9 months Name: CONSENT Value: YES+AT.de+20150628-20-0 Purpose: This cookie stores the status of a user’s consent to the use of various Google services. CONSENT also serves to prevent fraudulent logins and to protect user data from unauthorized attacks. Expiry date: after 19 years Name: NID Value: 0WmuWqy111677938zILzqV_nmt3sDXwPeM5Q Purpose: Google uses NID to customize advertisements to your Google searches. With the help of cookies, Google “remembers” your most frequently entered search queries or your previous ad interactions. Thus, you always receive advertisements tailored to you. The cookie contains a unique ID to collect users’ personal settings for advertising purposes. Expiry date: after 6 months Name: DV Value: gEAABBCjJMXcI0dSAAAANbqc111677938-4 Purpose: This cookie is set when you tick the “I am not a robot” checkmark. Google Analytics uses cookie personalized advertising. DV collects anonymous information and is also used to distinguish between users. Expiry date: after 10 minutes Note: We do not claim for this list to be extensive, as Google often changes the choice of their cookies.

How long and where are the data stored?

Due to the integration of reCAPTCHA, your data will be transferred to the Google server. Google has not disclosed where exactly this data is stored, despite repeated inquiries. But even without confirmation from Google, it can be assumed that data such as mouse interaction, length of stay on a website, or language settings are stored on the European or American Google servers. The IP address that your browser transmits to Google does generally not get merged with other Google data from the company’s other services. However, the data will be merged if you are logged in to your Google account while using the reCAPTCHA plug-in. Google’s diverging privacy policy applies for this.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

If you want to prevent any data about you and your behavior to be transmitted to Google, you must fully log out of Google and delete all Google cookies before visiting our website or use the reCAPTCHA software. Generally, the data is automatically sent to Google as soon as you visit our website. To delete this data, you must contact Google Support. If you use our website, you agree that Google LLC and its representatives automatically collect, edit and use data. You can find out more about reCAPTCHA on Google’s Developers page. While Google does give more detail on the technical development of reCAPTCHA there, they have not disclosed precise information about data retention and data protection. A good, basic overview of the use of data, however, can be found in the company’s internal privacy policy.

HubSpot privacy policy

We use the HubSpot service for various purposes on this website. HubSpot is a US software company with a subsidiary in Ireland. Contact: HubSpot, 2nd Floor 30 North Wall Quay, Dublin 1, Ireland, Phone: +353 1 5187500.

What is HubSpot?

HubSpot is an integrated software solution with which we cover various aspects of our online marketing. These include e-mail marketing, social media publishing & reporting, reporting, contact management (e.g. user segmentation & CRM), landing pages, and contact forms.

Why do we use HubSpot on our website?

Our registration service enables visitors to our website to learn more about our company, download content, and provide their contact information and other demographic information. This information and the content of our website are stored on servers of our software partner HubSpot. They can be used by us to get in contact with visitors to our website and to determine which services from our company are of interest to them. All information we collect is subject to this privacy policy. We use all information collected exclusively to optimize our marketing measures.

What data does HubSpot store?

To optimize our marketing measures, the following data can be collected and processed via HubSpot:
  • Geographical position
  • Browser type
  • Navigation information
  • Referral URL
  • Performance data
  • Information on how often the application is used
  • Mobile apps data
  • Credentials for the HubSpot subscription service
  • Files that are displayed on site
  • Domain names
  • Pages viewed
  • Aggregate usage
  • Operating system version
  • Internet service provider
  • IP address
  • Device identifier
  • Duration of the visit
  • Where the application was downloaded from
  • Operating system
  • Events that occur within the application
  • Access times
  • Clickstream data
  • Device model and version
We also use HubSpot to provide contact forms. Further information on this can be found in the subsection “Data entered by users” of this data protection declaration. To improve the user experience on our website, we also use the live chat service “Messages” from HubSpot to send and receive messages on some sub-pages (round chat icon at the bottom right of the screen). If this function is accepted and used, the following data will be transmitted to the HubSpot servers:
  • Content of all sent and received chat messages
  • Context information (e.g. the page on which the chat was used)
  • Optional: e-mail address of the user (if provided by the user via chat function)

How long and where will the data be stored?

The personal data is stored as long as necessary to fulfill the processing purpose. The data will be deleted as soon as no longer required for the purpose. HubSpot stores the data of contacts from the EU in a data center in Frankfurt am Main. There, the data is encrypted and transmitted to the USA using encryption. For more information, visit the HubSpot FAQ on their cloud infrastructure.