Data privacy

Gantner Instruments

Privacy policy

We have written this privacy statement (version 31.01.2023-122399459) to explain to you, in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and applicable national laws, which personal data (data for short) we as the controller – and the processors (e.g. providers) commissioned by us – process, will process in the future and what lawful options you have. The terms used are to be understood as gender-neutral.
In short: We inform you comprehensively about data that we process about you.

Privacy statements usually sound very technical and use legal terminology. This privacy statement, on the other hand, is intended to describe the most important things to you as simply and transparently as possible. To the extent that it is conducive to transparency, technical terms are explained in a reader-friendly manner, links to further information are provided and graphics are used. In this way, we inform you in clear and simple language that we only process personal data in the course of our business activities if there is a corresponding legal basis. This is certainly not possible by providing the most concise, unclear and legalistic explanations possible, as is often standard practice on the Internet when it comes to data protection. I hope you find the following explanations interesting and informative, and perhaps there is one or two pieces of information that you did not yet know.
If you still have questions, we would like to ask you to contact the responsible party named below or in the imprint, to follow the available links and to look at further information on third-party sites. Our contact details can of course also be found in the imprint.

Scope of application

This data protection declaration applies to all personal data processed by us in the company and to all personal data processed by companies commissioned by us (order processors). By personal data, we mean information within the meaning of Art. 4 No. 1 DSGVO, such as a person’s name, e-mail address and postal address. The processing of personal data ensures that we can offer and invoice our services and products, whether online or offline. The scope of this privacy policy includes:

  • all online presences (websites, online stores) that we operate
  • Social media appearances and e-mail communication
  • mobile apps for smartphones and other devices

In short, the data protection declaration applies to all areas in which personal data is processed in a structured manner within the company via the aforementioned channels. If we enter into legal relationships with you outside of these channels, we will inform you separately if necessary.

 

Legal basis

In the following privacy statement, we provide you with transparent information about the legal principles and regulations, i.e. the legal bases of the General Data Protection Regulation, which enable us to process personal data.
As far as EU law is concerned, we refer to REGULATION (EU) 2016/679 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 27 April 2016. You can of course read
this EU General Data Protection Regulation online on EUR-Lex, the access to EU law, at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/DE/ALL/?uri=celex%3A32016R0679.

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

  1. Consent (Article 6(1) lit. a DSGVO): You have given us your consent to process data for a specific purpose. An example would be the storage of your entered data of a contact form.
  2. contract (Article 6(1)(b) DSGVO): In order to fulfill a contract or pre-contractual obligations with you, we process your data. For example, if we conclude a purchase contract with you, we need personal information in advance.
  3. Legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c) DSGVO): If we are subject to a legal obligation, we process your data. For example, we are legally obliged to keep invoices for accounting purposes. These usually contain personal data.
  4. Legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) DSGVO): In the case of legitimate interests that do not restrict your fundamental rights, we reserve the right to process personal data. For example, we need to process certain data in order to operate our website securely and economically efficiently. This processing is therefore a legitimate interest.

Further conditions such as the performance of recordings in the public interest and the exercise of official authority as well as the protection of vital interests do not generally occur with us. If such a legal basis should be relevant, it will be indicated at the appropriate place.

In addition to the EU regulation, national laws also apply:

  • In Austria, this is the Federal Act on the Protection of Individuals with regard to the Processing of Personal Data (Data Protection Act), or DSG for
  • In Germany, the Federal Data Protection Act, or BDSG for short, applies.

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

Contact details of the person responsible for data protection
Should you have any questions regarding data protection, you will find the contact details of the responsible person or office below:
Gantner Instruments GmbH
Montafonerstraße 4
6780 Schruns / Austria
Authorized representative: Rene Gruber
E-mail address: r.gruber@gantner-instruments.com
Phone: +43555677463337
Imprint: https://gantner-instruments.com/impressum/

Contact details of the data protection officer

Below you will find the contact details of the data protection officer:

Gantner Instruments GmbH
Montafonerstraße 4
6780 Schruns / Austria
Authorized to represent: Rene Gruber

E-mail address: r.gruber@gantner-instruments.com
Phone: +43555677463337

 

Storage duration

The fact that we only store personal data for as long as is absolutely necessary for the provision of our services and products applies as a general criterion at our company. This means that we delete personal data as soon as the reason for processing the data no longer exists. In some cases, we are required by law to store certain data even after the original purpose has ceased to exist, for example for accounting purposes.

Should you wish your data to be deleted or revoke your consent to data processing, the data will be deleted as soon as possible and insofar as there is no obligation to store it.

We will inform you about the specific duration of the respective data processing below, provided that we have further information on this.

Rights under the General Data Protection Regulation

In accordance with Articles 13, 14 of the GDPR, we inform you about the following rights you have to ensure that data processing is fair and transparent:

  • According to Article 15 of the GDPR, you have the right to know whether we are processing data about you. If this is the case, you have the right to receive a copy of the data and the following information:
    • the purpose for which we carry out the processing;
    • the categories, i.e. the types of data that are processed;
    • who receives this data and, if the data is transferred to third countries, how security can be guaranteed;
    • how long the data will be stored;
    • the existence of the right to rectification, erasure or restriction of processing and the right to object to processing;
    • that you can complain to a supervisory authority (links to these authorities can be found below);
    • the origin of the data if we have not collected it from you;
    • whether profiling is carried out, i.e. whether data is automatically evaluated in order to arrive at a personal profile of you.
  • You have a right to rectify data according to Article 16 of the GDPR, which means that we must correct data if you find errors.
  • According to Article 17 of the GDPR, you have the right to erasure (“right to be forgotten”), which specifically means that you may request the deletion of your data.
  • According to Article 18 of the GDPR, you have the right to restriction of processing, which means that we may only store the data but not use it any further.
  • According to Article 20 DSGVO, you have the right to data portability, which means that we will provide you with your data in a common format upon request.
  • According to Article 21 of the GDPR, you have a right to object, which, once enforced, entails a change in processing.
    • If the processing of your data is based on Article 6(1)(e) (public interest, exercise of official authority) or Article 6(1)(f) (legitimate interest), you may object to the processing. We will then check as soon as possible whether we can legally comply with this objection.
    • If data is used to conduct direct marketing, you may object to this type of data processing at any time. We may not use your data for direct marketing thereafter.
    • If data is used to perform profiling, you can object to this type of data processing at any time. We may not use your data for profiling thereafter.
  • According to Article 22 of the GDPR, you may have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (for example, profiling).
  • According to Article 77 of the GDPR, you have the right to lodge a complaint. This means that you can complain to the data protection authority at any time if you believe that the data processing of personal data violates the GDPR.

In short, you have rights – do not hesitate to contact the responsible party listed above with us!

If you believe that the processing of your data violates data protection law or that your data protection rights have been violated in any other way, you can complain to the supervisory authority. For Austria, this is the data protection authority, whose website can be found at https://www.dsb.gv.at/. In Germany, there is a data protection officer for each federal state. For more information, you can contact the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI). The following local data protection authority is responsible for our company:

Austria data protection authority

Head: Mag. Dr. Andrea Jelinek
Address: Barichgasse 40-42, 1030 Vienna
Telephone number: +43 1 52 152-0
E-mail address: dsb@dsb.gv.at
Website: https://www.dsb.gv.at/

 

Data transmission to third countries

We only transfer or process data to countries outside the EU (third countries) if you consent to this processing, if this is required by law or contractually necessary and in any case only to the extent that this is generally permitted. Your consent is in most cases the most important reason that we have data processed in third countries. Processing personal data in third countries such as the U.S., where many software vendors provide services and have their server locations, may mean that personal data is processed and stored in unexpected ways.

We expressly point out that according to the opinion of the European Court of Justice, there is currently no adequate level of protection for data transfer to the USA. Data processing by US services (such as Google Analytics) may result in data not being processed and stored anonymously. Furthermore, US government authorities may be able to access individual data. In addition, it may happen that collected data is linked to data from other services of the same provider, if you have a corresponding user account. Where possible, we try to use server locations within the EU, if this is offered.

We will inform you in more detail about data transfer to third countries, if applicable, at the appropriate places in this privacy policy.

Data processing security

To protect personal data, we have implemented both technical and organizational measures. Where possible, we encrypt or pseudonymize personal data. In this way, we make it as difficult as possible for third parties to infer personal information from our data.

Article 25 of the GDPR refers to “data protection through technical design and data protection-friendly default settings” and thus means that both software (e.g., forms) and hardware (e.g., access to the server room) should always be designed with security in mind and that appropriate measures should be taken. If necessary, we will go into more detail on specific measures below.

TLS encryption with https

TLS, encryption and https sound very technical and they are. We use HTTPS (the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure stands for “secure hypertext transfer protocol”) to transfer data over the internet in a tap-proof way.
This means that the complete transmission of all data from your browser to our web server is secured – no one can “listen in”.

We have thus introduced an additional layer of security and comply with data protection by design of technology (Article 25(1) DSGVO). By using TLS (Transport Layer Security), an encryption protocol for secure data transmission on the Internet, we can ensure the protection of confidential data.
You can recognize the use of this protection of data transmission by the small lock symbol at the top left of the browser, to the left of the Internet address (e.g., beispielseite.de) and the use of the scheme https (instead of http) as part of our Internet address.
If you want to know more about encryption, we recommend the Google search for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure wiki” to get good links to further information.

 

Communication

Communication Summary
Data
subjects: All those who communicate with us by telephone, e-mail or online form
Data processed: e.g. telephone number, name, e-mail address, form data entered. More details can be found in the respective contact type used
Purpose: Handling of communication with customers, business partners, etc.
Storage period: duration of the business case and legal requirements
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b DSGVO (contract), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (legitimate interests).

When you contact us and communicate by phone, e-mail or online form, personal data may be processed.

The data will be processed for the handling and processing of your question and the related business transaction. The data is stored for as long as it is required by law.

Persons concerned

All those who seek contact with us via the communication channels provided by us are affected by the aforementioned processes.

Phone

When you call us, the call data is stored pseudonymously on the respective terminal device and with the telecommunications provider used. In addition, data such as name and telephone number may subsequently be sent by e-mail and stored for the purpose of responding to inquiries. The data is deleted as soon as the business case has been terminated and legal requirements permit.

E-mail

If you communicate with us by e-mail, data may be stored on the respective end device (computer, laptop, smartphone,…) and data is stored on the e-mail server. The data is deleted as soon as the business case has been terminated and legal requirements allow it.

Online forms

If you communicate with us using an online form, data is stored on our web server and, if necessary, forwarded to an e-mail address of ours. The data is deleted as soon as the business case has been terminated and legal requirements permit.

Legal basis

The processing of the data is based on the following legal bases:

  • 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent): You give us your consent to store your data and to use it for purposes related to the business case;
  • 6 para. 1 lit. b DSGVO (contract): There is a need for the performance of a contract with you or a processor such as the telephone provider or we need to process the data for pre-contractual activities, such as the preparation of an offer;

Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests): We want to operate customer inquiries and business communication in a professional framework. For this purpose, certain technical facilities such as e-mail programs, exchange servers and mobile network operators are necessary in order to be able to operate the communication efficiently.

 

Order processing agreement (AVV)

In this section, we would like to explain to you what a processing order is and why it is needed. Because the word “order processing contract” is quite a mouthful, we will also use only the acronym AVV more often here in the text. Like most companies, we do not work alone, but also use the services of other companies or individuals ourselves.  Through the involvement of various companies or service providers, it may be that we pass on personal data for processing. These partners then act as processors with whom we conclude a contract, the so-called order processing agreement (AVV). The most important thing for you to know is that the processing of your personal data takes place exclusively according to our instructions and must be regulated by the GCU.

Who are processors?

As a company and website owner, we are responsible for all data that we process from you. In addition to the responsible parties, there may also be so-called processors. This includes any company or person who processes personal data on our behalf. More precisely and according to the GDPR definition: any natural or legal person, authority, institution or other body that processes personal data on our behalf is considered a processor. Consequently, processors can be service providers such as hosting or cloud providers, payment or newsletter providers, or large companies such as Google or Microsoft, for example.

For a better understanding of the terminology, here is an overview of the three roles in the GDPR:

Data subject (you as customer or interested party) → Responsible party (we as company and client) → Processor (service provider such as web hoster or cloud provider)

Content of a contract for the processing of orders

As already mentioned above, we have concluded an AVV with our partners who act as processors. This states first and foremost that the processor will process the data to be processed exclusively in accordance with the GDPR. The contract must be concluded in writing, although in this context the electronic conclusion of the contract is also considered “in writing”. Only on the basis of the contract will the processing of personal data take place. The contract must contain the following:

  • Binding to us as the responsible party
  • Duties and rights of the responsible person
  • Categories of persons concerned
  • Type of personal data
  • Nature and purpose of data processing
  • Subject and duration of data processing
  • Place of implementation of data processing

Furthermore, the contract contains all the obligations of the processor. The most important obligations are:

  • Ensure data security measures
  • take possible technical and organizational measures to protect the rights of the data subject
  • keep a data processing register
  • cooperate with the data protection supervisory authority at its request
  • Conduct a risk analysis in relation to the personal data received
  • Sub-processors may only be engaged with the written consent of the responsible person

You can see what such an AVV looks like in concrete terms at https://www.wko.at/service/wirtschaftsrecht-gewerberecht/eu-dsgvo-mustervertrag-auftragsverarbeitung.html, for example. A sample contract is presented here.

 

Cookies

Cookies Summary
Data subjects: visitors to the website
Purpose: depends on the cookie. More details can be found below or from the manufacturer of the software that sets the cookie.
Data processed: Depending on the cookie used in each case. More details can be found below or at the manufacturer of the software that sets the cookie.
Storage period: depending on the respective cookie, can vary from hours to years
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (Consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit.f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests).

What are cookies?

Our website uses HTTP cookies to store user-specific data.
Below we explain what cookies are and why they are used so that you can better understand the following privacy policy.

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

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

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

The following graphic shows a possible interaction between a web browser such as Chrome and the web server. Here, the web browser requests a website and receives a cookie back from the server, which the browser uses again as soon as another page is requested.

There are both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created directly by our site, third-party cookies are created by partner websites (e.g. Google Analytics). Each cookie must be evaluated individually, as each cookie stores different data. Also, the expiration time of a cookie varies from a few minutes to a few years. Cookies are not software programs and do not contain viruses, Trojans or other “pests”. Cookies also cannot access information on your PC.

For example, cookie data can look like this:

Name: _ga
Wert: GA1.2.1326744211.152122399459-9
Purpose: differentiation of website visitors
Expiration date: after 2 years

A browser should be able to support these minimum sizes:

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

What are the types of cookies?

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

We can distinguish 4 types of cookies:

Essential cookies
These cookies are necessary to ensure basic website functionality. For example, these cookies are needed when a user adds a product to the shopping cart, then continues to browse other pages and later proceeds to checkout. These cookies do not delete the shopping cart even if the user closes his browser window.

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

Target-oriented cookies
These cookies provide a better user experience. For example, entered locations, font sizes or form data are stored.

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

Usually, when you visit a website for the first time, you are asked which of these cookie types you want to allow. And, of course, this decision is also stored in a cookie.

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

Purpose of processing via cookies

The purpose ultimately depends on the cookie in question. You can find more details below or from the manufacturer of the software that sets the cookie.

What data is processed?

Cookies are small helpers for many different tasks. Unfortunately, it is not possible to generalize what data is stored in cookies, but we will inform you about the processed or stored data in the following privacy policy.

Cookies storage duration

The storage period depends on the particular cookie and is specified further below. Some cookies are deleted after less than an hour, others can remain stored on a computer for several years.

You can also influence the storage period yourself. You can manually delete all cookies at any time via your browser (see also “Right of objection” below). Furthermore, cookies that are based on consent will be deleted at the latest after revocation of your consent, whereby the legality of the storage remains unaffected until then.

Right to object – how can I delete cookies?

How and whether you want to use cookies, you decide. Regardless of which service or website the cookies come from, you always have the option to delete, disable or only partially allow cookies. For example, you can block third-party cookies, but allow all other cookies.

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

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you do not want to have cookies in principle, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. In this way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether you allow the cookie or not. The procedure varies depending on the browser. It is best to search for the instructions in Google using the search term “delete cookies Chrome” or “disable cookies Chrome” in the case of a Chrome browser.

Legal basis

The so-called “Cookie Guidelines” have been in place since 2009. These state that the storage of cookies requires your consent (Article 6 (1) a DSGVO). Within the EU countries, however, there are still very different reactions to these directives. In Austria, however, this directive was implemented in Section 96 (3) of the Telecommunications Act (TKG). In Germany, the Cookie Directives were not implemented as national law. Instead, this directive was largely implemented in Section 15 (3) of the German Telemedia Act (TMG).

For absolutely necessary cookies, even in the absence of consent, there are legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) DSGVO), which in most cases are economic in nature. We want to provide visitors to the website with a pleasant user experience and for this purpose certain cookies are often absolutely necessary.

If cookies are used that are not absolutely necessary, this only happens in the case of your consent. The legal basis in this respect is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO.

In the following sections, you will be informed in more detail about the use of cookies, if used software uses cookies.

 

Web hosting introduction

Web hosting summary Data
subjects: visitors to the website
Purpose: professional hosting of the website and securing its operation
Processed data: IP address, time of website visit, browser used and other data. More details can be found below or with the respective web hosting provider used.
Storage period: depends on the respective provider, but usually 2 weeks
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit.f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests).

What is web hosting?

When you visit websites nowadays, certain information – including personal data – is automatically created and stored, including on this website. This data should be processed as sparingly as possible and only with justification. By the way, by website we mean the entirety of all web pages on a domain, i.e. everything from the home page (homepage) to the very last subpage (like this one). By domain, we mean, for example, example.de or sampleexample.com.

When you want to view a website on a computer, tablet, or smartphone, you use a program called a web browser to do so. You probably know some web browsers by name: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari. We say browser or web browser for short.

To display the website, the browser must connect to another computer where the website’s code is stored: the web server. Operating a web server is a complicated and costly task, which is why this is usually done by professional providers, the providers. These offer web hosting and thus ensure reliable and error-free storage of website data. A whole lot of technical terms, but please stay tuned, it gets better!

When the browser on your computer (desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone) connects and during data transfer to and from the web server, personal data may be processed. On the one hand, your computer stores data; on the other hand, the web server must also store data for a while to ensure proper operation.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so the following graphic illustrates the interaction between the browser, the Internet and the hosting provider.

Why do we process personal data?

The purposes of data processing are:

  1. Professional hosting of the website and securing its operation
  2. to maintain operational and IT security
  3. Anonymous evaluation of access behavior for the improvement of our offer and, if necessary, for criminal prosecution or the pursuit of claims

What data is processed?

Even while you are visiting our website right now, our web server, which is the computer on which this website is stored, usually automatically stores data such as

  • the complete Internet address (URL) of the accessed web page
  • Browser and browser version (e.g. Chrome 87)
  • the operating system used (e.g. Windows 10)
  • the address (URL) of the previously visited page (referrer URL) (e.g. https://www.beispielquellsite.de/vondabinichgekommen/)
  • the hostname and IP address of the device being accessed from (e.g. COMPUTERNAME and 194.23.43.121)
  • Date and time
  • in files, the so-called web server log files

How long is data stored?

As a rule, the above data is stored for two weeks and then automatically deleted. We do not pass on this data, but we cannot exclude the possibility that this data may be viewed by authorities in the event of unlawful conduct.

In short, your visit is logged by our provider (company that runs our website on special computers (servers)), but we do not share your information without consent!

Legal basis

The lawfulness of the processing of personal data in the context of web hosting results from Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (protection of legitimate interests), because the use of professional hosting with a provider is necessary to present the company on the Internet in a secure and user-friendly manner and to be able to pursue attacks and claims from this if necessary.

There is usually a contract between us and the hosting provider for commissioned processing pursuant to Art. 28 f. DSGVO, which ensures compliance with data protection and guarantees data security.

Web Analytics Introduction

Web Analytics Privacy Policy Summary Data
subject: visitors to the website
Purpose: evaluation of visitor information to optimize the web offer.
Data Processed: Access statistics that include data such as access locations, device data, access duration and time, navigation behavior, click behavior and IP addresses. More details can be found at the respective web analytics tool used.
Storage period: depending on the web analytics tool used
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (Consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests).

What is Web Analytics?

We use software on our website to evaluate the behavior of website visitors, known as web analytics for short. This involves collecting data that is stored, managed and processed by the respective analytic tool provider (also known as a tracking tool). The data is used to create analyses of user behavior on our website and made available to us as the website operator. In addition, most tools offer various testing options. For example, we can test which offers or content are best received by our visitors. To do this, we show you two different offers for a limited period of time. After the test (so-called A/B test), we know which product or content our website visitors find more interesting. For such test procedures, as for other analytics procedures, user profiles can also be created and the data stored in cookies.

Why do we run web analytics?

With our website we have a clear goal in mind: we want to deliver the best web offer on the market for our industry. To achieve this goal, we want to offer the best and most interesting offer on the one hand, and on the other hand make sure that you feel completely comfortable on our website. With the help of web analysis tools, we can take a closer look at the behavior of our website visitors and then improve our web offer for you and us accordingly. For example, we can see how old our visitors are on average, where they come from, when our website is most visited or which content or products are particularly popular. All this information helps us to optimize the website and thus best adapt it to your needs, interests and wishes.

What data is processed?

Exactly what data is stored depends, of course, on the analysis tools used. But as a rule, for example, which content you view on our website, which buttons or links you click on, when you access a page, which browser you use, which device (PC, tablet, smartphone, etc.) you use to visit the website or which computer system you use is stored. If you agreed that location data may also be collected, these may also be processed by the web analytics tool provider.

In addition, your IP address is also stored. According to the General Data Protection Regulation (DSGVO), IP addresses are personal data. However, your IP address is usually stored pseudonymously (i.e. in an unrecognizable and shortened form). For the purpose of testing, web analysis and web optimization, no direct data, such as your name, age, address or email address are stored as a matter of principle. All this data, if collected, is stored pseudonymously. Thus, you cannot be identified as a person.

The following example schematically shows how Google Analytics works as an example of client-based web tracking with Java Script code.

How long the respective data is stored always depends on the provider. Some cookies store data only for a few minutes or until you leave the website again, other cookies can store data for several years.

Duration of data processing

We will inform you about the duration of data processing below, provided we have further information on this. In general, we process personal data only as long as it is absolutely necessary for the provision of our services and products. If it is required by law, as for example in the case of accounting, this storage period may also be exceeded.

Right of objection

You also have the right and the possibility to revoke your consent to the use of cookies or third-party providers at any time. This works either via our cookie management tool or via other opt-out functions. For example, you can also prevent data collection through cookies by managing, disabling or deleting cookies in your browser.

Legal basis

The use of web analytics requires your consent, which we have obtained with our cookie popup. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent), this consent constitutes the legal basis for the processing of personal data as it may occur during the collection by web analytics tools.

In addition to consent, there is a legitimate interest on our part to analyze the behavior of website visitors and thus to improve our offer technically and economically. With the help of web analytics, we detect errors of the website, can identify attacks and improve the economic efficiency. The legal basis for this is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests). Nevertheless, we use the tools only insofar as they have given consent.

Since web analytics tools use cookies, we also recommend that you read our general privacy policy on cookies. To find out exactly which of your data is stored and processed, you should read the privacy statements of the respective tools.

Information on specific web analytics tools, if any, is provided in the following sections.

Facebook Conversions API Privacy Policy

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

Facebook also processes data from you in the USA, among other places. We would like to point out that according to the opinion of the European Court of Justice, there is currently no adequate level of protection for the transfer of data to the USA. This may be associated with various risks for the legality and security of data processing.

Facebook uses so-called standard contractual clauses (= Art. 46. para. 2 and 3 DSGVO) as the basis for data processing for recipients located in third countries (outside the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, i.e. in particular in the USA) or a data transfer there. Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are templates provided by the EU Commission and are intended to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards even if it is transferred to third countries (such as the USA) and stored there. Through these clauses, Facebook undertakes to comply with the European level of data protection when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed and managed in the US. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding standard contractual clauses here, among other places: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2021/914/oj?locale=de

Facebook’s data processing terms and conditions, which comply with the standard contractual clauses, can be found at https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms/dataprocessing.

You can learn more about the data processed through the use of Facebook Conversions API in the Privacy Policy at https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy.

 

Google Analytics Privacy Policy

Google Analytics Privacy Policy Summary Data
subjects: visitors to the website
Purpose: evaluation of visitor information to optimize the web offer.
Data Processed: Access statistics, which include data such as locations of accesses, device data, access duration and time, navigation behavior, click behavior and IP addresses. More details can be found below in this Privacy Policy.
Storage period: depending on the properties used
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (Consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests).

What is Google Analytics?

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

Google Analytics is a tracking tool used for traffic analysis of our website. In order for Google Analytics to work, a tracking code is built into the code of our website. When you visit our website, this code records various actions you take on our website. Once you leave our website, this data is sent to the Google Analytics servers and stored there.

Google processes the data and we receive reports about your user behavior. These reports may include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Target group reports: Through target group reports, we get to know our users better and know more precisely who is interested in our service.
  • Ad reports: Ad reports make it easier for us to analyze and improve our online advertising.
  • Acquisition reports: Acquisition reports give us helpful information on how to get more people interested in our service.
  • Behavior reports: This is where we learn how you interact with our website. We can track which path you take on our site and which links you click.
  • Conversion reports: Conversion is the name given to a process in which you perform a desired action as a result of a marketing message. For example, when you go from being just a website visitor to a buyer or newsletter subscriber. These reports help us learn more about how our marketing efforts are working for you. This is how we aim to increase our conversion rate.
  • Real-time reports: Here we always know immediately what is happening on our website. For example, we can see how many users are reading this text.

Why do we use Google Analytics on our website?

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

The statistically evaluated data shows us a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of our website. On the one hand, we can optimize our site so that it is found more easily by interested people on Google. On the other hand, the data helps us to better understand you as a visitor. Thus, we know very well what we need to improve on our website in order to provide you with the best possible service. The data also helps us to carry out our advertising and marketing measures in a more individual and cost-effective way. After all, it only makes sense to show our products and services to people who are interested in them.

What data is stored by Google Analytics?

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

To be able to analyze our website with Google Analytics, a property ID must be inserted into the tracking code. The data is then stored in the corresponding property. For each newly created property, the Google Analytics 4 property is default. Alternatively, you can also create the Universal Analytics property. Depending on the property used, data is stored for different lengths of time.

Identifiers such as cookies and app instance IDs measure your interactions on our website. Interactions are all types of actions you take on our website. If you also use other Google systems (such as a Google account), data generated through Google Analytics may be linked to third-party cookies. Google does not share Google Analytics data unless we, as the website operator, authorize it. Exceptions may occur if required by law.

The following cookies are used by Google Analytics:

Name: _ga
Wert: 2.1326744211.152122399459-5
Purpose: By default, analytics.js uses the _ga cookie to store the user ID. Basically, it is used to distinguish website visitors.
Expiration date: after 2 years

Name: _gid
Wert: 2.1687193234.152122399459-1
Purpose: the cookie is also used to distinguish website visitors
Expiration date: after 24 hours

Name: _gat_gtag_UA_<property-id>
Value: 1
Purpose: Used to lower the request rate. If Google Analytics is deployed via Google Tag Manager, this cookie will be named _dc_gtm_ <property-id>.
Expiration date: after 1 minute

Name: AMP_TOKEN
Value: not specified
Purpose: The cookie has a token that can be used to retrieve a user ID from the AMP client ID service. Other possible values indicate a logout, a request, or an error.
Expiration date: after 30 seconds up to one year

Name: __utma
Wert: 1564498958.1564498958.1564498958.1
Purpose: This cookie is used to track your behavior on the website and measure performance. The cookie is updated every time information is sent to Google Analytics.
Expiration date: after 2 years

Name: __utmt
Value: 1
Purpose: The cookie is used like _gat_gtag_UA_<property-id> to throttle the request rate.
Expiration date: after 10 minutes

Name: __utmb
Value: 3.10.1564498958
Purpose: This cookie is used to determine new sessions. It is updated every time new data or info is sent to Google Analytics.
Expiration date: after 30 minutes

Name: __utmc
Value: 167421564
Purpose: This cookie is used to set new sessions for returning visitors. This is a session cookie and is only stored until you close the browser again.
Expiration date: After you close the browser.

Name: __utmz
Value: m|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/
Purpose: The cookie is used to identify the source of traffic to our website. That is, the cookie stores from where you came to our website. This may have been another page or an advertisement.
Expiration date: after 6 months

Name: __utmv
Value: not specified
Purpose: The cookie is used to store custom user data. It is updated whenever information is sent to Google Analytics.
Expiration date: after 2 years

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

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

Heatmaps: Google creates so-called heatmaps. Heatmaps allow you to see exactly those areas that you click on. This gives us information about where you are “on the move” on our site.

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

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

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

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

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

Technical information: Technical information may include your browser type, Internet service provider, or screen resolution.

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

Other data include contact details, any ratings, playing media (e.g. when you play a video via our site), sharing content via social media or adding to your favorites. The enumeration does not claim to be complete and only serves as a general orientation of the data storage by Google Analytics.

How long and where is the data stored?

Google has their servers spread all over the world. Most servers are located in America and consequently your data is mostly stored on American servers. Here you can read exactly where Google data centers are located: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/?hl=de

Your data is distributed on different physical data carriers. This has the advantage that the data can be retrieved more quickly and is better protected against manipulation. In every Google data center, there are corresponding emergency programs for your data. If, for example, the hardware at Google fails or natural disasters paralyze servers, the risk of a service interruption at Google still remains low.

The data retention period depends on the properties used. When using the newer Google Analytics 4 properties, the retention period of your user data is set to 14 months. For other so-called event data, we have the option to choose a retention period of 2 months or 14 months.

For Universal Analytics properties, Google Analytics has a default retention period of 26 months for your user data. Then your user data is deleted. However, we have the option to choose the retention period of user data ourselves. We have five variants available for this purpose:

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

In addition, there is also the option that data will only be deleted if you no longer visit our website within the period we have selected. In this case, the retention period is reset each time you visit our website again within the specified period.

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

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

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

If you basically want to disable, delete or manage cookies, you can find the corresponding links to the respective instructions of the most popular browsers under the section “Cookies”.

Legal basis

The use of Google Analytics requires your consent, which we have obtained with our cookie popup. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent), this consent constitutes the legal basis for the processing of personal data as it may occur during the collection by web analytics tools.

In addition to the consent, there is a legitimate interest on our part to analyze the behavior of website visitors and thus to improve our offer technically and economically. With the help of Google Analytics, we detect website errors, can identify attacks and improve the economic efficiency. The legal basis for this is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests). Nevertheless, we only use Google Analytics if you have given your consent.

Google also processes data from you in the USA, among other places. We would like to point out that according to the opinion of the European Court of Justice, there is currently no adequate level of protection for the transfer of data to the USA. This may be associated with various risks for the legality and security of data processing.

Google uses so-called standard contractual clauses (= Art. 46. para. 2 and 3 DSGVO) as the basis for data processing for recipients located in third countries (outside the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, i.e. in particular in the USA) or a data transfer there. Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are templates provided by the EU Commission and are intended to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards even if it is transferred to third countries (such as the USA) and stored there. Through these clauses, Google undertakes to comply with the European level of data protection when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed and managed in the US. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding standard contractual clauses here, among other places: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2021/914/oj?locale=de

The Google Ads Data Processing Terms, which reference the Standard Contractual Clauses, can be found at https://business.safety.google/intl/de/adsprocessorterms/.

We hope we have been able to provide you with the most important information about Google Analytics data processing. If you want to learn more about the tracking service, we recommend these two links: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/de/ and https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=de.

Google Analytics order processing agreement (AVV)

In accordance with Article 28 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we have concluded an order processing agreement (OPA) with Google. What exactly is a GCU and especially what must be included in a GCU, you can read in our general section “Order processing agreement (GCU)”.

This contract is required by law because Google processes personal data on our behalf. It clarifies that Google may only process data they receive from us according to our instructions and must comply with the GDPR. You can find the link to the order data processing conditions at https://business.safety.google/intl/de/adsprocessorterms/.

Google Analytics reports on demographic characteristics and interests

We have turned on the advertising reports features in Google Analytics. The demographic and interest reports contain information on age, gender and interests. This allows us – without being able to assign this data to individual persons – to get a better picture of our users. You can learn more about the advertising functions at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3450482?hl=de_AT&utm_id=ad.

You can stop the use of the activities and information of your Google account under “Advertising settings” on https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated via checkbox.

Google Analytics in consent mode

Depending on your consent, personal data of you will be processed by Google Analytics in the so-called consent mode (or “Consent Mode”). You can choose whether you agree to Google Analytics cookies or not. By doing so, you also choose which data Google Analytics may process from you. This collected data is mainly used to perform measurements about user behavior on the website, to play out targeted advertising and to provide us with web analytics reports. As a rule, you consent to data processing by Google via a cookie consent tool. If you do not consent to data processing, only aggregated data will be collected and processed. This means that data cannot be assigned to individual users and thus no user profile of you is created. You can also only consent to statistical measurement. No personal data is processed and consequently not used for advertising or advertising success.

Google Analytics IP anonymization

We have implemented Google Analytics IP address anonymization on this website. This feature was developed by Google to enable this website to comply with applicable data protection regulations and recommendations of local data protection authorities when they prohibit storage of the full IP address. The anonymization or masking of the IP takes place as soon as the IP addresses arrive in the Google Analytics data collection network and before any storage or processing of the data takes place.

For more information on IP anonymization, please visit https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2763052?hl=de.

Email marketing introduction

Email marketing summary Data
subject: Newsletter subscribers
Purpose: Direct advertising by email, notification of system-relevant events
Data processed: Data entered during registration but at least the email address. More details can be found with the respective email marketing tool used.
Storage period: Duration of the existence of the subscription
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (legitimate interests).

What is email marketing?

In order to keep you always up to date, we also use the possibility of e-mail marketing. If you have agreed to receive our e-mails or newsletters, your data will also be processed and stored. E-mail marketing is a sub-area of online marketing. It involves sending news or general information about a company, products or services by e-mail to a specific group of people who are interested in them.

If you want to participate in our email marketing (mostly via newsletter), you usually just have to register with your email address. To do this, you fill out an online form and send it off. However, it may also happen that we ask you for your salutation and name, for example, so that we can also write to you personally.

Basically, the registration for newsletters works with the help of the so-called “double opt-in procedure”. After you have registered for our newsletter on our website, you will receive an e-mail via which you confirm the newsletter registration. This ensures that the e-mail address belongs to you and that no one has registered with a third-party e-mail address. We or a notification tool we use logs each individual subscription. This is necessary so that we can also prove the legally correct registration process. As a rule, the time of registration, the time of the registration confirmation and your IP address are stored. In addition, it is also logged when you make changes to your stored data.

Why do we use email marketing?

Of course, we want to stay in touch with you and always present you with the most important news about our company. To do this, we use, among other things, e-mail marketing – often just called “newsletters” – as an essential part of our online marketing. If you agree to this or if it is legally permitted, we will send you newsletters, system e-mails or other notifications by e-mail. When we use the term “newsletter” in the following text, we mainly mean regularly sent e-mails. Of course, we do not want to bother you in any way with our newsletters. That’s why we really always try to provide only relevant and interesting content. For example, you will learn more about our company, our services or products. Since we are always improving our offers, our newsletter will also tell you when there is news or when we are offering special, lucrative promotions. If we use a service provider that offers a professional mailing tool for our e-mail marketing, we do so in order to be able to offer you fast and secure newsletters. The purpose of our email marketing is basically to inform you about new offers and also to get closer to our business goals.

What data is processed?

When you become a subscriber to our newsletter via our website, you confirm by e-mail that you are a member of an e-mail list. In addition to IP address and e-mail address, your title, name, address and telephone number may also be stored. However, only if you agree to this data storage. The data marked as such are necessary for you to participate in the service offered. Providing this information is voluntary, but failure to provide it will result in you not being able to use the service. In addition, information about your device or your preferred content on our website may be stored. You can find out more about the storage of data when you visit a website in the section “Automatic data storage”. We record your declaration of consent so that we can always prove that this complies with our laws.

Duration of data processing

If you unsubscribe your e-mail address from our e-mail/newsletter distribution list, we may store your address for up to three years based on our legitimate interests so that we can still prove your consent at that time. We may only process this data if we need to defend ourselves against any claims.

However, if you confirm that you have given us your consent to subscribe to the newsletter, you can submit an individual deletion request at any time. If you permanently object to the consent, we reserve the right to store your e-mail address in a blacklist. As long as you have voluntarily subscribed to our newsletter, we will of course also keep your e-mail address.

Right of objection

You have the option to cancel your newsletter subscription at any time. All you have to do is revoke your consent to the newsletter subscription. This usually takes only a few seconds or one or two clicks. Most of the time, you will find a link to cancel your newsletter subscription right at the end of each email. If you really can’t find the link in the newsletter, please contact us by mail and we will cancel your newsletter subscription immediately.

Legal basis

The sending of our newsletter is based on your consent (Article 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO). This means that we may only send you a newsletter if you have actively registered for it beforehand. If applicable, we may also send you advertising messages, provided that you have become our customer and have not objected to the use of your email address for direct advertising.

Information about specific email marketing services and how they process personal data, if any, is provided in the following sections.

 

Social media introduction

Social media privacy policy summary Data
subjects: Visitors to the website
Purpose: Presentation and optimization of our service, contact with visitors, interested parties, etc., advertising
Data processed: Data such as phone numbers, email addresses, contact details, user behavior data, information about your device and your IP address.
You can find more details on this with the respective social media tool
used.
Storage period: depending on the social media platforms
used
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (Consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests).

What is social media?

In addition to our website, we are also active on various social media platforms. In this context, user data may be processed so that we can target users who are interested in us via the social networks. In addition, elements of a social media platform may also be embedded directly in our website. This is the case, for example, when you click on a so-called social button on our website and are redirected directly to our social media presence. So-called social media or social media are websites and apps through which registered members can produce content, share content openly or in specific groups, and network with other members.

Why do we use social media?

For years, social media platforms have been the place where people communicate and get in touch online. Our social media presences enable us to bring our products and services closer to prospective customers. The social media elements embedded on our website help you switch to our social media content quickly and without complications.

The data that is stored and processed through your use of a social media channel is primarily for the purpose of being able to perform web analyses. The aim of these analyses is to be able to develop more precise and personalized marketing and advertising strategies. Depending on your behavior on a social media platform, appropriate conclusions can be drawn about your interests with the help of the evaluated data and so-called user profiles can be created. This also enables the platforms to present you with tailored advertisements. In most cases, cookies are set in your browser for this purpose, which store data about your usage behavior.

We generally assume that we remain responsible under data protection law, even if we use services of a social media platform. However, the European Court of Justice has ruled that in certain cases the operator of the social media platform may be jointly responsible with us within the meaning of Art. 26 DSGVO. Insofar as this is the case, we point this out separately and work on the basis of an agreement in this regard. The essence of the agreement is then reproduced below for the platform concerned.

Please note that when using the social media platforms or our built-in elements, data about you may also be processed outside the European Union, as many social media channels, for example Facebook or Twitter, are American companies. This may make it less easy for you to claim or enforce your rights regarding your personal data.

What data is processed?

Exactly what data is stored and processed depends on the provider of the social media platform. But usually it is data such as phone numbers, email addresses, data you enter in a contact form, user data such as which buttons you click, who you like or follow, when you visited which pages, information about your device and your IP address. Most of this data is stored in cookies. Especially if you yourself have a profile on the visited social media channel and are logged in, data can be linked to your profile.

All data collected via a social media platform is also stored on the servers of the providers. Thus, only the providers have access to the data and can give you the appropriate information or make changes.

If you want to know exactly what data is stored and processed by the social media providers and how you can object to the data processing, you should carefully read the respective privacy policy of the company. Even if you have questions about data storage and data processing or want to assert corresponding rights, we recommend that you contact the provider directly.

Duration of data processing

We will inform you about the duration of data processing below, provided we have further information on this. For example, the social media platform Facebook stores data until it is no longer needed for its own purpose. However, customer data that is matched with our own user data is already deleted within two days. In general, we only process personal data for as long as is absolutely necessary for the provision of our services and products. If it is required by law, for example in the case of accounting, this storage period may be exceeded.

Right of objection

You also have the right and the possibility to revoke your consent to the use of cookies or third-party providers such as embedded social media elements at any time. This works either via our cookie management tool or via other opt-out functions. For example, you can also prevent data collection through cookies by managing, disabling or deleting cookies in your browser.

Since social media tools may use cookies, we also recommend that you read our general privacy policy on cookies. To find out exactly which of your data is stored and processed, you should read the privacy statements of the respective tools.

Legal basis

If you have consented that data from you can be processed and stored by integrated social media elements, this consent is considered the legal basis of the data processing (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO). In principle, if consent is given, your data will also be stored and processed on the basis of our legitimate interest (Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO) in fast and good communication with you or other customers and business partners. Nevertheless, we only use the tools insofar as you have given your consent. Most social media platforms also set cookies in your browser to store data. That is why we recommend that you read our privacy text about cookies carefully and view the privacy policy or cookie policy of the respective service provider.

Information on specific social media platforms – if available – can be found in the following sections.

Facebook privacy policy

Facebook Privacy Policy Summary Data
subjects: Visitors to the website
Purpose: Optimization of our service
Processed data: Data such as customer data, user behavior data, information about your device and your IP address.
More details can be found below in the privacy policy.
Storage period: until the data is no longer useful for Facebook’s purposes
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (Consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests).

What are Facebook tools?

We use selected tools from Facebook on our website. Facebook is a social media network of the company Meta Platforms Inc. or for the European area of the company Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland. With the help of these tools, we can offer you and people who are interested in our products and services the best possible offer.

If data is collected from you and forwarded via our embedded Facebook elements or via our Facebook page (Fanpage), both we and Facebook Ireland Ltd. are responsible for this. Facebook is solely responsible for the further processing of this data. Our joint obligations have also been set out in a publicly available agreement at https://www.facebook.com/legal/controller_addendum. This states, for example, that we must clearly inform you about the use of Facebook tools on our site. Furthermore, we are also responsible for ensuring that the tools are securely integrated into our website in accordance with data protection law. Facebook, on the other hand, is responsible for the data security of Facebook products, for example. If you have any questions about data collection and data processing by Facebook, you can contact the company directly. If you direct the question to us, we are obliged to forward it to Facebook.

Below we provide an overview of the different Facebook tools, what data is sent to Facebook and how you can delete this data.

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

  • Facebook Pixel
  • social plug-ins (such as the “Like” or “Share” button)
  • Facebook Login
  • Account Kit
  • APIs (Application Programming Interface)
  • SDKs (collection of programming tools)
  • Platform integrations
  • Plugins
  • Codes
  • Specifications
  • Documentations
  • Technologies and services

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

Why do we use Facebook tools on our website?

We want to show our services and products only to people who are really interested in them. With the help of advertisements (Facebook ads), we can reach precisely these people. However, in order to show users suitable ads, Facebook needs information about people’s wishes and needs. Thus, information about user behavior (and contact data) on our website is made available to the company. As a result, Facebook collects better user data and can show interested people the appropriate advertising about our products or services. The tools thus enable tailored advertising campaigns on Facebook.

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

What data is stored by Facebook tools?

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

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

In addition to contact data, “event data” is also transmitted. Event data” refers to the information that we receive about you on our website. For example, which subpages you visit or which products you buy from us. Facebook does not share the information it receives with third parties (such as advertisers) unless the company has explicit permission or is legally required to do so. “Event data” may also be associated with contact information. This allows Facebook to offer better personalized advertising. After the matching process already mentioned, Facebook deletes the contact data again.

In order to deliver ads in an optimized manner, Facebook uses Event Data only when it has been aggregated with other data (collected by Facebook in other ways). Facebook also uses this event data for security, protection, development, and research purposes. Much of this data is transferred to Facebook via cookies. Cookies are small text files used to store data or information in browsers. Depending on the tools you use and whether you are a Facebook member, different numbers of cookies are created in your browser. We go into more detail about individual Facebook cookies in the descriptions of each Facebook tool. General information about the use of Facebook cookies can also be found at https://www.facebook.com/policies/cookies.

How long and where is the data stored?

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

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

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

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

1) Click Settings on the right side of Facebook.

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

3) Now click “Deactivation and deletion”.

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

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

The storage of data that Facebook receives via our site takes place, among other things, via cookies (e.g. for social plugins). In your browser, you can deactivate, delete or manage individual or all cookies. Depending on which browser you use, this works in different ways. Under the section “Cookies” you will find the corresponding links to the respective instructions of the most popular browsers.

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

Legal basis

If you have consented that data from you can be processed and stored by integrated Facebook tools, this consent is considered the legal basis for data processing (Art. 6 (1) lit. a DSGVO). In principle, your data will also be stored and processed on the basis of our legitimate interest (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO) in fast and good communication with you or other customers and business partners. Nevertheless, we only use the tools insofar as you have given your consent. Most social media platforms also set cookies in your browser to store data. That is why we recommend that you read our privacy text about cookies carefully and view Facebook’s privacy policy or cookie policy.

Facebook also processes data from you in the USA, among other places. We would like to point out that according to the opinion of the European Court of Justice, there is currently no adequate level of protection for the transfer of data to the USA. This may be associated with various risks for the legality and security of data processing.

Facebook uses so-called standard contractual clauses (= Art. 46. para. 2 and 3 DSGVO) as the basis for data processing for recipients located in third countries (outside the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, i.e. in particular in the USA) or a data transfer there. Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are templates provided by the EU Commission and are intended to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards even if it is transferred to third countries (such as the USA) and stored there. Through these clauses, Facebook undertakes to comply with the European level of data protection when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed and managed in the US. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding standard contractual clauses here, among other places: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2021/914/oj?locale=de

Facebook’s data processing terms and conditions, which comply with the standard contractual clauses, can be found at https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms/dataprocessing.

We hope we have brought you closer to the most important information about the use and data processing by Facebook tools. If you want to learn more about how Facebook uses your data, we recommend that you read the data policies at https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/update.

Facebook Fanpage Privacy Policy

We also have a Facebook fan page for our website. The service provider is the American company Meta Platforms Inc. The company Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland) is responsible for the European region.

Facebook also processes data from you in the USA, among other places. We would like to point out that according to the opinion of the European Court of Justice, there is currently no adequate level of protection for the transfer of data to the USA. This may be associated with various risks for the legality and security of data processing.

Facebook uses so-called standard contractual clauses (= Art. 46. para. 2 and 3 DSGVO) as the basis for data processing for recipients located in third countries (outside the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, i.e. in particular in the USA) or a data transfer there. Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are templates provided by the EU Commission and are intended to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards even if it is transferred to third countries (such as the USA) and stored there. Through these clauses, Facebook undertakes to comply with the European level of data protection when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed and managed in the US. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding standard contractual clauses here, among other places: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2021/914/oj?locale=de

The Facebook Data Processing Term, which complies with the Standard Contractual Clauses, can be found at https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms/dataprocessing.

You can learn more about the data processed through the use of Facebook in the Privacy Policy at https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy.

Instagram privacy policy

Instagram Privacy Policy Summary Data
subjects: Visitors to the website
Purpose: Optimization of our service
Processed data: Data such as user behavior data, information about your device and your IP address.
You can find more details below in the privacy policy.
Storage period: until Instagram no longer needs the data for its purposes
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (Consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests).

What is Instagram?

We have integrated Instagram functions on our website. Instagram is a social media platform of the company Instagram LLC, 1601 Willow Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025, USA. Instagram has been a subsidiary of Meta Platforms Inc. since 2012 and is part of the Facebook products. Embedding Instagram content on our website is called embedding. This allows us to show you content such as buttons, photos or videos from Instagram directly on our website. When you call up web pages on our website that have an Instagram function integrated, data is transmitted to Instagram, stored and processed. Instagram uses the same systems and technologies as Facebook. Your data is thus processed across all Facebook companies.

In the following, we want to give you a more detailed insight into why Instagram collects data, what kind of data it is and how you can largely control the data processing. Since Instagram belongs to Meta Platforms Inc., we obtain our information on the one hand from the Instagram policies, but on the other hand also from the Meta Privacy Policy itself.

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

Why do we use Instagram on our website?

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

Instagram also uses the collected data for measurement and analytics purposes. We get aggregate statistics and thus more insight about your likes and interests. It’s important to note that these reports do not identify you personally.

What data is stored by Instagram?

When you come across one of our pages that have Instagram features (such as Instagram images or plug-ins) built in, your browser automatically connects to Instagram’s servers. In the process, data is sent to Instagram, stored and processed. And this is regardless of whether you have an Instagram account or not. This includes information about our website, about your computer, about purchases made, about advertisements you see and how you use our offer. Furthermore, the date and time of your interaction with Instagram is also stored. If you have an Instagram account or are logged in, Instagram stores significantly more data about you.

Facebook distinguishes between customer data and event data. We assume that this is exactly the same for Instagram. Customer data are, for example, name, address, phone number and IP address. This customer data is only transmitted to Instagram after it has been hashed. Hashing means that a data record is transformed into a character string. This makes it possible to encrypt the contact data. In addition, the “event data” mentioned above is also transmitted. By “event data” Facebook – and consequently Instagram – understands data about your user behavior. It may also happen that contact data is combined with event data. The collected contact data is matched with the data that Instagram already has from you.

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

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

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

These cookies were used in our test:

Name: csrftoken
Value: “”
Purpose: This cookie is most likely set for security reasons, to prevent falsification of requests. However, we could not find out more precisely.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: mid
Value: “”
Purpose: Instagram sets this cookie to optimize its own services and offerings on and off Instagram. The cookie sets a unique user ID.
Expiration date: after the end of the session

Name: fbsr_122399459124024
Value: not specified
Purpose: This cookie stores the log-in request for users of the Instagram app.
Expiration date: after the end of the session

Name: rur
Value: ATN
Purpose: This is an Instagram cookie that ensures functionality on Instagram.
Expiration date: after the end of the session

Name: urlgen
Wert: “{”194.96.75.33”: 1901}:1iEtYv:Y833k2_UjKvXgYe122399459”
Purpose: This cookie is used for Instagram’s marketing purposes.
Expiration date: after the end of the session

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

How long and where is the data stored?

Instagram shares the information it receives between Facebook companies with external partners and with people you connect with around the world. The data processing is done in compliance with its own data policy. Your data is distributed, among other things for security reasons, on Facebook servers around the world. Most of these servers are located in the USA.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

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

And this is how the deletion of the Instagram account works:

First, open the Instagram app. On your profile page, go down and click on “Help section”. Now you will get to the company’s website. On the webpage, click “Manage account” and then click “Delete your account”.

When you delete your account entirely, Instagram deletes posts such as your photos and status updates. Information that other people have shared about you does not belong to your account and consequently will not be deleted.

As mentioned above, Instagram stores your data primarily via cookies. You can manage, disable or delete these cookies in your browser. Depending on your browser, the management always works a bit differently. Under the section “Cookies” you will find the corresponding links to the respective instructions of the most popular browsers.

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

Legal basis

If you have consented that data from you can be processed and stored by integrated social media elements, this consent is considered the legal basis of the data processing (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO). In principle, your data will also be stored and processed on the basis of our legitimate interest (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO) in fast and good communication with you or other customers and business partners. Nevertheless, we only use the integrated social media elements insofar as you have given your consent. Most social media platforms also set cookies in your browser to store data. That is why we recommend that you read our privacy text about cookies carefully and view the privacy policy or cookie policy of the respective service provider.

Instagram and Facebook, respectively, also process data in the USA, among other places. We would like to point out that according to the opinion of the European Court of Justice, there is currently no adequate level of protection for the transfer of data to the USA. This may be associated with various risks for the legality and security of data processing.

Facebook uses standard contractual clauses approved by the EU Commission (= Art. 46. para. 2 and 3 DSGVO) as the basis for data processing at recipients located in third countries (outside the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, i.e. in particular in the USA) or a data transfer there. These clauses oblige Facebook to comply with the EU level of data protection when processing relevant data outside the EU as well. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the clauses here, among other places: https://germany.representation.ec.europa.eu/index_de.

We have tried to bring you closer to the most important information about Instagram’s data processing.
You can learn more about Instagram’s data policies at https://help.instagram.com/519522125107875.

Twitter privacy policy

Twitter Privacy Policy Summary Data
subjects: Visitors to the website
Purpose: Optimization of our service
Processed data: Data such as user behavior data, information about your device and your IP address.
More details can be found below in the privacy policy.
Storage period: collected data from other websites is deleted by Twitter after 30 days at the latest
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (Consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests).

What is Twitter?

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

To our knowledge, in the European Economic Area and in Switzerland, no personal data or data about your web activities are transmitted to Twitter by the mere inclusion of the Twitter function. Only when you interact with the Twitter functions, such as clicking on a button, can data be sent to Twitter, stored there and processed. We have no influence on this data processing and bear no responsibility for it. Within the scope of this privacy policy, we want to give you an overview of what data Twitter stores, what Twitter does with this data and how you can protect yourself from the data transfer to a large extent.

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

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

Why do we use Twitter on our website?

Like many other websites and companies, we try to offer our services and communicate with our customers through various channels. Especially Twitter has grown close to our hearts as a useful “little” news service. Again and again we tweet or retweet exciting, funny or interesting content. We realize that you can’t follow every channel separately. After all, you also have something else to do. That’s why we have included Twitter functions on our website. You can follow our Twitter activity “on the spot” or follow a direct link to our Twitter page. Through this integration, we want to strengthen our service and user-friendliness on our website.

What data is stored by Twitter?

On some of our subpages you will find the built-in Twitter functions. When you interact with the Twitter content, such as clicking on a button, Twitter may collect and store data. This is the case even if you do not 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 about what pages you visited on Twitter and what actions you took. Twitter, of course, stores more data if you have a Twitter account and are logged in. Most of the time, this storage happens via cookies. Cookies are small text files that are usually set in your browser and transmit different information to Twitter.

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

These cookies were used in our test:

Name: personalization_id
Wert: “v1_cSJIsogU51SeE122399459”
Purpose: This cookie stores information about how you use the website and through which advertisements you may have come to Twitter.
Expiration date: after 2 years

Name: lang
Value: en
Purpose: This cookie stores your default or preferred language.
Expiration date: after end of session

Name: guest_id
Value: 122399459v1%3A157132626
Purpose: This cookie is set to identify you as a guest.
Expiration date: after 2 years

Name: fm
Value: 0
Purpose: Unfortunately, we could not find out the purpose of this cookie.
Expiration date: after end of session

Name: external_referer
Wert: 1223994592beTA0sf5lkMrlGt
Purpose: This cookie collects anonymous data, such as how often you visit Twitter and how long you visit Twitter.
Expiration date: After 6 days

Name: eu_cn
Value: 1
Purpose: This cookie stores user activity and is used for various advertising purposes by Twitter.
Expiration date:
After one year

Name: ct0
Wert: c1179f07163a365d2ed7aad84c99d966
Purpose: Unfortunately, we have not found any information about this cookie.
Expiration date: after 6 hours

Name: _twitter_sess
Wert: 53D%253D–dd0248122399459-
Purpose: This cookie allows you to use features within the Twitter website.
Expiration date: after end of session

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

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

How long and where is the data stored?

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

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

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

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

If you do not have a Twitter account, you can go to twitter.com and then click on “Individualization”. Under the item “Individualization and data” you can manage your collected data.

Most data is stored via cookies, as mentioned above, and you can manage, disable or delete them in your browser. Please note that you only “edit” the cookies in the browser you have chosen. This means that if you use a different browser in the future, you will have to manage your cookies there again according to your wishes. Under the section “Cookies” you will find the corresponding links to the respective instructions of the most popular browsers.

You can also manage your browser so that you are informed about each individual cookie. Then you can always decide individually whether to allow a cookie or not.

Twitter also uses the data for personalized advertising inside and outside Twitter. You can disable personalized advertising in the settings under “Personalization and data”. If you use Twitter on a browser, you can disable personalized advertising at https://optout.aboutads.info/?c=2&lang=EN.

Legal basis

If you have consented that data from you can be processed and stored by integrated social media elements, this consent is considered the legal basis of the data processing (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO). In principle, your data will also be stored and processed on the basis of our legitimate interest (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO) in fast and good communication with you or other customers and business partners. Nevertheless, we only use the integrated social media elements insofar as you have given your consent. Most social media platforms also set cookies in your browser to store data. That is why we recommend that you read our privacy text about cookies carefully and view the privacy policy or cookie policy of the respective service provider.

Twitter also processes data from you in the USA, among other places. We would like to point out that according to the opinion of the European Court of Justice, there is currently no adequate level of protection for the transfer of data to the USA. This may be associated with various risks for the legality and security of data processing.

Twitter uses so-called standard contractual clauses (= Art. 46. para. 2 and 3 DSGVO) as the basis for data processing for recipients located in third countries (outside the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, i.e. in particular in the USA) or a data transfer there. Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are templates provided by the EU Commission and are intended to ensure that your data comply with European data protection standards even if they are transferred to third countries (such as the USA) and stored there. Through these clauses, Twitter undertakes to comply with the European level of data protection when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed and managed in the USA. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding standard contractual clauses here, among other places: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2021/914/oj?locale=de

More information about Twitter’s standard contractual clauses can be found at https://gdpr.twitter.com/en/controller-to-controller-transfers.html.

We hope we have given 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 that you read the Twitter privacy statement at https://twitter.com/de/privacy.

Online marketing introduction

Online Marketing Privacy Policy Summary
 Data subjects: visitors to the website
Purpose: evaluation of visitor information to optimize the web offer.
Data Processed: Access statistics, which include data such as locations of accesses, device data, access duration and time, navigation behavior, click behavior and IP addresses. Personal data such as name or e-mail address may also be processed. More details on this can be found with the respective online marketing tool used.
Storage period: depending on the online marketing tools used
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (Consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit.f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests).

What is online marketing?

Online marketing refers to all measures that are carried out online to achieve marketing goals such as increasing brand awareness or closing a deal. Furthermore, our online marketing measures aim to draw people’s attention to our website. In order to be able to show our offering to many interested people, we therefore engage in online marketing. This usually involves online advertising, content marketing or search engine optimization. To enable us to use online marketing efficiently and in a targeted manner, personal data is also stored and processed. On the one hand, the data helps us to show our content only to those people who are really interested in it, and on the other hand, we can measure the advertising success of our online marketing measures.

Why do we use online marketing tools?

We want to show our website to every person who is interested in our offer. We are aware that this is not possible without consciously set measures. That’s why we do online marketing. There are various tools that make it easier for us to work on our online marketing measures and, in addition, always provide suggestions for improvement via data. This allows us to target our campaigns more precisely to our target group. So the purpose of these online marketing tools we use is ultimately to optimize our offering.

What data is processed?

In order for our online marketing to work and the success of the measures can be measured, user profiles are created and data is stored, for example, in cookies (these are small text files). With the help of this data, we can not only place advertisements in the classic sense, but also directly on our website, display our content in the way you prefer. For this purpose, there are various third-party tools that offer these functions and accordingly also collect and store data from you. In the named cookies are stored, for example, which web pages you have visited on our website, how long you have viewed these pages, which links or buttons you click or from which website you have come to us. In addition, technical information may also be stored. For example, your IP address, which browser you use, from which device you visit our website or the time when you accessed our website and when you left it again. If you have consented that we may also determine your location, we may also store and process this.

Your IP address is stored in pseudonymized form (i.e., shortened). Unique data that directly identifies you as a person, such as name, address or e-mail address, is also only stored in pseudonymized form as part of the advertising and online marketing processes. We can therefore not identify you as a person, but we have only the pseudonymized stored information in the user profiles.

The cookies may also be deployed, analyzed and used for advertising purposes on other websites that use the same advertising tools. The data may then also be stored on the servers of the advertising tools providers.

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

With all the advertising tools we use, which stores data from you on their servers, we only ever receive aggregate information and never data that makes you recognizable as an individual. The data only shows how well set advertising measures worked. For example, we see which measures have persuaded you or other users to come to our website and purchase a service or product there. Based on the analyses, we can improve our advertising offer in the future and adapt it even more precisely to the needs and wishes of interested persons.

Duration of data processing

We will inform you about the duration of data processing below, provided we have further information on this. In general, we process personal data only as long as it is absolutely necessary for the provision of our services and products. Data that is stored in cookies is stored for different lengths of time. Some cookies are deleted as soon as you leave the website, others may be stored in your browser for several years. In the respective privacy statements of the individual providers, you will usually receive detailed information about the individual cookies used by the provider.

Right of objection

You also have the right and the possibility to revoke your consent to the use of cookies or third-party providers at any time. This works either via our cookie management tool or via other opt-out functions. For example, you can also prevent data collection through cookies by managing, disabling or deleting cookies in your browser. The lawfulness of the processing until the revocation remains unaffected.

Since online marketing tools can usually use cookies, we also recommend that you read our general privacy policy on cookies. To find out exactly which of your data is stored and processed, you should read the privacy statements of the respective tools.

Legal basis

If you have consented that third-party providers may be used, the legal basis of the corresponding data processing is this consent. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent), this consent constitutes the legal basis for the processing of personal data as it may occur when collected by online marketing tools.

We also have a legitimate interest in measuring online marketing measures in anonymized form in order to optimize our offer and our measures with the help of the data obtained. The corresponding legal basis for this is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests). Nevertheless, we only use the tools if you have given your consent.

Information on specific online marketing tools – if available – can be found in the following sections.

 

HubSpot Privacy Policy

We use HubSpot, a digital marketing tool, on our website. The service provider is the American company HubSpot, Inc, 25 First St 2nd Floor Cambridge, MA, USA. The company also has a registered office in Ireland, among other places, with the address 1 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2, Ireland.

HubSpot also processes data from you in the USA, among other places. We would like to point out that according to the opinion of the European Court of Justice, there is currently no adequate level of protection for the transfer of data to the USA. This may be associated with various risks for the legality and security of data processing.

HubSpot uses so-called standard contractual clauses (= Art. 46. para. 2 and 3 DSGVO) as the basis for data processing with recipients located in third countries (outside the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, i.e. in particular in the USA) or a data transfer there. Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are templates provided by the EU Commission and are intended to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards even if it is transferred to third countries (such as the USA) and stored there. Through these clauses, HubSpot undertakes to comply with the European level of data protection when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed and managed in the US. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding standard contractual clauses here, among other places: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2021/914/oj?locale=de

The Data Processing Agreement, which complies with the standard contractual clauses, can be found at https://legal.hubspot.com/dpa.

To learn more about the data that is processed through the use of HubSpot, please see the Privacy Policy at https://legal.hubspot.com/de/privacy-policy .

Order processing agreement (AVV) HubSpot

In accordance with Article 28 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we have entered into a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) with HubSpot. What exactly is a GCU and especially what must be included in a GCU, you can read in our general section “Order processing agreement (GCU)”.

This contract is required by law because HubSpot processes personal data on our behalf. It clarifies that HubSpot may only process data they receive from us according to our instructions and must comply with the GDPR. You can find the link to the order processing agreement (AVV) at https://legal.hubspot.com/dpa.

LinkedIn Insight Tag Privacy Policy

We use the conversion tracking tool LinkedIn Insight Tag on our website. The service provider is the American company LinkedIn Corporation, 2029 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. The company LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited (Wilton Place, Dublin 2, Ireland) is responsible for the data protection-relevant aspects in the European Economic Area (EEA), the EU and Switzerland.

LinkedIn also processes data from you in the USA, among other places. We would like to point out that according to the opinion of the European Court of Justice, there is currently no adequate level of protection for the transfer of data to the USA. This may be associated with various risks for the legality and security of data processing.

LinkedIn uses so-called standard contractual clauses (= Art. 46. para. 2 and 3 DSGVO) as the basis for data processing with recipients located in third countries (outside the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, i.e. in particular in the USA) or a data transfer there. Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are templates provided by the EU Commission and are intended to ensure that your data comply with European data protection standards even if they are transferred to third countries (such as the USA) and stored there. Through these clauses, LinkedIn undertakes to comply with the European level of data protection when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed and managed in the US. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding standard contractual clauses here, among other places: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2021/914/oj?locale=de

More information about LinkedIn’s standard contractual clauses can be found at https://de.linkedin.com/legal/l/dpa or https://www.linkedin.com/legal/l/eu-sccs.

You can learn more about LinkedIn Insight-Tag at https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a427660. You can also learn more about the data processed through the use of LinkedIn Insight-Tag in the privacy policy at https://de.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy.

Cookie Consent Management Platform Introduction

Cookie Consent Management Platform Summary
Data subjects: website visitors
Purpose: to obtain and manage consent for certain cookies and thus the use of certain tools
Data processed: Data used to manage the cookie settings set, such as IP address, time of consent, type of consent, individual consents. More details can be found at the respective tool used.
Storage period: Depends on the tool used, you have to be prepared for periods of several years
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit.f DSGVO (legitimate interests).

What is a Cookie Consent Management Platform?

We use a Consent Management Platform (CMP) software on our website, which helps us and you to handle used scripts and cookies correctly and safely. The software automatically creates a cookie popup, scans and controls all scripts and cookies, provides cookie consent for you as required by data protection laws, and helps us and you keep track of all cookies. With most cookie consent management tools, all existing cookies are identified and categorized. You as a website visitor then decide for yourself whether and which scripts and cookies you allow or disallow. The following graphic illustrates the relationship between browser, web server and CMP.

Why do we use a cookie management tool?

Our goal is to offer you the best possible transparency in the area of data protection. In addition, we are also legally obligated to do so. We want to inform you as well as possible about all tools and all cookies that can store and process data from you. It is also your right to decide for yourself which cookies you accept and which you do not. In order to give you this right, we first need to know exactly which cookies ended up on our website in the first place. Thanks to a cookie management tool that regularly scans the website for all existing cookies, we know about all cookies and can provide you with DSGVO-compliant information about them. You can then accept or reject cookies via the consent system.

What data is processed?

Within the framework of our cookie management tool, you can manage each individual cookie yourself and have complete control over the storage and processing of your data. The declaration of your consent is stored so that we do not have to query you each time you visit our website again and we can also prove your consent if required by law. This is stored either in an opt-in cookie or on a server. Depending on the provider of the cookie management tool, the storage period of your cookie consent varies. In most cases, this data (e.g. pseudonymous user ID, time of consent, details of cookie categories or tools, browser, device information) is stored for up to two years.

Duration of data processing

We will inform you about the duration of data processing below, provided we have further information on this. In general, we process personal data only as long as it is absolutely necessary for the provision of our services and products. Data that is stored in cookies is stored for different lengths of time. Some cookies are already deleted after you leave the website, others may be stored in your browser for several years. The exact duration of data processing depends on the tool used; in most cases, you should be prepared for a storage period of several years. In the respective privacy statements of the individual providers, you will usually receive precise information about the duration of data processing.

Right of objection

You also have the right and the possibility to revoke your consent to the use of cookies at any time. This works either via our cookie management tool or via other opt-out functions. For example, you can also prevent data collection through cookies by managing, disabling or deleting cookies in your browser.

Information on specific cookie management tools, if any, can be found in the following sections.

Legal basis

If you consent to cookies, personal data about you will be processed and stored via these cookies. If we are allowed to use cookies through your consent (Article 6 (1) lit. a DSGVO), this consent is also the legal basis for the use of cookies or the processing of your data. In order to be able to manage the consent to cookies and to enable you to give your consent, cookie consent management platform software is used. The use of this software enables us to operate the website in an efficient manner in compliance with the law, which constitutes a legitimate interest (Article 6 (1) (f) DSGVO).

Cookiebot Privacy Policy

Cookiebot Privacy Policy Summary Data
subjects: website visitors
Purpose: to obtain consent for certain cookies and thus the use of certain tools
Data processed:  Data used to manage the cookie settings set, such as IP address, time of consent, type of consent, individual consents. More details can be found at the respective tool used.
Storage period: the data is deleted after one year
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit.f DSGVO (legitimate interests).

What is Cookiebot?

We use functions of the provider Cookiebot on our website. The company behind Cookiebot is Cybot A/S, Havnegade 39, 1058 Copenhagen, DK. Cookiebot offers us, among other things, the possibility to provide you with a comprehensive cookie notice (also called cookie banner or cookie notice). By using this feature, data from you may be sent to Cookiebot or Cybot, stored and processed. In this privacy policy, we inform you why we use Cookiebot, what data is transferred and how you can prevent this data transfer.

Cookiebot is a software product from the company Cybot. The software automatically creates a DSGVO-compliant cookie notice for our website visitors. In addition, the technology behind Cookiebot scans, controls and evaluates all cookies and tracking measures on our website.

Why do we use Cookiebot on our website?

We take data protection very seriously. We want to show you exactly what is going on on our website and which of your data is stored. Cookiebot helps us get a good overview of all our cookies (first-party and third-party cookies). This allows us to inform you about the use of cookies on our website accurately and transparently. You always get an up-to-date and privacy-compliant cookie notice and decide for yourself which cookies you allow and which not.

What data is stored by Cookiebot?

If you allow cookies, the following data will be transmitted to Cybot, stored and processed.

  • IP address (in anonymized form, the last 3 digits are set to 0).
  • Date and time of your consent
  • our website URL
  • technical browser data
  • encrypted, anonymous key
  • the cookies you have allowed (as proof of consent)

The following cookies are set by Cookiebot if you have agreed to the use of cookies:

Name: CookieConsent
Wert: {stamp:’P7to4eNgIHvJvDerjKneBsmJQd9122399459-2
Purpose: This cookie stores your consent status,. This allows our website to read and follow the current status on future visits.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: CookieConsentBulkTicket
Value: kDSPWpA%2fjhljZKClPqsncfR8SveTnNWhys5NojaxdFYBPjZ2PaDnUw%3d%3122399459-6
Purpose: This cookie is set if you allow all cookies and thus have “collective consent” enabled. The cookie then stores its own random and unique ID.
Expiration date: after one year

Note: Please keep in mind that this is an exemplary list and we cannot claim completeness. In the cookie declaration at https://www.cookiebot.com/de/cookie-declaration/ you can see which other cookies may be used.

According to Cybot’s privacy policy, the company does not resell personal data. However, Cybot does share data with trusted third parties or subcontractors that help the company achieve its business objectives. Data is also shared when legally required.

How long and where is the data stored?

All collected data is transferred, stored and forwarded exclusively within the European Union. The data is stored in an Azure data center (cloud provider is Microsoft). Please visit https://azure.microsoft.com/de-de/explore/global-infrastructure/geographies/ to learn more about all “Azure regions”. All user data will be deleted by Cookiebot after 12 months from registration (cookie consent) or immediately after cancellation of the Cookiebot service.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You have the right to access and also delete your personal data at any time. You can prevent data collection and storage, for example, by rejecting the use of cookies via the cookie notice. Your browser offers another possibility to prevent the data processing or to manage it according to your wishes. Depending on the browser, cookie management works slightly differently. Under the section “Cookies” you will find the corresponding links to the respective instructions of the most popular browsers.

Legal basis

If you consent to cookies, personal data about you will be processed and stored via these cookies. If we are allowed to use cookies through your consent (Article 6 (1) lit. a DSGVO), this consent is also the legal basis for the use of cookies or the processing of your data. In order to be able to manage the consent to cookies and to enable you to give your consent, the Cookiebot is used. The use of this software enables us to operate the website in an efficient manner in compliance with the law, which constitutes a legitimate interest (Article 6 (1) (f) DSGVO).

If you want to learn more about the privacy policy of “Cookiebot” or the company behind it, Cybot, we recommend that you read the privacy policy at https://www.cookiebot.com/de/privacy-policy/.

 

Web design introduction

Web design privacy policy summary
Data subjects: visitors to the website
Purpose: to improve the user experience
Data processed: What data is processed depends largely on the services used. Mostly it is about IP address, technical data, language settings, browser version, screen resolution and browser name. You can find more details about this in the respective web design tools used.
Storage period: depending on the tools used
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (legitimate interests).

What is web design?

We use several tools on our website that serve our web design. Web design is not, as often assumed, only about that our website looks pretty, but also about functionality and performance. But of course, the appropriate appearance of a website is also one of the major goals of professional web design. Web design is a branch of media design and deals with the visual as well as the structural and functional design of a website. The goal is to use web design to improve your experience on our website. In web design jargon, this is referred to as user experience (UX) and usability. User experience refers to all impressions and experiences that the website visitor experiences on a website. Usability is a sub-item of user experience. This refers to the user-friendliness of a website. The main emphasis here is on ensuring that content, subpages or products are clearly structured and that you can easily and quickly find what you are looking for. In order to provide you with the best possible experience on our website, we also use so-called third-party web design tools. In this privacy policy, the category “web design” therefore includes all services that improve the design of our website. These can be, for example, fonts, various plugins or other integrated web design functions.

Why do we use web design tools?

How you absorb information on a website depends very much on the structure, functionality and visual perception of the website. Therefore, a good and professional web design became more and more important for us as well. We are constantly working on improving our website and also see this as an extended service for you as a website visitor. Furthermore, a beautiful and functioning website also has economic advantages for us. After all, you will only visit us and take advantage of our offers if you feel completely comfortable.

What data is stored by web design tools?

When you visit our website, web design elements may be embedded in our pages that can also process data. Exactly what data is involved depends, of course, strongly on the tools used. Further below you can see exactly which tools we use for our website. We recommend that you also read the respective privacy policy of the tools used for more detailed information on data processing. In most cases, you will find out there which data is processed, whether cookies are used and how long the data is stored. Through fonts such as Google Fonts, for example, information such as language settings, IP address, browser version, browser screen resolution and browser name are also automatically transmitted to the Google servers.

Duration of data processing

How long data is processed is very individual and depends on the web design elements used. For example, if cookies are used, the retention period can be as short as a minute or as long as a few years. Please make yourself clear in this regard. For this purpose, we recommend on the one hand our general text section on cookies, as well as the privacy statements of the tools used. There you will usually find out exactly which cookies are used and what information is stored in them. Google font files, for example, are stored for one year. This is to improve the loading time of a website. In principle, data is only ever stored for as long as is necessary for the provision of the service. In the case of legal requirements, data may also be stored for longer.

Right of objection

You also have the right and the possibility to revoke your consent to the use of cookies or third-party providers at any time. This works either via our cookie management tool or via other opt-out functions. You can also prevent data collection through cookies by managing, disabling or deleting cookies in your browser. However, under web design elements (mostly fonts), there is also data that cannot be deleted quite so easily. This is the case when data is automatically collected directly when a page is called up and transmitted to a third-party provider (such as Google). In this case, please contact the support of the respective provider. In the case of Google, you can reach the support at https://support.google.com/?hl=de.

Legal basis

If you have consented to web design tools being used, the legal basis for the corresponding data processing is this consent. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent), this consent constitutes the legal basis for the processing of personal data as it may occur during the collection by web design tools. From our side, there is also a legitimate interest to improve the web design on our website. After all, only then can we provide you with a beautiful and professional web offer. The corresponding legal basis for this is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests). Nevertheless, we only use web design tools insofar as you have given your consent. In any case, we want to emphasize that again here.

Information on specific web design tools – if available – is provided in the following sections.

 

Font Awesome Privacy Policy

Font Awesome Privacy Policy Summary Data
subjects: Visitors to the website
Purpose: Optimization of our service
Processed data: such as IP address and and which icon files are loaded
More details can be found below in this privacy policy.
Storage period: files in identifiable form are stored for a few weeks
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (legitimate interests)

What is Font Awesome?

We use Font Awesome from the American company Fonticons (307 S. Main St., Suite 202, Bentonville, AR 72712, USA) on our website. When you visit one of our websites, the Font Awesome web font (specifically icons) is loaded via the Font Awesome Content Delivery Network (CDN). This way, the texts or fonts and icons are displayed appropriately on each device. In this privacy policy, we go into more detail about the data storage and data processing by this service.

Icons play an increasingly important role for websites. Font Awesome is a web font specially designed for web designers and web developers. With Font Awesome, for example, icons can be scaled and colored as desired using the CSS stylesheet language. In this way, they replace old image icons. Font Awesome CDN is the easiest way to upload the icons or fonts to your website. For this, we just needed to add a small line of code to our website.

Why do we use Font Awesome on our website?

Font Awesome allows content on our website to be presented in a better way. This makes it easier for you to navigate our website and grasp the content. With the icons you can even sometimes replace whole words and save space. That’s where it’s especially handy when we optimize content specifically for smartphones.  These icons are inserted as HMTL code instead of an image. This allows us to edit the icons with CSS exactly as we want. At the same time, we also improve our loading speed with Font Awesome because it’s just HTML elements and not icon images. All these advantages help us to make the website even clearer, fresher and faster for you.

What data is stored by Font Awesome?

Font Awesome Content Delivery Network (CDN) is used to load icons and symbols. CDNs are networks of servers that are distributed around the world, making it possible to quickly load files from nearby locations. Thus, as soon as you access one of our pages, the corresponding icons are also provided by Font Awesome.

In order for the web fonts to load, your browser must connect to the servers of the company Fonticons, Inc. In the process, your IP address is detected. Font Awesome also collects data about which icon files are downloaded and when. Furthermore, technical data such as your browser version, screen resolution or the time of the page accessed are also transmitted.

For the following reasons, this data is collected and stored:

  • to optimize content delivery networks
  • to detect and correct technical errors
  • to protect CDNs from misuse and attacks
  • to be able to calculate charges from Font Awesome Pro customers
  • to know the popularity of icons
  • to know which computer and software you are using

If your browser does not allow web fonts, a default font of your PC will be used automatically. As far as we know at the moment, no cookies are set. We are in contact with Font Awesome’s privacy department and will let you know as soon as we learn more.

How long and where is the data stored?

Font Awesome stores data about Content Delivery Network usage on servers also located in the United States of America. However, the CDN servers are located around the world and store user data wherever you are. In identifiable form, the data is usually stored for only a few weeks. Aggregated statistics about usage from the CDNs may be stored longer. Personal data is not included here.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

Font Awesome does not, to the best of our knowledge, store any personal data about the content delivery networks. Unfortunately, if you do not want data to be stored about the icons you use, you will not be able to visit our website. If your browser does not allow web fonts, no data will be transmitted or stored. In this case, the default font of your computer will simply be used.

Legal basis

If you have consented to Font Awesome being used, the legal basis for the corresponding data processing is this consent. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent), this consent constitutes the legal basis for the processing of personal data as it may occur during the collection by Font Awesome.

We also have a legitimate interest in using Font Awesome to optimize our online service. The corresponding legal basis for this is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests). Nevertheless, we only use Font Awesome if you have given your consent.

We would like to point out that according to the opinion of the European Court of Justice, there is currently no adequate level of protection for data transfer to the USA. The data processing is essentially carried out by Font Awesome. This may result in data not being processed and stored anonymously. Furthermore, US government authorities may have access to individual data. It is also possible that this data may be linked to data from possible other Font Awesome services where you have a user account.

If you would like to learn more about Font Awesome and how they handle data, we encourage you to visit their privacy policy at https://fontawesome.com/privacy and their help page at https://fontawesome.com/support.

 

Google Fonts Privacy Policy

Google Fonts Privacy Policy Summary Data
subjects: Website visitors
Purpose: Optimization of our service
Processed data: Data such as IP address and CSS and font requests
More details can be found below in this privacy policy.
Storage period: Font files are stored by Google for one year
Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (Consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests).

What are Google Fonts?

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

You do not need to log in or enter a password to use Google Fonts. Furthermore, no cookies are stored in your browser. The files (CSS, fonts) are requested via the Google domains fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com. According to Google, the requests for CSS and fonts are completely separate from all other Google services. If you have a Google account, you don’t need to worry that your Google account information, while using Google Fonts, will be transmitted to Google. Google records the usage of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and the fonts used and stores this data securely. We’ll look at exactly what the data storage looks like in more detail.

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

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

Why do we use Google Fonts on our website?

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

What data is stored by Google?

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

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

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

How long and where is the data stored?

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

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

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

The data that Google stores for one day or one year cannot simply be deleted. The data is automatically transmitted to Google when the page is accessed. In order to delete this data prematurely, you must contact Google support at https://support.google.com/?hl=de&tid=122399459. You can prevent data storage in this case only if you do not visit our site.

Unlike other web fonts, Google allows us unlimited access to all fonts. So we can access an unlimited sea of fonts and get the most out of them for our website. You can find out more about Google Fonts and other issues at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq?tid=122399459. While Google does address privacy-related issues there, it doesn’t really include detailed information about data storage. It is relatively difficult to get really precise information from Google about stored data.

Legal basis

If you have consented to Google Fonts being used, the legal basis for the corresponding data processing is this consent. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent), this consent constitutes the legal basis for the processing of personal data as it may occur during the collection by Google Fonts.

We also have a legitimate interest in using Google Font to optimize our online service. The corresponding legal basis for this is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (Legitimate Interests). Nevertheless, we only use Google Font if you have given your consent.

Google also processes data from you in the USA, among other places. We would like to point out that according to the opinion of the European Court of Justice, there is currently no adequate level of protection for the transfer of data to the USA. This may be associated with various risks for the legality and security of data processing.

Google uses so-called standard contractual clauses (= Art. 46. para. 2 and 3 DSGVO) as the basis for data processing for recipients located in third countries (outside the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, i.e. in particular in the USA) or a data transfer there. Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are templates provided by the EU Commission and are intended to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards even if it is transferred to third countries (such as the USA) and stored there. Through these clauses, Google undertakes to comply with the European level of data protection when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed and managed in the US. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding standard contractual clauses here, among other places: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2021/914/oj?locale=de

The Google Ads Data Processing Terms, which also correspond to the standard contractual clauses for Google Fonts, can be found at https://business.safety.google/adsprocessorterms/.

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

 

Google Fonts Local Privacy Policy

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

What are Google Fonts?

Google Fonts used to be called Google Web Fonts. This is an interactive directory of over 800 fonts that Google provides for free. With Google Fonts, you could use fonts without uploading them to your own server. However, in order to prevent any information transfer to Google servers in this regard, we have downloaded the fonts to our server. This way we act privacy compliant and do not send any data to Google Fonts.

Explanation of used terms

We always try to write our privacy policy as clear and understandable as possible. However, this is not always easy, especially when it comes to technical and legal topics. It often makes sense to use legal terms (such as personal data) or certain technical terms (such as cookies, IP address). However, we do not want to use these without explanation. Below you will now find an alphabetical list of important terms used that we may not have sufficiently addressed in the previous privacy policy. If these terms have been taken from the GDPR and are definitions, we will also list the GDPR texts here and add our own explanations if necessary.

Processor

Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR

For the purposes of this Regulation, the term:

“Processor” means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which processes personal data on behalf of the Controller;

Explanation: As a company and website owner, we are responsible for all data that we process from you. In addition to the responsible parties, there may also be so-called processors. This includes any company or person that processes personal data on our behalf. Consequently, in addition to service providers such as tax advisors, processors can also be hosting or cloud providers, payment or newsletter providers, or large companies such as Google or Microsoft.

 

Consent

Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR

For the purposes of this Regulation, the term:

“Consent” of the data subject means any freely given specific, informed and unambiguous indication of his or her wishes in the form of a statement or other unambiguous affirmative act by which the data subject signifies his or her agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her;

Explanation: As a rule, websites provide such consent via a cookie consent tool. You are probably familiar with this. Whenever you visit a website for the first time, you are usually asked via a banner whether you agree or consent to data processing. In most cases, you can also make individual settings and thus decide for yourself which data processing you allow and which you do not. If you do not consent, no personal data of yours may be processed. In principle, consent can of course also be given in writing, i.e. not via a tool.

Personal data

Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR

For the purposes of this Regulation, the term:

“personal data” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (hereinafter “data subject”); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person;

Explanation: Personal data is therefore all data that can identify you as a person. This is usually data such as:

  • Name
  • Address
  • E-mail address
  • Postal address
  • Phone number
  • Date of birth
  • Identification numbers such as social security number, tax identification number, identity card number or matriculation number
  • Bank data such as account number, credit information, account balances, and more.

According to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), your IP address is also personal data. IT experts can use your IP address to determine at least the approximate location of your device and subsequently you as the connection owner. Therefore, the storage of an IP address also requires a legal basis within the meaning of the GDPR. There are also still so-called “special categories” of personal data that also require special protection. These include:

  • racial and ethnic origin
  • political opinions
  • religious or ideological convictions
  • the union affiliation
  • Genetic data, such as data taken from blood or saliva samples
  • biometric data (this is information on mental, physical or behavioral characteristics that can identify a person).
    Health data
  • Data on sexual orientation or sexual life

Profiling

Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR

For the purposes of this Regulation, the term:

“profiling” means any automated processing of personal data which consists in using such personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a natural person, in particular to analyze or predict aspects relating to that natural person’s performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behavior, location or change of location;

Explanation: Profiling involves gathering various pieces of information about a person in order to learn more about that person. On the web, profiling is often used for advertising purposes or even for credit checks. Web or advertising analysis programs, for example, collect data about your behavior and interests on a website. This results in a special user profile that can be used to target advertising to a specific group.

 

Responsible

Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR

For the purposes of this Regulation, the term:

“controller’ means the natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which alone or jointly with others determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data; where the purposes and means of such processing are determined by Union or Member State law, the controller or the specific criteria for its designation may be provided for by Union or Member State law;

Explanation: In our case, we are responsible for the processing of your personal data and consequently the “controller”. If we pass on collected data to other service providers for processing, they are “processors”. For this purpose, a “processing order contract (AVV)” must be signed.

 

Processing

Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR

For the purposes of this Regulation, the term:

“Processing” means any operation or set of operations which is performed upon personal data, whether or not by automatic means, such as collection, recording, organization, filing, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction;

Note: When we talk about processing in our privacy statement, we mean any kind of data processing. This includes, as mentioned above in the original GDPR statement, not only the collection but also the storage and processing of data.

All texts are protected by copyright.