We have written this privacy statement (version 16/12/2019-321136309) to explain to you, in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, what information we collect, how we use data and the choices you have as a visitor to this website.

Unfortunately, by their very nature, these explanations sound very technical, but we have tried to describe the most important things as simply and clearly as possible when drafting them. 

Automatic data storage

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

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

• the address (URL) of the website you are visiting
• browser and browser version
• the operating system used
• the address (URL) of the previously visited page (referrer URL)
• the host name and IP address of the device from which access is made
• the date and time

in files (web server log files).

As a rule, web server log files are stored for a fortnight and then automatically deleted. We do not pass on this data, but we cannot exclude the possibility that this data may be viewed in the event of unlawful behaviour.

The legal basis, according to Article 6(1) f DSGVO (lawfulness of processing), is that there is a legitimate interest in enabling the error-free operation of this website by collecting web server log files.

Cookies

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

Below we explain what cookies are and why they are used to help you understand the following privacy policy.

What exactly are cookies?

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

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 also 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 the cookies, our website knows who you are and offers you your usual default setting. In some browsers each cookie has its own file, in others such as Firefox all cookies are stored in a single file.

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

For example, cookie data may look like this

• Name: _ga
• Expiration time: 2 years
• Usage: Differentiation of website visitors
• Example value: GA1.2.1326744211.152321136309

A browser should support the following minimum sizes:

• A cookie should be able to contain at least 4096 bytes
• It should be possible to store at least 50 cookies per domain
• A total of at least 3000 cookies should be able to be stored

What types of cookies are there?

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

We can distinguish between 4 types of cookies:

Absolutely necessary cookies.

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

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

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

Advertising cookies
These cookies are also called targeting cookies. They are used to provide the user with individually adapted advertising. This can be very practical, but also very annoying.

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

How can I delete cookies?

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

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

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome.
Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari
Firefox: Delete cookies to remove data that websites have placed on your computer
Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies
Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you generally do not want cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. In this way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether you allow the cookie or not. The procedure varies depending on the browser. The best thing to do is 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 or replace the word "Chrome" with the name of your browser, e.g. Edge, Firefox, Safari.

What about my data protection?

The so-called "Cookie Guidelines" have been in place since 2009. These state that the storage of cookies requires the consent of the website visitor (i.e. you). Within the EU countries, however, there are still very different reactions to these directives. In Germany, the Cookie Directive has not been implemented as national law. Instead, this directive was largely implemented in § 15 para.3 of the German Telemedia Act (TMG).

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

Storage of personal data

Personal information that you submit to us electronically on this website, such as your name, email address, address or other personal details when submitting a form or commenting on the blog, together with the time and IP address, will only be used by us for the stated purpose, kept secure and not passed on to third parties.

We therefore only use your personal data to communicate with those visitors who expressly request contact and to process the services and products offered on this website. We do not disclose your personal data without your consent, but we cannot rule out the possibility that this data may be accessed in the event of unlawful conduct.

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

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

Rights according to the General Data Protection Regulation

According to the provisions of the DSGVO, you are generally entitled to the following rights:

• Right to rectification (Article 16 GDPR
• Right to erasure ("right to be forgotten") (Article 17 GDPR)
• Right to restriction of processing (Article 18 GDPR)
• Right to notification - obligation to give notice in connection with the rectification or erasure of personal data or the restriction of processing (Article 19 GDPR)
• Right to data portability (Article 20 GDPR)
• Right to object (Article 21 GDPR)
• Right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling (Article 22 GDPR).

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

Evaluation of visitor behaviour

In the following data protection declaration, we inform you whether and how we evaluate data from your visit to this website. The evaluation of the collected data is generally anonymous and we cannot draw any conclusions about your person from your behaviour on this website.

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

Google AdSense privacy policy

We use Google AdSense on this website, the advertising programme of Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA). Google AdSense allows us to display advertisements on this website that match our theme. In this way, we offer you ads that ideally represent real added value for you. In the course of this privacy policy on Google AdSense, we will explain why we use Google AdSense on our website, which of your data is processed and stored and how you can prevent this data storage.

The legal basis for the use of Google AdSense is Article 6 (1) f (lawfulness of processing), because there is a legitimate interest in carrying out targeted advertising measures.

What is Google AdSense?

Google AdSense has been around since 2003 and is an advertising programme of the Google company. In contrast to Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), you cannot place advertisements yourself. Google AdSense displays advertisements on websites such as ours. The biggest advantage of this advertising service compared to some others is that Google AdSense only shows you ads that match our content. Google has its own algorithm that calculates which ads you will see. Of course, we only want to show you ads that you are interested in and that offer you added value. Google checks which advertisements are suitable for our website and for our users on the basis of your interests or your user behaviour and on the basis of our offer. At this point, we would like to mention that we are not responsible for the selection of the advertisements. We only offer the advertising space on our website. The selection of the advertisements displayed is made by Google. Since August 2013, the ads are also adapted to the respective user interface. This means that regardless of whether you visit our website from your smartphone, PC or laptop, the ads adapt to your end device.

Why do we use Google AdSense on our website?

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

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

What data does Google AdSense store?

In order for Google AdSense to display customised advertising tailored to you, cookies are used, among other things. Cookies are small text files that store certain information on your computer.

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

Third-party advertisers may place and read cookies on your browser as part of AdSense, or use web beacons to store data they obtain through ad delivery on the website. Web beacons are small graphics that enable log file recording and log file analysis. This analysis enables statistical analysis for online marketing.

Google may collect certain information about your user behaviour on our website through these cookies. This includes:

• Information about how you interact with an ad (clicks, impression, mouse movements).
• Information about whether an ad has already appeared in your browser at an earlier time. This data helps us to avoid showing you an ad more than once.

• In doing so, Google analyses and evaluates the data on the advertisements displayed and your IP address. Google uses the data primarily to measure the effectiveness of an ad and to improve the advertising offer. This data is not linked to any personal data that Google may have about you through other Google services.
  
  In the following, we will introduce you to cookies that Google AdSense uses for tracking purposes. Here we refer to a test website that has only Google AdSense installed:
  
  
• Name: uid
• Expiry time: after 2 months
• Usage: The cookie is stored under the domain adform.net. It provides a uniquely assigned, machine-generated user ID and collects data about activity on our website.
• Example value: 891269189321136309

• Name: C
• Expiry time: after 1 month
• Usage: This cookie identifies whether your browser accepts cookies. The cookie is stored under the domain track.adform.net.
• Example value: 1

• Name: cid
• Expiry time: after 2 months
• Usage: This cookie is stored under the domain track.adform.net, stands for client ID and is used to improve advertising to you. It can serve more relevant ads to the visitor and helps improve campaign performance reports.
• Example value: 8912691894970695056,0,0,0,0

• Name: IDE
• Expiry time: after 1 month
• Usage: The cookie is stored under the domain doubkeklick.net. It is used to register your actions after the ad has been displayed or clicked. This allows us to measure how well an ad is received by our visitors.
• Example value: zOtj4TWxwbFDjaATZ2TzNaQmxrU32113630

• Name: test_cookie
• Expiry time: after 1 month
• Usage: With the help of the "test_cookie" you can check whether your browser supports cookies at all. The cookie is stored under the domain doubkeklick.net.
• Example value: not specified

• Name: CT592996
• Expiry time: after one hour
• Usage: Stored under the domain adform.net. The cookie is set as soon as you click on an advertisement. We were not able to find out more detailed information about the use of this cookie.
• Example value: 733366

Note: This list cannot claim to be exhaustive, as Google's experience shows that it changes its choice of cookies from time to time.

How long and where is the data stored?

Google records your IP address and various activities you perform on the website. Cookies store this information about your interactions with our website. According to Google, the company collects and stores the information provided in a secure manner on Google's in-house servers in the US.

If you do not have a Google account or are not logged in, Google stores the collected data with a unique identifier (ID) mostly on your browser. The unique IDs stored in cookies are used, for example, to ensure personalised advertising. If you are logged into a Google account, Google may also collect personal data.

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

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You always have the option of deleting or deactivating cookies that are on your computer. How exactly this works depends on your browser.

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

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome.
Safari: 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 generally do not want cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. In this way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether you allow the cookie or not. Downloading and installing this browser plug-in at https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996 will also deactivate all "advertising cookies". Keep in mind that by disabling these cookies, you are not preventing the ads, only the personalised ads.

If you have a Google account, you can disable personalised advertising on the https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated website. Here, too, you will continue to see ads, but they will no longer be tailored to your interests. Nevertheless, the ads are displayed based on a few factors such as your location (derived from your IP address), browser type and the search terms used.

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

Google Ads (Google AdWords) Conversion Tracking Privacy Policy

We use Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) as an online marketing measure to advertise our products, offers and services. In this way, we want to draw more people's attention to the high quality of our offers on the Internet. As part of our advertising measures through Google Ads, we use the conversion tracking of Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA ("Google") on our website. With the help of this free tracking tool, we can adapt our advertising offer to your interests and needs much better. In the following article, we will go into more detail about why we use conversion tracking, what data is stored in the process and how you can prevent this data storage.

The legal basis for the use of Google Ads conversion tracking is Article 6 (1) f (lawfulness of processing), because there is a legitimate interest in carrying out targeted advertising measures.

What is Google Ads conversion tracking?

Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is the in-house online advertising system of Google LLC. We can create online ads via Google Ads to bring interested people closer to our products or services. We are convinced of the quality of our offer and want as many people as possible to get to know our website. In the online sector, Google Ads offers the best platform for this. Of course, we also want to get an accurate overview of the cost-benefit factor of our advertising campaigns. That's why we use the conversion tracking tool from Google Ads.

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

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

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

What data is stored with Google Ads conversion tracking?

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

Here are the details of the most important cookies for Google's conversion tracking:

Name: Conversion
Expiry time: after 3 months
Example value: EhMI_aySuoyv4gIVled3Ch0llweVGAEgt-mr6aXd7dYlSAGQ321136309

Name: _gac
Expiry time: after 3 months
Example value: 1.1558695989.EAIaIQobChMIiOmEgYO04gIVj5AYCh2CBAPrEAAYASAAEgIYQfD_BwE

Note: The cookie _gac only appears in connection with Google Analytics. The above list is not exhaustive, as Google also uses other cookies for analytical purposes.

As soon as you complete an action on our website, Google recognises the cookie and saves your action as a so-called conversion. As long as you surf our website and the cookie has not yet expired, we and Google will recognise that you found us via our Google Ads ad. The cookie is read and sent back to Google Ads with the conversion data. It is also possible that other cookies are used to measure conversions. The conversion tracking of Google Ads can be further refined and improved with the help of Google Analytics. For ads that Google displays in various locations on the web, cookies called "__gads" or "_gac" may be set under our domain. Since September 2017, various campaign information has been stored by analytics.js with the _gac cookie. The cookie stores this data as soon as you call up one of our pages for which the automatic tagging of Google Ads has been set up. Unlike cookies set for Google domains, Google can only read these conversion cookies when you are on our website. We do not collect or receive any personal data. We receive a report from Google with statistical evaluations. For example, we learn the total number of users who clicked on our ad and we see how well which advertising measure was received.

How long and where is the data stored?

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

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You have the option of not participating in Google Ads' conversion tracking. If you deactivate the Google conversion tracking cookie via your browser, you block conversion tracking. In this case, you will not be included in the statistics of the tracking tool. You can change the cookie settings in your browser at any time. This works slightly differently for each browser. Here you will find instructions on how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, activate 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 generally do not want cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. In this way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether you allow the cookie or not. Downloading and installing this browser plug-in at https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996 will also deactivate all "advertising cookies". Keep in mind that by disabling these cookies, you do not prevent the advertisements, only the personalised advertisements.

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

Google Analytics privacy policy

We use Google Analytics from Google LLC (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA) on this website to statistically analyse visitor data. Google Analytics uses target-oriented cookies for this purpose.

Cookies from Google Analytics

_ga
Expiration time: 2 years
Use: Differentiation of website visitors
Example value: GA1.2.1326744211.152321136309
_gid
Expiry time: 24 hours
Usage: Differentiation of website visitors
Example value: GA1.2.1687193234.152321136309
_gat_gtag_UA_<property-id>
Expiry time: 1 minute
Usage: Used to throttle the request rate. When Google Analytics is deployed via Google Tag Manager, this cookie is named _dc_gtm_ <property-id>.
Example value: 1
For more information on terms of use and data protection, please visit http://www.google.com/analytics/terms/de.html or https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=de.

Pseudonymisation

Our concern in terms of the DSGVO is the improvement of our offer and our web presence. Since the privacy of our users is important to us, user data is pseudonymised. The data processing is based on the legal provisions of Art 6 EU-DSGVO para 1 lit a (consent) and/or f (legitimate interest) of the DSGVO.

Deactivation of data collection by Google Analytics

With the help of the browser add-on for deactivating Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, dc.js), website visitors can prevent Google Analytics from using their data.

You can prevent the collection of data generated by the cookie and related to your use of the website by Google, as well as the processing of this data by Google, by downloading and installing the browser plugin available at the following link: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de.

Google Analytics reports on demographic characteristics and interests

We have enabled advertising reporting features in Google Analytics. The demographic and interest reports contain information on age, gender and interests. This allows us to get a better picture of our users without being able to attribute this data to individual people. You can find out 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" at https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated via a checkbox.

Google Analytics data processing addendum

We have entered into a direct customer agreement with Google for the use of Google Analytics by accepting the "Data Processing Addendum" in Google Analytics.

You can find out more about the Google Analytics data processing addendum here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3379636?hl=de&utm_id=ad

Embedded Social Media Elements Privacy Policy

We embed elements of social media services on our website to display images, videos and text.
When you visit pages that display these elements, data is transmitted from your browser to the respective social media service and stored there. We have no access to this data.
The following links will take you to the pages of the respective social media services where it is explained how they handle your data:

Instagram privacy policy: https://help.instagram.com/519522125107875
For YouTube, the Google privacy policy applies: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de
Facebook privacy policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy
Twitter privacy policy: https://twitter.com/de/privacy

Facebook Pixel Privacy Policy

We use the Facebook Pixel from Facebook, a social media network of the company Facebook Ireland Ltd, 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2 Ireland on this website.

The code implemented on this page can evaluate the behaviour of visitors who have reached this website from a Facebook advertisement. This can be used to improve Facebook ads and this data is collected and stored by Facebook. The collected data is not visible to us but can only be used in the context of ad placements. Cookies are also set through the use of the Facebook Pixel code.

By using the Facebook pixel, the visit to this website is communicated to Facebook so that visitors can see suitable ads on Facebook. If you have a Facebook account and are logged in, your visit to this website will be associated with your Facebook user account.

You can find out how the Facebook pixel is used for advertising campaigns at https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/facebook-ads-pixel.

You can change your Facebook advertising preferences at https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen if you are logged into Facebook. At http://www.youronlinechoices.com/de/praferenzmanagement/ you can manage your preferences regarding usage-based online advertising. You can deactivate or activate many providers at once there or adjust the settings for individual providers.

You can find more information about Facebook's data policy at https://www.facebook.com/policy.php.

Amazon Affiliate Program Privacy Policy

We are participants in the Amazon affiliate programme which enables the placement of Amazon advertisements and affiliate links on websites. Through this placement of Amazon advertisements, we receive a refund of advertising costs.
Amazon uses cookies to track the origin of orders.
The data controller within the meaning of the data protection laws is Amazon Europe Core S.à.r.l., Amazon EU S.à.r.l, Amazon Services Europe S.à.r.l. and Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., all four located at 5, Rue Plaetis, L-2338 Luxembourg and Amazon Instant Video Germany GmbH, Domagkstr. 28, 80807 Munich. Amazon Deutschland Services GmbH, Marcel-Breuer-Str. 12, 80807 Munich, Germany, acts as data processor on their behalf.
The privacy policy, what information Amazon collects and how they use it can be found at https://www.amazon.de/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=footer_privacy?ie=UTF8&nodeId=3312401.