Data protection policy

This data protection policy explains how and why we process personal data (referring to it as "data") on our online offerings and the connected websites, functions and contents and external online presence, e.g., our social media profile (referring to it as "online offerings"). Our terminology, such as "processing" ("Verarbeitung") or "responsible person" ("Verantwortlicher"), refer to the respective definitions of article 4 of the German general data protection regulation (Datenschutzgrundverordnung, DSGVO).

Note that this data protection policy is also available in German.

Responsible person (Verantwortlicher)

The data processing on this website is performed by the website operator. The respective contact data can be found in the Impressum of this website.

Processing of data

We will process the following types of data:

  • Inventory data (e.g., usernames)

  • Contact data (e.g., email addresses)

  • Content data (e.g., entered text, photos, videos)

  • Usage data (e.g., visited web pages, interest in specific content, access times)

  • Meta data, communication data (e.g., device information, IP addresses)

Categories of affected people

We will refer to visitors of this website and users of our online precence as "users".

Reason for processing

We will process data for the following reasons:

  • To provide our online presence, its functionality and content

  • To answer contact requests and to communicate with users

  • To implement security measures

  • To increase our reach and for general marketing

Used terminology

In the following, we will review the used terminology:

  • "Personal data" includes all information that refers to identified or identifiable natural persons, which we will refer to as "affected person". We refer to a natural person as identifiable if we can identify this person directly or indirectly, e.g., via assigning a label, such as a name, an identification number, location data, online identitification (such as a cooking) or another or several special features, which relate to the person's physical, psychological, genetical, economical, cultural or sozial identity as a natural person.

  • "Processing" is any process (regardless if it relies on automaticed procedures) related to personal data. This term includes almost any dealing with data.

  • "Pseudonymization" is the processing of personal data in a way which makes it impossible to assign the information to a specific person unless additional information is used, such that this additional information is seperately stored and through technical and organizational measures protected to ensure that the personal information cannot be assigned to an identified or identifiable person.

  • "Profiling" is any automatized processing of personal data to rate certain personal aspects related to a natural person. In particular, to analyze or predict certain aspects with respect to work performance, economical situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behavior, location or location changes of this person.

  • "Responsible person" is any natural or legal person, authority, institution or any other body, which makes decision with regards to purposes and means of processing personal data.

  • "Processor” refers to a natural or legal person, authority, institution or other body that processes personal data on behalf of the responsible person.

Relevant legal bases

According to Art. 13 DSGVO, we explain to you the legal basis of our data processing. If we do not refer explicitly to a specific legal article, our data processing is covered by the following articles:

  • The legal basis for requiring consent is Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. a und Art. 7 DSGVO.

  • The legal basis for data processing for the purpose of providing our services, to fulfill our contractual obligations and to reply inquiries is Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. b DSGVO.

  • The legal basis of data processing to fullfill our legal obligations is Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. c DSGVO.

  • The legal basis of data processing to safeguarding our legitimate interests is Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. f DSGVO.

If the data processing is required for vital interests of the affected person or another natural person, the legal basis is Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. d DSGVO.

Security measures

As required by Art. 32 DSGVO, we will take the appropriate technical and organizational measures to secure any data we process based on the respective risks. For this, we will take the state of the art, the cost of implementation, the purpose and conditions of processing and both, the probability and the severety of adverse consequences for the rights and freedom of natural persons into account.

We ensure the privacy, integrity and availability of the data by controlling physical and digital access to it, how it is transferred, how it is available and how it is split up. Moreover, we implemented procedures that allow us to respect the rights of affected persons, to delete the data and react if any stored data is endangered. Furthermore, we already take the security of personal data into account during development, when we choose hardware or software, and when implement procedures, as is required by the principles of data protection by technology design and privacy-friendly default settings (Art. 25 DSGVO).

Cooperation with contractors and third parties

We will only allow other persons and companies (contractors and third parties) to access data, if this is legally allowed (such as transfer of data to payment processors according to Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. b DSGVO), you have provided consent, if there is legal requirement or if we have legimate interests (such as using contractors or webhosters).

If we contract third parties to process data for us, it will be based on Art. 28 DSGVO.

Transfers to third countries

We may transfer data to a third country (outside of the European Union or the European Economical Area) for the purpose of processing or by availing a service. We will only do this to satisfy our contractual obligations, based on your constent, based on legal requirements or based on legitimate interests from our side. This will only occur if the special prerequisites of Art. 44 ff. DSGVO apply or if there other legal or contractual permissions. This means that the processing will only occur based on special guarantees, such as officially recognized determinizations of an EU equivalent level of privacy (such as the "Privacy Shield" in the), or by respecting officially recognized special contractual obligations (so called "Standard Contractual Clauses").

Rights of affected persons

You have the right to request a confirmation if any affected data are processed, to receive further information about this data and to receive a copy of the data according to Art. 15 DSGVO.

Moreover, you have the right to request to complete or to correct any data affecting you according Art. 16 DSGVO.

According to Art. 17 DSGVO, you have the right to request that data concerning you are either immediately deleted or according to Art. 18 DSGVO that its processing will be limited.

You have further the right to request that data concerning you, which you provided according to Maßgabe des Art. 20 DSGVO, is transmitted to you or other responsible entities.

Finally, according to Art. 77 DSGVO you have the right to complain to any responsible authority.

Right to revocation

You have the right to revoke the consent according to Art. 7 Abs. 3 DSGVO with effect for the future.

Right to objection

You have right to object the processing of your data according to Art. 21 DSGVO any time.

Cookies

The word "cookie" refers to small files that are stored on the computer of websites users. It is possibel store various information within a cookie. Its main purpose is to store information about a website user and the user's device during and after a visit on a given website. If the cookie is automatically deleted after the user leaves the website and closes the browser, it is called a "session cookie". Such cookies may store the content of a cart or the login status. In contrast, there also exist "permanent cookies" that will not be deleted when the browser is closed. This allows again to store information, such as login information, even if the browser is closed. Moreover, such cookies can be used to store the user's preferences or interests to measure the reach of a website or for marketing purposes. A "third-party-cookie" is a cookie that are offered by a third party different from the website provider (in contrast to "first-party-cookies" provided directly by the website provider).

We may use both temporary and permanent cookies, as we explain this privacy policy.

If you do not wish that cookies are stored on your computer, please adjust the system settings of your browser to deactivate cookies. Stored cookies can be deleted through your browser settings. Deactivating cookies may cause some functions of this website to not work as intended.

You can object to using cookies for marketing purposes, in particular for tracking, via the US website http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ and the EU website http://www.youronlinechoices.com/.

Deletion of data

Any data we process will be deleted or limited according to Art. 17 und 18 DSGVO. Unless stated differently in this data protection policy, we will delete any stored data as soon as its purpose allows it and provided that there are no legal requirements to store the data for a longer period of time. Provided that we do not delete the data because we still require it for other legally allowed purposes, we will limit its processing, i.e, we will secure the data in such a way that it cannot be used for other than the intended purposes.

Hosting and emails

We use the services of hosting providers in order to allow access to this website. These include provision of infrastructure and platform services, computing power, storage capacity and database services, email messaging, security services and technical maintenance, which are all needed to run our online services.

We and our hosting provider will process inventory data, contact data, content data, contract data, usage data, metadata and communication data of customers/users of our services and visitors of our websites. The legal basis of processing this data is our legimate interest according to Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. f DSGVO i.V.m. Art. 28 DSGVO (Abschluss Auftragsverarbeitungsvertrag).

Storage of access data and log files

We or our hosting provider stores data may store data (server log files) related to any access to our server, from which we provide our services. The legal basis of processing this data is our legimate interest according to Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. f DSGVO. Such log files include the name of the accessed website, information about any accessed files, date and time of the access, size of transferred data,

Wir, bzw. unser Hostinganbieter, erhebt auf Grundlage unserer berechtigten Interessen im Sinne des Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. f. DSGVO Daten über jeden Zugriff auf den Server, auf dem sich dieser Dienst befindet (sogenannte Serverlogfiles). Zu den Zugriffsdaten gehören Name der abgerufenen Webseite, Datei, Datum und Uhrzeit des Abrufs, übertragene Datenmenge, information about successful access, information about the browser (such as version) and operating system of the user, the referrer URL (of the previously visited page), the IP address and the associated provider.

Google Analytics

We have a legitimate interest to analyze, optimize and economically operate our online services according to Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. f. DSGVO. For this, we also use Google Analytics, an analysis service by Google LLC („Google“). Google uses cookies to provide this service. The resulting information about how a users uses our online services will typically be transferred to and stored on Google servers in the US.

Google is certified under the privacy shield agreement and therefore guarantees to respect the European privacy law (https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&status=Active).

Google will use this information to allow us to analyze the user's activities, to provide reports on the online activities associated to our services and to provide us with further services related to our website and services. Google use the data to create pseudonymous user profiles of the users.

We use Google Analytics only with activated IP anonymization. This means that the IP address of users will be shortened within the European Union and the European Economical Area. Only under special circumstance will Google transmit the full IP address to servers in the US, after which the IP address will be shortened there.

The transmitted IP address will not be combined with other data by Google. Users can object to the

Die von dem Browser des Nutzers übermittelte IP-Adresse wird nicht mit anderen Daten von Google zusammengeführt. The users can prevent the collection of their data by Google Analytics by clicking on the following link. An opt-out cookie will be set which prevents the collection of your data on future visits to this website: Deactivate Google Analytics.

You can find further information in the privacy policy of Google (https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads) and in the settings for the Google advertisements (https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated).

Any personal data of users will be deleted or anonumized after 14 months.

Integration of services and content from third parties

We may include content or services (such as videos or fonts, generally referred to as "contents") of third-party providers in our website. The legal basis for this is our legitimate interest to analyze, optimize and economically operate our online services according to Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. f. DSGVO.

This always requires that third-party providers of such contents know the user's IP address as this required to send the respective content to the user's browser. The IP address is therefore required to access these contents. We do our best to only use contents, where the respective provider only uses the user's IP address for the purpose of providing such contents. Third-party providers may further use so called "pixel tags" (invisible pictures, also known as "web beacons") for statistical or marketing purposes. Such pixel tags may be used to gain information, such as the amount and type of user traffic on the website. The pseudomized information can further be stored in the form of a cookie on the user's device, which then may contain further information, such as technical information about the browser and operating system, referring websites, time of access and other information regarding the usage of the respective online services. Moreover, such information can also be connected or related to information from other sources.

Youtube

We may include videos from the platform "Youtube" provided by Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA, ein. Its data protection policity can be found unter https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/ and an opt-out is possible under https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated.

Cookies and reports on traffic

We may use "session cookies" of the Verwertungsgesellschaft Wort (VG Wort), München, to measure how often our texts are accessed to determine the probability of copying. Session cookies are small units of information that are stored in the computer memory of a website user. It contains a randomly generated identification number, a so called session-ID. Moreover, such a cookie contains information about its origin and how long it is stored. Session cookies do not store any other information. Measurements are conducted based on the Skalierbaren Zentralen Messverfahren (Scaleable Central Measurement System). It helps to determine the probability that a text is copied, so that legal entitlements of authors and publishers can be determined. Such cookies do not contain personal information.

Some of our pages may contain JavaScript calls, which we use to report page views to the VG Wort. This enables us to receive payment according to the legal entitlement of using copyright protected works accoording to § 53 UrhG.

You can still use our website when you deactivate cookies. Most web browsers are set to automatically accept cookies. However, you can deactivate the storage of cookies or you can set your browser to inform you every time a cookie is about to be stored.