Privacy policy

Automatic Data Retention

Every time you visit a website nowadays, certain information is automatically created and saved, just as it happens on this website.

Whenever you visit our website such as you are doing right now, our webserver (computer on which this website is saved/stored) automatically saves data such as

• the address (URL) of the accessed website
• browser and browser version
• the used operating system
• the address (URL) of the previously visited site (referrer URL)
• the host name and the IP-address of the device the website is accessed from
• date and time

in files (webserver-logfiles).

Generally, webserver-logfiles stay saved for two weeks and then get deleted automatically. We do not pass this information to others, but we cannot exclude the possibility that this data will be looked at in case of illegal conduct. 

Cookies

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

What exactly are cookies?

Every time you surf the internet, you use a browser. Common browsers are for example Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. Most websites store small text files in your browser. These files are called cookies.

What should not be dismissed, is that cookies are very useful little helpers. Nearly all websites use cookies. More accurately speaking these are HTTP-cookies, since there are also different cookies for other uses. http-cookies are small files which our website stores on your computer. These cookie files are automatically put into the cookie-folder, which is like the "brain" of your browser. A cookie consists of a name and a value. Furthermore, to define a cookie, one or multiple attributes must be specified.

Cookies save certain parts of your user data, such as e.g. language or personal page settings. When you re-open our website, your browser submits this "user specific" information back to our site. Thanks to cookies, our website knows who you are and offers you the settings you are familiar to. In some browsers every cookie has its own file, in others such as Firefox, all cookies are stored in one single file.

There are both first-party cookies and third-party coookies. First-party cookies are created directly by our site, while third-party cookies are created by partner-websites (e.g. Google Analytics). Each cookie is individual, since every cookie stores different data. The expiration time of a cookie also varies - it can be a few minutes, or up to a few years. Cookies are no software-programs and contain no computer viruses, trojans or any other malware. Cookies also cannot access your PC's information.

This is an example of how cookie-files can look:

name: _ga
value: GA1.2.1326744211.152121629003-9
purpose: differentiation between website visitors
expiration date: after 2 years

A browser should support these minimum sizes:

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

Which types of cookies are there?

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

There are 4 different types of cookies:

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

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

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

Advertising cookies
These cookies are also known as targeting cookies. They serve the purpose of delivering individually adapted advertisements to the user. This can be very practical, but also rather annoying.

Upon your first visit to a website you are usually asked which of these cookie-types you want to accept. Furthermore, this decision will of course also be saved in a cookie.

How can I delete cookies?

You yourself take the decision if and how you want to use cookies. Thus, no matter what service or website cookies are from, you always have the option to delete, deactivate or only partially allow them. Therefore, you can for example block cookies of third parties but allow any other cookies.

If you want change or delete cookie-settings and would like to determine which cookies have been saved to your browser, you can find this info in your browser-settings:

Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari

Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge

If you generally do not want to allow any cookies at all, you can set up your browser in a way, to notify you whenever a potential cookie is about to be set. This gives you the opportunity to manually decide to either permit or deny the placement of every single cookie. The settings for this differ from browser to browser. Therefore, it might be best for you to search for the instructions in Google. If you are using Chrome, you could for example put the search phrase "delete cookies Chrome" or "deactivate cookies Chrome" into Google.

How is my data protected?

There is a "cookie policy" that has been in place since 2009. It states that the storage of cookies requires the user's consent. However, among the countries of the EU, these guidelines are often met with mixed reactions. In Austria the guidelines have been implemented in § 96 section 3 of the Telecommunications Act (TKG).

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

Storage of Personal Data

Any personal data you electronically submit to us on this website, such as your name, email address, home address or other personal information you provide via the transmission of a form or via any comments to the blog, are solely used for the specified purpose and get stored securely along with the respective submission times and IP-address. These data do not get passed on to third parties.

Therefore, we use personal data for the communication with only those users, who have explicitly requested being contacted, as well as for the execution of the services and products offered on this website. We do not pass your personal data to others without your approval, but we cannot exclude the possibility this data will be looked at in case of illegal conduct.

If you send us personal data via email - and thus not via this website - we cannot guarantee any safe transmission or protection of your data. We recommend you, to never send confidential data via email.

Rights in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation

You are granted the following rights in accordance with the provisions of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and the Austrian Data Protection Act (DSG):

• right to rectification (article 16 GDPR)
• right to erasure ("right to be forgotten") (article 17 GDPR)
• right to restrict processing (article 18 GDPR)
• right to notification - notification obligation regarding rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing (article 19 GDPR)
• right to data portability (article 20 GDPR)
• Right to object (article 21 GDPR)
• right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing - including profiling - (article 22 GDPR)

If you think that the processing of your data violates the data protection law, or that your data protection rights have been infringed in any other way, you can lodge a complaint with your respective regulatory authority. For Austria this is the data protection authority, whose website you can access at https://www.data-protection-authority.gv.at/.

Evaluation of Visitor Behavior

In the following Privacy Policy, we will inform you on if and how we evaluate the data of your visit to this website. The evaluation is generally made anonymously, and we cannot link to you personally based on your behavior on this website.

You can find out more about how to disagree with the evaluation of visitor data, in the Privacy Policy below.

TLS encryption with https

We use https to transfer information on the internet in a tap-proof manner (data protection through technology design Article 25 Section 1 GDPR). With the use of TLS (Transport Layer Security), which is an encryption protocol for safe data transfer on the internet, we can ensure the protection of confidential information. You can recognize the use of this safeguarding tool by the little lock-symbol, which is situated in your browser's top left corner, as well as by the use of the letters https (instead of http) as a part of our web address.

Google Fonts Privacy Policy

On our website we use Google Fonts, from the company Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA).

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

What are Google Fonts?

Google Fonts (previously Google Web Fonts) is a list of over 800 fonts which href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google?tid=121629003">Google LLC provides its users for free.

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

Why do we use Google Fonts on our website?

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

Which data is saved by Google?

Whenever you visit our website, the fonts are reloaded by a Google server. Through this external cue, data gets transferred to Google's servers. Therefore, this makes Google recognize that you (or your IP-address) is visiting our website. The Google Fonts API was developed to reduce the usage, storage and gathering of end user data to the minimum needed for the proper depiction of fonts. What is more, API stands for "Application Programming Interface" and works as a software data intermediary.

Google Fonts stores CSS and font requests safely with Google, and therefore it is protected. Using its collected usage figures, Google can determine how popular the individual fonts are. Google publishes the results on internal analysis pages, such as Google Analytics. Furthermore, Google also utilizes data of its own web crawler, in order to determine which websites are using Google fonts. This data is published in Google Fonts' BigQuery database. Enterpreneurs and developers use Google's webservice BigQuery to be able to inspect and move big volumes of data.

One more thing that should be considered, is that every request for Google Fonts automatically transmits information such as language preferences, IP address, browser version, as well as the browser's screen resolution and name to Google's servers. It cannot be clearly identified if this data is saved, as Google has not directly declared it.

How long and where is the data stored?

Google saves requests for CSS assets for one day in a tag on their servers, which are primarily located outside of the EU. This makes it possible for us to use the fonts by means of a Google stylesheet. With the help of a stylesheet, e.g. designs or fonts of a website can get changed swiftly and easily.

Any font related data is stored with Google for one year. This is because Google's aim is to fundamentally boost websites' loading times. With millions of websites referring to the same fonts, they are buffered after the first visit and instantly reappear on any other websites that are visited thereafter. Sometimes Google updates font files to either reduce the data sizes, increase the language coverage or to improve the design.

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

The data Google stores for either a day or a year cannot be deleted easily. Upon opening the page this data is automatically transmitted to Google. In order to clear the data ahead of time, you have to contact Google's support at https://support.google.com/?hl=en-GB&tid=121629003. The only way for you to prevent the retention of your data is by not visiting our website.

Unlike other web fonts, Google offers us unrestricted access to all its fonts. Thus, we have a vast sea of font types at our disposal, which helps us to get the most out of our website. You can find out more answers and information on Google Fonts at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq?tid=121629003. While Google does address relevant elements on data protection at this link, it does not contain any detailed information on data retention.
It proves rather difficult to receive any precise information on stored data by Google.

On https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-GB you can read more about what data is generally collected by Google and what this data is used for.

Google Fonts Local Privacy Policy

On our website we use Google Fonts, from the company Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA).
We integrated Google Fonts locally, so on our own webserver and not on Google's servers. Hence, there is no connection to Google's servers and consequently no data transfer or retention.

What are Google Fonts?

Google Fonts was previously called Google Web Fonts. It is an interactive list with over 800 fonts which Google LLC offer for free use. With the use of Google Fonts, it is possible to utilize fonts without uploading them to your own server. For that matter, in order to prevent any transfer of information to Google's servers, we downloaded the fonts to our own server. This way we comply with the data privacy and do not transmit any data to Google Fonts.

Unlike other web fonts, Google offers us unrestricted access to all its fonts. Thus, we have a vast sea of font types at our disposal, which helps us to get the most out of our website. You can find out more answers and information on Google Fonts at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq?tid=121629003.

Google Analytics Privacy Policy

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

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a tracking tool with the purpose of conducting data traffic analysis of our website. For Google Analytics to work, there is a tracking code integrated to our website. Upon your visit to our website, this code records various actions you perform on your website. As soon as you leave our website, this data is sent to the Google Analytics server, where it is stored.

Google processes this data and we then receive reports on your user behavior. These reports can be one of the following:

• Target audience reports: With the help of target audience reports we can get to know our users better and can therefore better understand who is interested in our service.
• Advertising reports: Through advertising reports we can analyze our online advertising better and hence improve it.
• Acquisition reports: Acquisition reports provide us helpful information on how we can get more people enthusiastic about our service.
• Behavior reports: With these reports, we can find out how you interact with our website. By the means of behavior reports, we can understand what path you go on our website and what links you click.
• Conversion reports: A conversion is the process of leading you to carry out a desired action due to a marketing message. An example of this would be transforming you from a mere website visitor into a buyer or a newsletter subscriber. Hence, with the help of these reports we can see in more detail, if our marketing measures are successful with you. Our aim is to increase our conversion rate.
• Real time reports: With the help of these reports we can see in real time, what happens on our website. It makes us for example see, we can see how many users are reading this text right now.

Why do we use Google Analytics on our website?

The objective of our website is clear: We want to offer you the best possible service. Google Analytics' statistics and data help us with reaching this goal.

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

What data gets stored by Google Analytics?

With the aid of a tracking code, Google Analytics creates a random, unique ID which is connected to your browser cookie. That way, Google Analytics recognizes you as a new user. The next time you visit our site, you will be recognized as a "recurring" user. All data that is collected gets saved together with this very user ID. Only this is how it is made possible for us to evaluate and analyze pseudonymous user profiles.

Your interactions on our website are measures by tags such as cookies and app instance IDs. Interactions are all kinds of actions that you perform on our website. If you are also using other Google systems (such as a Google Account), data generated by Google Analytics can be linked with third-party cookies. Google does not pass on any Google Analytics data, unless we as the website owners authorize it. In case it is required by law, exceptions can occur.

The following cookies are used by Google Analytics:

Name: _ga
Value:2.1326744211.152121629003-5
Purpose: By deafault, analytics.js uses the cookie _ga, to save the user ID. It generally serves the purpose of differentiating between website visitors.
Expiration date: After 2 years

Name: _gid
Value:2.1687193234.152121629003-1
Purpose: This cookie also serves the purpose of differentiating between website users
Expiration date: After 24 hours

Name: _gat_gtag_UA_
Value: 1
Intended use: It is used for decreasing the demand rate. If Google Analytics is provided via Google Tag Manager, this cookie gets the name _dc_gtm_ .
Expiration date: After 1 minute

Name: AMP_TOKEN
Value: No information
Purpose: This cookie has a token which is used to retrieve the user ID by the AMP Client ID Service. Other possible values suggest a logoff, a request or an error.
Expiration date: After 30 seconds up to one year

Name: __utma
Value:1564498958.1564498958.1564498958.1
Purpose: With this cookie your behavior on the website can be tracked and the site performance can be measured. The cookie is updated every time the information is sent to Google Analytics.
Expiration date: After 2 years

Name: __utmt
Value: 1
Purpose: Just like _gat_gtag_UA_ this cookie is used for keeping the requirement rate in check.
Expiration date: Afer 10 minutes

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

Name: __utmc
Value: 167421564
Purpose: This cookie is used to determine new sessions for recurring visitors. It is therefore a session cookie, and only stays saved until you close the browser again.
Expiration date: After closing the browser

Name: __utmz
Value: m|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/
Purpose: This cookie is used to identify the source of our website's visitor number. This means that the cookie saves information on where you came to our website from. This could be another site or an advertisement.
Expiration date: After 6 months

Name: __utmv
Value: No information
Purpose: The cookie is used to store custom user data. It gets updated whenever information is sent to Google Analytics.
Expiration date: After 2 years

Note: This list is by no means exhaustive, since Google are repeatedly changing the use of their cookies.

Below we will give you an overview of the most important data that can be evaluated by Google Analytics:

Heatmaps: Google creates so-called heatmaps. These heatmaps make it possible to see the exact areas you click on, so we can get information on what routes you make on our website.

Session duration: Google calls the time you spend on our website without leaving it session duration. Whenever you are inactive for 20 minutes, the session ends automatically.

Bounce rate If you only look at one page of our website and then leave our website again, it is called a bounce.

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

IP address: The IP address is only shown in a shortened form, to make it impossible to clearly allocate it.

Location: Your approximate location and the country you are in can be defined by the IP address. This process is called IP location determination.

Technical information: Information about your browser type, your internet provider and your screen resolution are called technical information.

Source: Both, Google Analytics as well as ourselves, are interested what website or what advertisement led you to our site.

Further possibly stored data includes contact data, potential reviews, playing media (e.g. when you play a video on our site), sharing of contents via social media or adding our site to your favorites. This list is not exhaustive and only serves as general guidance on Google Analytics' data retention.

How long and where is the data saved?

Google has servers across the globe. Most of them are in America and therefore your data is mainly saved on American servers. Here you can read detailed information on where Google's data centers are located: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=en

Your data is allocated to various physical data media. This has the advantage of allowing to retrieve the data faster, and of protecting it better from manipulation. Every Google data centre has respective emergency programs for your data. Hence, in case of a hardware failure at Google or a server error due to natural disasters, the risk for a service interruption stays relatively low.

Google Analytics has a 26 months standardized period of retaining your user data. After this time, your user data is deleted. However, we have the possibility to choose the retention period of user data ourselves. There are the following five options:

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

As soon as the chosen period is expired, the data is deleted once a month. This retention period applies to any of your data which is linked to cookies, user identification and advertisement IDs (e.g. cookies of the DoubleClick domain). Any report results are based on aggregated information and are stored independently of any user data. Aggregated information is a merge of individual data into a single and bigger unit.

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

Under the provisions of the European Union's data protection law, you have the right to obtain information on your data and to update, delete or restrict it. With the help of a browser add on that can deactivate Google Analytics' JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, dc.js), you can prevent Google Analytics from using your data. You can download this add on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en-GB. Please consider that this add on can only deactivate any data collection by Google Analytics.

Should you generally want to deactivate, delete or manage all cookies (independently of Google Analytics), you can use one of the guides that are available for any browser:

Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari

Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge

Google Analytics is an active participant of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates correct and save transfer of personal data.
You can find more information on this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&tid=121629003. We hope we were able to make you more familiar with the most important information on Google Analytics' data processing. If you want to learn more about the tracking service, we recommend both of the following links: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/gb/ and https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=en.

Google Analytics IP Anonymization

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

You can find more information on IP anonymization at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2763052?hl=en.

Google Analytics Reports on demographic characteristics and interests

We have turned on Google Analytics' functions for advertising reports. These reports on demographic characteristics and interests contain details about age, gender and interests. Through them we can get a better picture of our users - without being able to allocate any data to individual persons. You can learn more about advertising functions at at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3450482?hl=en&%3Butm_id=ad.

You can terminate the use of your Google Account's activities and information in "Ads Settings" at https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated via a checkbox.

Google Analytics Deactivation Link

By clicking on the following deactivation link you can prevent Google from tracking your further visits. Caution: The deletion of cookies, the use of your browser's incognito/private mode or the use of a different browser may lead to your data being collected again.

Deactivate Google Analytics

Google Analytics' Data Processing Amendment

By accepting the amendment on data processing in Google Analytics, we entered a contract with Google concerning the use of Google Analytics.

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

Google Analytics Google Signals Privacy Policy

We have activated Google signals in Google Analytics. Through this, any existing Google Analytics functions (advertising reports, remarketing, cross-device reports and reports on interests and demographic characteristics) are updated, to result in the summary and anonymization of your data, should you have permitted personalised ads in your Google Account.

The special aspect of this is that it involves cross-device tracking. That means your data can be analyzed across multiple devices. Through the activation of Google signals, data is collected and linked to the Google account. For example, it enables Google to recognize when you look at a product on a smartphone and later buy the product on a laptop. Due to activating Google signals, we can start cross-device remarketing campaigns, which would otherwise not be possible to this extent. Remarketing means that we can show you our products and services across other websites as well.

Furthermore, further visitor data such as location, search history, YouTube history and data about your actions on our website are collected in Google Analytics. As a result, we receive improved advertising reports and more useful information on your interests and demographic characteristics. These include your age, the language you speak, where you live or what your gender is. Certain social criteria such as your job, your marital status or your income are also included. All these characteristics help Google Analytics to define groups of persons or target audiences.

Those reports also help us to better assess your behavior, as well as your wishes and interests. As a result, we can optimize and customise our products and services for you. By default, this data expires after 26 months. Please consider, that this data is only collected if you have agreed to personalized advertisement in your Google Account. The retained information is always exclusively summarized and anonymous data, and never any data on individual persons. You can manage or delete this data in your Google Account.

Hotjar Privacy Policy

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

What is Hotjar?

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

Why do we use Hotjar on our website?

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

What data is saved by Hotjar?

Hotjar automatically collects information on your user behavior while you surf our website. In order to be able to collect this information, we implemented a tracking code. We integrated a tracking code, to be able to collect this information. The following data can be gathered via your computer or your browser:

• Your computer's IP address (is collected and saved in an anonymous format)
• Screen size
• Browser information (which browser and version etc.)
• Your location (but only the country)
• Your language preference
• Visited websites (subpages)
• Date and time of access to one of our subpages (websites)

Furthermore, cookies also save data that have been placed on your computer (mostly your browser), although no personal data is collected. Generally, Hotjar does not pass collected data to third parties. However, Hotjar explicitly emphasizes that it is sometimes necessary to share data with Amazon Web Services. _ parts of your information is saved on its servers. Nonetheless, Amazon is bound to a confidentiality obligation and cannot disclose these data.

Only a limited number of people (employees of Hotjar) have access to the stored information. Furthermore, Hotjar's servers are protected by firewalls and IP restrictions (only authorized IP addresses have access). Firewalls are security systems which protect computers from unwanted network accesses. They serve as barriers between Hotjar's secure internal network and the internet. Furthermore, Hotjar also uses third-party companies for their services, such as Google Analytics or Optimizely. These firms can also save information that your browser sends to our website.

The following cookies are used by Hotjar. Since we refer to the cookie list in Hotjar's privacy statement at https://www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/cookie-information, not every cookie has a sample value. The list shows examples of utilized Hotjar cookies and does not claim to be exhaustive.

Nameajs_anonymous_id
Value: %2258832463-7cee-48ee-b346-a195f18b06c3%22121629003-5
Purpose: This cookie is generally used for analysis purposes and helps with counting our website's visitors by tracking whether they have been to the website before.
Expiry date: after one year

Name: ajs_group_id
Value: 0
Purpose: This cookie collects data on user behavior. Based on the similarities between website visitors, the data can then be assigned to a specific visitor group.
Expiry date: after one year

Name: _hjid
Value: 699ffb1c-4bfb-483f-bde1-22cfa0b59c6c
Purpose: This cookie is used to maintain a Hotjar user ID, which is unique for the website in the browser. That way, upon the next website visits, the user behavior can be assigned to the same user ID.
Expiry date: after one year

Name: _hjMinimizedPolls
Value: 462568121629003-8
Purpose: Every time you minimize a feedback poll widget, Hotjar sets this cookie. It ensures that the widget stays minimized when you surf our sites.
Expiry date: after one year

Name: _hjIncludedInSample
Value: 1
Purpose: This session cookie is used to inform Hotjar if you are part of the selected individuals (sample), who are used for the creation of funnels.
Expiry date: after one year

Name: _hjClosedSurveyInvites
Purpose: This cookie is set when you see an invitation to a feedback poll in a popup window. It is used to ensure that this invitation appears to you only once.
Expiry date: after one year

Name: _hjDonePolls
Purpose: This cookie is set in your browser whenever you finish a round of questions for feedback in a poll widget. Therewith, Hotjar prevents you from receiving the same polls in the future.
Expiry date: after one year

Name: _hjDoneTestersWidgets
Purpose: This cookie is used when you enter your data in the "recruit user tester" widget. With this widget we want to engage you as a tester. The cookie is used to prevent the form from reappearing repeatedly.
Expiry date: after one year

Name: _hjMinimizedTestersWidgets
Purpose: This cookie is set to keep the "recruit user tester" widget minimized accross all our pages. The cookie is set upon you minimizing this widget once.
Expiry date: after one year

Name: _hjShownFeedbackMessage
Purpose: This cookie is set if you minimize or amend the given feedback. This is done so the feedback is instantly loaded as minimized when you navigate to another page, on which it is displayed.
Expiry date: after one year

How long and where is the data saved?

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

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

Hotjar saves none of your personal data for its analysis. The company even advertises with the slogan "We track behavior, not individuals". In addition, it is always possible for you to prevent the collection of your data. For this you simply need to visit Hotjar's "Opt-out page" and click on "deactivate Hotjar". Please note that deleting cookies, using your browser's private mode or utilizing a different browser will result in the collection of data again. Furthermore, you can activate the "Do Not Track" button in your browser. To do this in Chrome for example, you must click on the three bars and select "Settings". In the section "Data Protection" you will find the option "Send a 'Do Not Track' request with your browsing traffic". Finally, you must click on this button and no data will be collected by Hotjar.

You can find more details on the privacy policy and on what data Hotjar uses and how it is utilized at https://www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/privacy?tid=121629003.

Newsletter Privacy Policy

When you subscribe to our Newsletter you submit your personal data and give us the right to contact you via email. We use the data that is stored for the registration for the Newsletter exclusively for our Newsletter and do not pass them on.

If you unsubscribe from the newsletter - for which you can find a link in the bottom of every newsletter - we will delete all data that was saved when you registered for the newsletter.

Google AdSense Privacy Policy

We use Google AdSense on this website. It is an advertising program of the company Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA). With Google AdSense we can show advertisements that fit our theme. Thus, we can offer you adverts that ideally give you added value. In this privacy statement on Google AdSense we will explain to you, why we use Google AdSense on our website and which of your data is processed and saved, as well as how you can prevent this data retention.

What is Google AdSense?

The advertising program Google AdSense has been around since 2003. As opposed to Google Ads (previously: Google AdWords) it is not possible to advertise on Google AdSense oneself. Google AdSense displays advertisements on websites, such as ours. The biggest advantage of this web service compared to some others, is that Google AdSense only shows ads to you which match our website's contents. Google has its own algorithm which calculates what ads are shown to you. Of course, we only want to show you ads that interest you and provide you added value. Google checks which advertisements are suitable for our users, considering your interests, your user behavior and our offer. At this point we want to mention that we are not responsible for the choice of the ads. We merely offer advertising space on our website, while Google selects the displayed ads. Furthermore, since August 2013 the ads are customised to the respective user interface. This means, that no matter if you visit our website with your smartphone, your PC or your laptop, the ads adjust to your terminal device.

Why do we use Google AdSense on our website?

The operation of a high-quality website requires tremendous dedication and commitment. We are essentially never finished with working on our website. This is, because we continuously maintain and keep our website up to date. Of course, we want to achieve economic success with this work. Therefore, we decided for to use advertisements as a source of revenue. It is most important to us however, that we do not disrupt your visit to our website with these advertisements. Therefore, with the aid of Google AdSense, only adverts that are tailored to you and our themes are shown.

Like with Google's indexation for a website, a bot examines both, the matching content and the offers on our website. Then, the ads are adapted to and presented on the website. Alongside the contextual overlaps between the ads and website offer, AdSense also supports interest-based targeting. This means that Google also uses your data to offer advertising that is tailored to you. That way you receive ads that ideally offer you added value, and it gives us a higher chance of earning a bit.

What data is stored by Google AdSense?

Google AdSense uses cookies to display ads that are customized to you. Cookies are little text files that store certain information on your computer.

Cookies are supposed to enable improved advertisements in AdSense. They do not contain any personally identifiable data. However, it should be considered that Google does not view data such as "Pseudonymous Cookie-IDs" (name or other identification feature is replaced with a pseudonym) or IP addresses as personally identifiable information. Although, within the framework of the GDPR, this data can be classified as personal data. Following every impression (every time you see an ad), every click and any other activity that leads to a call on its servers, Google AdSense sends a cookie to the browser. The cookie is then saved in the browser, provided the browser accepts it.

Under certain circumstances, third parties can place cookies in your browser, and read them or use web beacons, to store data they receive through the display of ads on the website. Web beacons are little graphics that analyze and a record the log file. This analysis allows a statistical evaluation for the online marketing.

Through this cookie, Google can collect certain information on your user behavior on our website. These include:

• Information on how you interact with an ad (clicks, impressions, mouse movements)
• Information if an ad has already been displayed in your browser. This data helps to prevent an ad from showing multiple times.

Thereby, Google evaluates and analyzes data on the displayed advertising material along with your IP address. Primarily, Google uses the data to measure the effectiveness of an ad and improve the advertising offer. Furthermore, the data does not get linked to your personal data which Google might have received via other Google services.

In the following we will introduce you to the cookies that Google AdSense uses for tracking purposes. Please note, that we will refer to a test website, which only has Google AdSense installed to it:

Name: uid
Value: 891269189121629003-8
Purpose: The cookie is stored under the domain adform.net. It provides a uniquely assigned user ID that is generated automatically and collects data on the activity on our website.
Expiry date: after 2 months

Name: C
Value: 1
Purpose: This cookie identifies if your browser accepts cookies. The cookie is stored under the domain track.adform.net.
Expiry date: after 1 month

Name: cid
Value: 8912691894970695056,0,0,0,0
Purpose: This cookie is saved under the domain track.adform.net. It stands for the client ID and is used to offer you improved advertisements. It can forward more relevant adverts to the user and helps to improve reports on campaign performance.
Expiry date: after 2 months

Name: IDE
Value: zOtj4TWxwbFDjaATZ2TzNaQmxrU121629003-1
Purpose: The cookie is stored under the domain doubleclick.net. It serves the purpose of registering your actions following an impression or a click on the ad. Thus, it can be measured how our visitors like an ad.
Expiry data: after 1 month

Name: test_cookie
Value: not specified
Purpose: With the "test_cookies" it can be verified, if your browser even supports cookies. The cookie is saved under the domain doubleclick.net.
Expiry date: after 1 month

Name: CT592996
Value:733366
Purpose: It is saved under the domain adform.net. The cookie is placed upon your click on an ad. We could not find any further information on the use of this cookie.
Expiry date: after one hour

Note: This list does not claim to be exhaustive, as Google frequently change the choice of their cookies.

How long and where is the data stored?

Google retains your IP address, as well as various activities you perform on the website. Cookies store this information with the interactions on our website. According to Google, the company collects and saves the given information securely on its internal servers in the USA.

If you do not have a Google account or are not logged in, Google usually stores the collected data on your browser with a unique identification (ID). The IDs saved in cookies serve e.g. for providing personalized advertisements. If you are logged into a Google account, Google can gather personal information.

You can delete certain data that is saved by Google anytime (see next section). Much of the information saved in cookies get automatically deleted after a specific time. However, there are also data which are retained by Google for a longer period. This is the case when Google must store certain data for an undefined, longer period due to economic or legal necessities.

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

You can always clear or deactivate cookies that are on your computer. How exactly this can be done depends on the browser.

Here you can find an instruction on how you can manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari

Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge

If you generally do not want to allow any cookies, you can set your browser to notify you whenever a potential cookie is about to be set. This lets you decide to either permit or deny the placement of every single cookie. By downloading and installing the browser plugin at https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996, any advertising cookies get deactivated as well. Please note, that deactivating these cookies does not stop advertisements, it only inhibits personalized adverts.

If you have a Google account, you can deactivate personalized adverts on the website https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated. You will continue to see ads, but they will stop being customised to your interests. Nevertheless, the ads are displayed based on a few factors, such as your location, the browser type and the search terms used.

You can learn more about what data Google generally collects and what they are used for at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-GB.

Google Ads (Google AdWords) Conversion Tracking Privacy Policy

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

What is Google Ads conversion tracking?

Google Ads (previously Google AdWords) is the internal online advertising sxstem of the company Google LLC. We are convinced of our offer's quality and would like as many people as possible to discover our website. For this, Google Ads offers the best platform within the online environment. Of course, we also want to get an overview of the cost-benefit factor of our advertising campaigns. Therefore, we use Google Ads' conversion tracking tool.

But what is a conversion actually? A conversion occurs when you turn from an interested visitor into an acting website visitor. This happens every time you click on our ad and then make another action, such as paying a visit to our website. With Google's conversion tracking tool, we can understand what happens after a user clicks our Google ad. It shows us for instance if products get bought, services are used or whether users have subscribed to our newsletter.

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

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

What data is stored with Google Ads conversion tracking?

For a better analysis of certain user actions, we have integrated a conversion tracking tag, or code snippet to our website. Therefore, if you click one of our Google ads, a Google domain stores the cookie "conversion" on your computer (usually in the browser) or on your mobile device. Cookies are little text files that save information on your computer.

Here are data of the most significant cookies for Google's conversion tracking:

Name: Conversion
Value: EhMI_aySuoyv4gIVled3Ch0llweVGAEgt-mr6aXd7dYlSAGQ121629003-3
Purpose: This cookie saves every conversion you make on our website after you came to us via a Google ad.
Expiry date: after 3 months

Name: _gac
Value: 1.1558695989.EAIaIQobChMIiOmEgYO04gIVj5AYCh2CBAPrEAAYASAAEgIYQfD_BwE
Purpose: This is a classic Google Analytics cookie that records various actions on our website.
Expiry date: after 3 months

Note: The cookie _gac only appears in connection with Google Analytics. The above list does not claim to be exhaustive, as Google repeatedly change the cookies they use for analytical evaluation.

As soon as you complete an action on our website, Google identifies the cookie and saves your action as a so-called conversion. For as long as you surf our website, provided the cookie has not expired, both Google and us can determine that you found your way to us via a Google ad. Then, the cookie is read and sent back to Google Ads, together with the conversion data. Furthermore, other cookies may also be used for measuring conversions. Google Ads' conversion tracking can be fine-tuned and improved with the aid of Google Analytics. Furthermore, ads which Google displays in various places across the web, might be placed under our domain with the name "__gads" or "_gac".
Since September 2017, analytics.js retains various campaign information with the _gac cookie. This cookie stores data, as soon as you open one of our sites that has been set up for Google Ads' auto-tagging. In contrast to cookies that are placed for Google domains, Google can only read these conversion cookies when you are on our website. We neither collect nor receive any personal data. We do obtain a report with statistical evaluations by Google. With the help thereof, we can not only see the total number of users who clicked our ad, but also what advertising measures were well received.

How long and where is the data stored?

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

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

You have the possibility to opt out of Google Ads' conversion tracking. The conversion tracking can be blocked by deactivating the conversion tracking cookie via your browser. If you do this, you will not be considered for the statistic of the tracking tool. You can change the cookie settings in your browser anytime. Doing so, works a little different in every browser. Hence, in the following you will find an instruction on how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari

Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge

If you generally do not want to allow any cookies at all, you can set up your browser to notify you whenever a potential cookie is about to be set. This lets you decide upon permitting or denying the cookie's placement. By downloading and installing the browser plugin at https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996 you can also deactivate all "advertising cookies". Please consider that by deactivating these cookies, you cannot prevent all advertisements, only personalized ads.

Due to the certification for the American-European data protection convention "Privacy Shield", the American corporation Google LLC must comply to the EU's applicable data protection laws. If you want to find out more on data protection at Google, we recommend Google's general Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-GB.

Embedded Social Media elements Privacy Policy

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

• Instagram Data Policy: https://help.instagram.com/519522125107875
• For YouTube, the Google Privacy Policy applies: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-GB
• Facebook Data Policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy
• Twitter Privacy Policy: https://twitter.com/en/privacy

Instagram Privacy Policy

We have integrated functions of Instagram to our website. Instagram is a social media platform of the company Instagram LLC, 1601 Willow Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025, USA. Since 2012, Instagram is a subsidiary company of Facebook Inc. and is a part of Facebook's products. The inclusion of Instagram's contents on our website is called embedding. With this, we can show you Instagram contents such as buttons, photos or videos directly on our website. If you open websites of our online presence, that have an integrated Instagram function, data gets transmitted to, as well as stored and processed by Instagram. Instagram uses the same systems and technologies as Facebook. Therefore, your data will be processed across all Facebook firms.

In the following, we want to give you a more detailed insight on why Instagram collects data, what data these are and how you can control data processing. As Instagram belongs to Facebook Inc., we have, on the one hand received this information from the Instagram guidelines, and on the other hand from Facebook's Data Policy.

What is Instagram?

Instagram is one of the most famous social media networks worldwide. Instagram combines the benefits of a blog with the benefits of audio-visual platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo. To "Insta" (how the platform is casually called by many users) you can upload photos and short videos, edit them with different filters and also share them to other social networks. Also, if you do not want to be active on Instagram yourself, you can just follow other interesting users.

Why do we use Instagram on our website?

Instagram is a social media platform whose success has skyrocketed within recent years. Naturally, we have also reacted to this boom. We want you to feel as comfortable as possible on our website. Therefore, we attach great importance to diversified contents. With the embedded Instagram features we can enrich our content with helpful, funny or exciting Instagram contents. Since Instagram is a subsidiary company of Facebook, the collected data can also serve us for customized advertising on Facebook. Hence, only persons who are genuinely interested in our products or services can see our ads.

Instagram also uses the collected data for tracking and analysis purposes. We receive summarized statistics and therefore more insight to your wishes and interests. It is important to mention that these reports do not identify you personally.

What data is saved by Instagram?

Whenever you land on one of our sites, which have Instagram functions (i.e. Instagram photos or plugins) integrated to them, your browser automatically connects with Instagram's servers. Thereby, data is sent to, as well as saved and processed by Instagram. This always happens, whether you have an Instagram account or not. Furthermore, it includes information on our website, your computer, your purchases, the advertisements you see and on how you use our offer. The date and time of your interaction is also stored. If you have an Instagram account or are logged in, Instagram saves significantly more data on you.

Facebook distinguishes between customer data and event data. We assume this is also the case for Instagram. Customer data are for example names, addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses. These data are only transmitted to Instagram, if they have been "hashed" first. Thereby, a set of data is transformed into a string of characters, which encrypts any contact data. Furthermore, the aforementioned "event data" (data on your user behavior) is transmitted as well. It is also possible that contact data may get combined with event data. The collected data data is matched with any data Instagram already has on you.

Furthermore, the gathered data are transferred to Facebook via little text files (cookies) which usually get set in your browser. Depending on the Instagram function used, and whether you have an Instagram account yourself, the amount of data that gets stored varies.

We assume data processing on Instagram works the same way as on Facebook. Therefore, if you have an account on Instagram or have visited www.instagram.com, Instagram has set at least one cookie. If this is the case, your browser uses the cookie to send information to Instagram, as soon as you come across an Instagram function. No later than 90 days (after matching) the data is deleted or anonymized. Even though we have studied Instagram's data processing in-depth, we cannot tell for sure what exact data Instagram collects and retains.

In the following we will show you a list of the least cookies placed in your browser when click on an Instagram function (e.g. button or an Insta picture). In our test we assume you do not have an Instagram account, since if you would be logged in to your Instagram account, your browser would place significantly more cookies.
The following cookies were used in our test:

Name: csrftoken
Value: “”
Purpose: This cookie is most likely set for security reasons to prevent falsifications of requests. We could not find out more information on it.
Expiry date: after one year

Name: mid
Value: “”
Purpose: Instagram places this cookie to optimize its own offers and services in- and outside of Instagram. The cookie allocates a unique user ID.
Expiry date: after end of session

Name: fbsr_121629003124024
Value: no information
Purpose: This cookie stores the login request of Instagram app users.
Expiry date: after end of session

Name: rur
Value: ATN
Purpose: This is an Instagram cookie which guarantees functionality on Instagram.
Expiry date: after end of session

Name: urlgen
Value: “{”194.96.75.33”: 1901}:1iEtYv:Y833k2_UjKvXgYe121629003”
Purpose: This cookie serves Instagram's marketing purposes.
Expiry date: after end of session

Note: We do not claim this list to be exhaustive. The cookies that are placed in each individual case, depend on the functions embedded as well as on your use of Instagram.

How long and where are these data stored?

Instagram shares the information obtained within the Facebook businesses with external partners and persons you are globally connected with. Data processing is done according to Facebook's internal data policy. Your data is distributed to Facebook's servers across the world, partially for security reasons. Most of these servers are in the USA.

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

Thanks to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have the right of information, rectification, transfer and deletion of your data. Furthermore, you can manage your data in Instagram's settings. If you want to delete your data on Instagram completely, you will have to delete your Instagram account permanently.

And this is how an Instagram account can be deleted:

First, open the Instagram app. Then, navigate to your profile page, select the three bars in the top right, choose "Settings" and then click "Help". Now, you will be redirected to the company's website, where you must click on "Managing Your Account" and then "Delete Your Account".

When you delete your account completely, Instagram deletes posts such as your photos and status updates. Any information other people shared about you are not a part of your account and therefore do not get deleted.

As mentioned before, Instagram primarily stores your data via cookies. You can manage, deactivate or delete these cookies in your browser. Depending on your browser, managing them varies a bit. We will show you the instructions of the most relevant browsers here.

Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari

Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge

Generally, you can set your browser to notify you whenever a cookie is about to be set. Then you can individually decide upon the permission of every cookie.

Instagram is a subsidiary company of Facebook Inc. and Facebook is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. This framework regulates correct transfer between the USA and the European Union. At https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000GnywAAC you can find out more about this. We gave our best to make you familiar with the most important information on data processing by Instagram. At https://help.instagram.com/519522125107875 you can find out more on Instagram's data policies.

ShareThis Privacy Policy

On our website we have implemented functions of ShareThis from ShareThis Inc (4005 Miranda Ave, Suite 100, Palo Alto, 94304 California, USA). These are, for example, "share" plugins of various social media channels. With the help of these functions, you can share our website's content on social media channels. If you open a website with a ShareThis function, your data may be transferred to the company, where it may be stored and processed. In this privacy policy you can read why we use ShareThis, what data is processed and how you can prevent this data transmission.

What is ShareThis?

ShareThis is a technology company that offers website operators tools to improve website quality. With ShareThis social plugins, you can share our website's content on various social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. The company offers content sharing for over 40 different channels and is used by over 3 million website operators worldwide. The data collected by ShareThis are also used for tailored advertisements.

Why do we use ShareThis on our website?

We strive to provide quality content and we are of course happy, if our content is also recommended to and shared with others. This helps us to know that we are on the right path.
The easiest way to do this is via any "Share" directly on our website. Thanks to the different variety social media channels, we can present our content to a wide audience. This helps us to increase awareness for us and to become more successful on the Internet. However, the plugins also help you since you can share interesting content with your social media community with just one click.

What data is stored by ShareThis?

If you share content with ShareThis and are logged into a social media account, data e.g. on your visit to our website, as well as your sharing of content may be assigned to your user account on the respective social media channel. ShareThis uses cookies, pixels, HTTP headers and browser identifiers to collect data about your visitor behavior. In addition, some of this data is shared with third parties, but only after it has been pseudonymized.

Here is a list of the data that may be processed:

• Unique ID of a cookie placed in the web browser
• General click behavior
• Addresses of visited websites
• Search queries which led a visitor to the ShareThis page
• Navigation from website to website provided it happened via ShareThis services
• Time spent on a website
• Which elements have been clicked or highlighted
• The IP address of the computer or mobile device
• Mobile advertising IDs (Apple IDFA or Google AAID)
• Information contained in HTTP headers or other utilized transmission protocols
• Which program on the computer (browser) or which operating system was used (iOS)

ShareThis uses cookies, which we will list examples of below. You can find out more about ShareThis cookies at https://www.sharethis.com/privacy/.

Name: __unam
Value: 8961a7f179d1d017ac27lw87qq69V69121629003-5
Purpose: This cookie counts the "clicks" and "shares" on a website.
Expiry date: after 9 months

Name: __stid
Value: aGCDwF4hjVEI+oIsABW7121629003Ag==
Purpose: This cookie stores user behavior, such as the websites accessed, page-to-page navigations and the length of time spent on the website.
Expiry date: after 2 years

Name: __sharethis_cookie_test__
Value: 0
Purpose: This cookie monitors the "clickstream" activity. That means it records where you clicked on the website.
Expiry date: after end of session

Note:We do not claim for this list to be exhaustive. The cookies that are set in individual cases depend on the embedded functions and the use thereof.

How long and where is the data retained?

ShareThis stores collected data for a period of up to 14 months from the date of data collection. ShareThis cookies expire 13 months after the last update. Since ShareThis is an American company, data is transferred to and stored on American ShareThis servers.

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

If you no longer want to see advertisements based on data collected by ShareThis, you can use the opt-out button at https://www.sharethis.com/privacy/. Then, an opt-out cookie is set, which you must not delete in order to keep this setting.

You can also set your preferences for usage-based online advertising at https://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/ in "Your Ad Choices".

You also have the option of managing, deactivating or deleting data that is stored in your browser via cookies. How exactly the administration works depends on your browser. Here you will find the instructions for the most popular browsers.

Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari

Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge

You can also set your browser to always inform you when a cookie is about to be set.

ShareThis is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information on this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000L1HMAA0&status=Active. If you would like to know more about the processing of your data by ShareThis, you will find all information at https://www.sharethis.com/privacy/.

AddThis Privacy Policy

On our website we use plug-ins from AddThis by Oracle America, Inc. (500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065, USA). With these plug-ins, you can quickly and easily share contents of our website with other people. If you visit a website with an AddThis function, your data may be transferred to the company AddThis, where it may be stored and processed. This privacy statement will tell you why we use AddThis, which data is processed and how you can prevent data transmission.

What is AddThis?

AddThis develops software tools for integration to websites, where they serve the purpose of enabling users to distribute content either on various social media channels or by email. AddThis also offers functions for website analysis. Furthermore, the collected data is used to offer interest-based advertising to internet users. More than 15 million website operators worldwide have used the service.

Why do we use AddThis on our website?

Via AddThis buttons, you can share interesting content from our website to various social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest. If you like our content, we would of course be happy if you would also share it with your social community. The easiest way this can be done is via AddThis buttons.

What data is stored by AddThis?

If you share content with AddThis while you are logged into a social media account, data such as your visit to our website and the content you shared may be assigned to your user account on the respective social media channel. AddThis uses cookies, pixels, HTTP headers and browser identifiers to collect data about your visitor behavior. Furthermore, some of this data is pseudonymized and then shared with third parties.

Here is an example list of data that may be processed:

• Unique ID of a cookie placed in the web browser
• Address of the visited website
• Time of the website visit
• Search queries which led a visitor to website via AddThis
• Time spent on a website
• The IP address of a computer or mobile device
• Mobile ad IDs (Apple IDFA or Google AAID)
• Information contained in HTTP headers or other utilized transmission protocols
• What program on the computer (browser) or which operating system was used (iOS)

AddThis uses cookies, which we will list examples of below. You can read more on AddThis cookies at http://www.addthis.com/privacy/privacy-policy.

Name: bt2
Value: 8961a7f179d87qq69V69121629003-3
Purpose: : This cookie is used to record parts of the visited website, in order to recommend other parts of the website.
Expiry date: after 255 days

Name: bku
Value: ra/99nTmYN+fZWX7121629003-4
Purpose: This cookie registers anonymized user data such as your IP address, geographic location, your visited websites and the ads you clicked on.
Expiry date: after 179 days

Note: Please keep in mind that this is an exemplary list and we do not claim for it to be exhaustive.

AddThis also shares collected information with other companies. You can find further details at http://www.addthis.com/ privacy / privacy-policy # section5 . AddThis also uses received data to create target groups and interest profiles in order to offer interest-based advertising to users in the same advertising network.

How long and where are the data stored?

After collection, AddThis stores the data for 13 months. 1% of the data is saved as a "sample data record" for a maximum of 24 months, which ensures to maintain the business relationship. However, in this "sample data record", any direct and indirect identifications (such as your IP address and cookie ID) are hashed. That means that, without additional information, personal data can no longer be associated with you. Since the company AddThis is headquartered in the USA, the collected data is stored on American servers.

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

You have the right to access and delete your personal data at any time. If you no longer want to see ads based on data collected by AddThis, you can click the opt-out button at http://www.addthis.com/privacy/opt-out. By clicking the button, an opt-out cookie is set, which you must not delete in order to keep this setting.

You can also set your preferences for usage-based online advertisements in "Your Ad Choices" at http://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/.

Your browser an option for preventing data processing or managing it to your wishes. The settings for data processing vary, depending on the browser. Here you will find instructions for the most popular browsers:

Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari

Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge

AddThis is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information about it at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt00000000181AAA. If you would like to know more about the processing of your data by AddThis, you can find further information at http://www.addthis.com/privacy/privacy-policy.

Google reCAPTCHA Privacy Policy

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

What is reCAPTCHA?

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

Why do we use reCAPTCHA on our website?

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

What data is stored by reCAPTCHA?

reCAPTCHA collects personal user data to determine whether the actions on our website are made by people. Thus, IP addresses and other data Google needs for its reCAPTCHA service, may be sent to Google. Within member states of the European Economic Area, IP addresses are almost always compressed before the data makes its way to a server in the USA.
Furthermore, your IP address will not be combined with any other of Google's data, unless you are logged into your Google account while using reCAPTCHA. Firstly, the reCAPTCHA algorithm checks whether Google cookies from other Google services (YouTube, Gmail, etc.) have already been placed in your browser. Then reCAPTCHA sets an additional cookie in your browser and takes a snapshot of your browser window.

The following list of collected browser and user data is not exhaustive. Rather, it provides examples of data, which to our knowledge, is processed by Google.

• Referrer URL (the address of the page the visitor has come from)
• IP address (e.g. 256.123.123.1)
• Information on the operating system (the software that enables the operation of your computers. Popular operating systems are Windows, Mac OS X or Linux)
• Cookies (small text files that save data in your browser)
• Mouse and keyboard behavior (every action you take with your mouse or keyboard is stored)
• Date and language settings (the language and date you have set on your PC is saved)
• All Javascript objects (JavaScript is a programming language that allows websites to adapt to the user. JavaScript objects can collect all kinds of data under one name)
• Screen resolution (shows how many pixels the image display consists of)

Google may use and analyze this data even before you click on the "I am not a robot" checkmark. In the Invisible reCAPTCHA version, there is no need to even tick at all, as the entire recognition process runs in the background. Moreover, Google have not given details on what information and how much data they retain.

The following cookies are used by reCAPTCHA: With the following list we are referring to Google's reCAPTCHA demo version at https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api2/demo.
For tracking purposes, all these cookies require a unique identifier. Here is a list of cookies that Google reCAPTCHA has set in the demo version:

Name: IDE
Value: WqTUmlnmv_qXyi_DGNPLESKnRNrpgXoy1K-pAZtAkMbHI-121629003-8
Purpose:This cookie is set by DoubleClick (which is owned by Google) to register and report a user's interactions with advertisements. With it, ad effectiveness can be measured, and appropriate optimization measures can be taken. IDE is stored in browsers under the domain doubleclick.net.
Expiry date: after one year

Name: 1P_JAR
Value: 2019-5-14-12
Purpose: This cookie collects website usage statistics and measures conversions. A conversion e.g. takes place when a user becomes a buyer. The cookie is also used to display relevant adverts to users. Furthermore, the cookie can prevent a user from seeing the same ad more than once.
Expiry date: after one month

Name: ANID
Value: U7j1v3dZa1216290030xgZFmiqWppRWKOr
Purpose:We could not find out much about this cookie. In Google's privacy statement, the cookie is mentioned in connection with "advertising cookies" such as "DSID", "FLC", "AID" and "TAID". ANID is stored under the domain google.com.
Expiry date: after 9 months

Name: CONSENT
Value: YES+AT.de+20150628-20-0
Purpose: This cookie stores the status of a user's consent to the use of various Google services. CONSENT also serves to prevent fraudulent logins and to protect user data from unauthorized attacks.
Expiry date: after 19 years

Name: NID
Value: 0WmuWqy121629003zILzqV_nmt3sDXwPeM5Q
Purpose: Google uses NID to customize advertisements to your Google searches. With the help of cookies, Google "remembers" your most frequently entered search queries or your previous ad interactions. Thus, you always receive advertisements tailored to you. The cookie contains a unique ID to collect users' personal settings for advertising purposes.
Expiry date: after 6 months

Name: DV
Value: gEAABBCjJMXcI0dSAAAANbqc121629003-4
Purpose: This cookie is set when you tick the "I am not a robot" checkmark. Google Analytics uses the cookie personalized advertising. DV collects anonymous information and is also used to distinguish between users.
Expiry date: after 10 minutes

Note: We do not claim for this list to be extensive, as Google often change the choice of their cookies.

How long and where are the data stored?

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

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

If you want to prevent any data about you and your behavior to be transmitted to Google, you must fully log out of Google and delete all Google cookies before visiting our website or use the reCAPTCHA software. Generally, the data is automatically sent to Google as soon as you visit our website. To delete this data, you must contact Google Support at https://support.google.com/?hl=en-GB&tid=121629003.

If you use our website, you agree that Google LLC and its representatives automatically collect, edit and use data.

You can find out more about reCAPTCHA on Google's Developers page at https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/. While Google do give more detail on the technical development of reCAPTCHA there, they have not disclosed precise information about data retention and data protection. A good, basic overview of the use of data however, can be found in the company's internal privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-GB.

jQuery CDN Privacy Policy

We use jQuery CDN services by the jQuery Foundation to deliver our website and our subpages to you quickly and easily on different devices. jQuery is distributed via the Content Delivery Network (CDN) of the American software company StackPath (LCC 2012 McKinney Ave. Suite 1100, Dallas, TX 75201, USA). This service stores, manages and processes your personal data.

A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of regionally distributed servers that are connected to each other via the Internet. Through this network content and especially very large files, can be delivered quickly - even in peak demand periods.

jQuery uses JavaScript libraries to be able to deliver our website content quickly. For this, a CDN server loads the necessary files. As soon as a connection to the CDN server is established, your IP address is recorded and stored. This only happens if the data has not already been saved in your browser during a previous website visit.

StackPath's privacy policy explicitly mentions that StackPath uses aggregated and anonymized data of various services (such as jQuery) for both, security enhancement and its own services. However, it is impossible for you to be personally identified with the use of this data.

If you want to avoid this data transfer, you always have the option to use JavaScript blockers such as ghostery.com or noscript.net. You can also simply deactivate the execution of JavaScript codes in your browser. If you decide to deactivate JavaScript codes, the usual functions will also change. For example, websites may no longer load as quickly.

StackPath is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000CbahAAC&status=Active.
Also, you can find more information about StackPath's data protection at https://www.stackpath.com/legal/privacy-statement/ and jQuery's data protection at https://openjsf.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/84/2019/11/OpenJS-Foundation-Privacy-Policy-2019-11-15.pdf.

jsdelivr.com-CDN Privacy Policy

In order for us to be able to deliver our individual websites to you quickly and correctly on different devices, we use the open source services of jsdelivr.com by the Polish software company ProspectOne, Królewska 65A/1, 30-081, Kraków, Poland.

jsDelivr is a Content Delivery Network (CDN). This is a network of regionally distributed servers that are connected via the Internet. As a result, content, especially large files, can be delivered quickly and optimally, even with large peak loads.

jsDelivr is designed to enable the download of JavaScript libraries that are hosted on npm and Github servers. WordPress plugins can also be loaded, provided they are hosted on WordPress.org. To be able to provide this service, your browser may send personal data to jsdelivr.com. can Therefore, jsDelivr can collect and save user data such as IP address, browser type, browser version, information on which website is loaded or the time and date of the page visit. The jsdelivr.com privacy policy expressly states that the company does not use cookies or other tracking services.

If you want to prevent this data transmission, you can install a JavaScript blocker (for example at https://noscript.net/). However, please note that this means that the website then can no longer offer its usual services (such as fast loading speeds).

Further information on data processing by the software service jsDelivr can be found in the company's privacy policy at https://www.jsdelivr.com/privacy-policy-jsdelivr-net.

BootstrapCDN Privacy Policy

In order to be able to deliver all the individual sub-pages of our website to you quickly and securely on all devices, we use the Content Delivery Network (CDN) BootstrapCDN of the American software company StackPath, LLC 2012 McKinney Ave. Suite 1100, Dallas, TX 75201, USA.

A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of regionally distributed servers that are connected to each other via the Internet. Through this network, content - especially very large files, can be delivered quickly, even with large peak loads.

BootstrapCDN enables the delivery of JavaScript libraries to your browser. If your browser then downloads a file of the BootstrapCDN, your IP address is transmitted to the company StockPath during the connection with the Bootstrap CDN server.

In their privacy policy, StackPath also mention that the company uses aggregated and anonymized data from various services (such as BootstrapCDN). This is done to extend the backup, as well as for other StackPath services and clients. However, none of this data can be used to identify any person.

If you want to prevent this data transmission, you can install a JavaScript blocker (for example at https://noscript.net/), or deactivate the execution of JavaScript codes in your browser. However, please note that this means that the website then can no longer offer its usual services (such as fast loading speeds).

StackPath is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. More information on this can be found at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000CbahAAC&status=Active.
More information on data protection at StackPath or BootstrapCDN can be found at https://www.bootstrapcdn.com/privacy-policy/.

 

Imprint

 

 

Privacy policy

Automatic data storage

When you visit websites these days, certain information is automatically created and stored, including on this website.

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

• the address (URL) of the website accessed
• 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 two weeks and then automatically deleted. We do not pass this data on, but we cannot rule out the possibility of this data being viewed in the event of unlawful behavior.

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.

What exactly are cookies?

Whenever you surf 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 areas of application. HTTP cookies are small files that are stored on your computer by our website. These cookie files are automatically stored in the cookie folder, the "brain" of your browser, so to speak. 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 visit our site again, your browser transmits the "user-related" information back to our site. Thanks to cookies, our website knows who you are and offers you the settings 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.

There are both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created directly by our website, third-party cookies are created by partner websites (e.g. Google Analytics). Each cookie must 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 programs and do not contain viruses, Trojans or other "malware". Cookies also cannot access information on your PC.

This is what cookie data can look like, for example:

Name: _ga
Value: GA1.2.1326744211.152121629003-9
Intended use: 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 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 privacy policy. At this point, we would like to briefly explain the different types of HTTP cookies.

There are 4 different types of cookies:

Essential cookies
These cookies are necessary to ensure basic website functions. For example, these cookies are needed when a user places a product in the shopping cart, then continues surfing on other pages and later goes to the checkout. These cookies ensure that the shopping cart is not deleted even if the user closes their browser window.

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

Targeted cookies
These cookies ensure better user-friendliness. For example, entered locations, font sizes or form data are saved.

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

When you visit a website for the first time, you are usually asked which of these types of cookie you would like to allow. And of course this decision is also saved 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, deactivating or only partially allowing cookies. 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, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you do not want any cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. You can then decide for each individual cookie whether or not to allow it. The procedure differs depending on the browser. It is best to search for the instructions in Google using the search term "delete cookies Chrome" or "deactivate cookies Chrome" in the case of a Chrome browser.

What about my data protection?

The so-called "cookie guidelines" have been in place since 2009. These state that you must give your consent for cookies to be stored. However, there are still very different reactions to these directives within the EU countries. In Austria, however, this directive has been implemented in Section 96 (3) of the Telecommunications Act (TKG).

If you would like to know more about cookies and are not afraid of technical documentation, we recommend https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6265the Request for Comments of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) called "HTTP State Management Mechanism".

Storage of personal data

Personal data that you transmit to us electronically on this website, such as your name, e-mail address, address or other personal details when submitting a form or comments on the blog, will be used by us together with the time and IP address only for the purpose stated in each case, stored securely 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 pass on your personal data without your consent, but we cannot rule out the possibility of this data being viewed in the event of unlawful behavior.

If you send us personal data by e-mail - i.e. outside of this website - we cannot guarantee the secure transmission and protection of your data. We recommend that you never send confidential data unencrypted by e-mail.

Rights according to the General Data Protection Regulation

In accordance with the provisions of the GDPR and the Austrian Data Protection Act (DSG) you have 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 - notification obligation 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 claims have otherwise been violated in any way, you can complain to the supervisory authority, which in Austria is the data protection authority, whose website you can find at https://www.dsb.gv.at/ can be found at

Evaluation of visitor behavior

In the following privacy policy, we inform you whether and how we analyze 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 behavior on this website.

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

TLS encryption with https

We use https to transmit data tap-proof on the Internet (data protection through technology design Article 25 paragraph 1 GDPR). 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 data transmission security by the small lock symbol at the top left of the browser and the use of the https scheme (instead of http) as part of our Internet address.

Google Fonts privacy policy

We use Google Fonts on our website. These are the "Google fonts" of 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, requests for CSS and fonts are completely separate from all other Google services. If you have a Google account, you do not need to worry that your Google account data will be transmitted to Google while using Google Fonts. Google records the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and the fonts used and stores this data securely. We will take a closer look at exactly how the data is stored.

What are Google Fonts?

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

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

Why do we use Google Fonts on our website?

With Google Fonts, we can use fonts on our own website without having to upload them to our own server. Google Fonts is an important component in keeping the quality of our website high. All Google fonts are automatically optimized for the web and this saves data volume and is a great advantage, especially for use on mobile devices. 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 websites. Thanks to the fast Content Delivery Network (CDN), there are no cross-platform problems with Google Fonts. Google Fonts supports all common 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). We use Google Fonts so that we can present our entire online service as beautifully and uniformly as possible.

What data is stored by Google?

When you visit our website, the fonts are loaded via a Google server. This external call transmits data to the Google server. In this way, Google also recognizes that you or your IP address is visiting our website. The Google Fonts API was developed to reduce the use, storage and collection of end user data to what is necessary for the proper provision of fonts. Incidentally, API stands for "Application Programming Interface" and is used, among other things, as a data transmitter in the software sector.

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

However, it should also be noted 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. It is not clear whether this data is also stored or whether it is 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 enables us to use the fonts with the help of a Google stylesheet. A stylesheet is a format template that can be used to quickly and easily change the design or font of a website, for example.

The font files are stored by Google for one year. Google's aim is to fundamentally improve the loading time of websites. If millions of websites refer to the same fonts, they are cached after the first visit and immediately reappear on all other websites visited later. Sometimes Google updates font files to reduce the file size, increase language coverage and improve the 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. To be able to delete this data prematurely, you must contact Google support at https://support.google.com/?hl=de&tid=121629003 contact Google support. In this case, you can only prevent data storage if you do not visit our site.

Unlike other web fonts, Google allows us unrestricted access to all fonts. We therefore have unlimited access to a sea of fonts and can therefore get the most out of our website. You can find out more about Google Fonts and other questions at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq?tid=121629003. Although Google addresses data protection issues there, it does not provide any really detailed information about data storage. It is relatively difficult to get really precise information from Google about stored data.

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

Google Fonts Local Privacy Policy

We use Google Fonts from Google Inc. on our website. Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for the European region. We have integrated 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 therefore no data transfer or storage.

What are Google Fonts?

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

Unlike other web fonts, Google allows us unrestricted access to all fonts. This means we have unlimited access to a sea of fonts and can therefore get the most out of our website. You can find out more about Google Fonts and other questions at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq?tid=121629003.

Google Analytics privacy policy

We use the analysis tracking tool Google Analytics (GA) of the American company Google Inc. on our website. 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. The reports we receive from Google Analytics allow us to better tailor our website and service to your wishes. In the following, we will go into more detail about the tracking tool and inform you in particular about what data is stored and how you can prevent this.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a tracking tool that is used to analyze traffic on our website. 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 that you perform on our website. As soon as you leave our website, this data is sent to the Google Analytics servers and stored there.

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

• Target group reports: We use target group reports to 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 provide us with helpful information on how we can get more people interested in our service.
• Behavioral reports: This tells us how you interact with our website. We can understand which path you take on our site and which links you click on.
• Conversion reports: Conversion is a process in which you perform a desired action based on a marketing message. For example, when you convert from a mere website visitor to a buyer or newsletter subscriber. With the help of these reports, we learn more about how our marketing measures are received by you. This is how we want 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 currently reading this text.

Why do we use Google Analytics on our website?

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

The statistically analyzed data gives us a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of our website. On the one hand, we can optimize our site so that it can be found more easily by interested people on Google. On the other hand, the data helps us to better understand you as a visitor. We therefore know exactly what we need to improve on our website in order to offer you the best possible service. The data also helps us to carry out our advertising and marketing measures more individually and cost-effectively. 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 that is linked to 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 what makes it possible to evaluate pseudonymous user profiles in the first place.

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

The following cookies are used by Google Analytics:

Name: _ga
Value: 2.1326744211.152121629003-5
Intended use: By default, analytics.js uses the _ga cookie to store the user ID. It is basically used to differentiate between website visitors.
Expiration date: after 2 years

Name: _gid
Value: 2.1687193234.152121629003-1
Intended use: The cookie is also used to distinguish website visitors
Expiration date: after 24 hours

Name: _gat_gtag_UA_
Value: 1
Purpose: Used to reduce the request rate. If Google Analytics is provided via Google Tag Manager, this cookie is given the name _dc_gtm_ .
Expiration date: after 1 minute

Name: AMP_TOKEN
Value: not specified
Intended use: 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
Value: 1564498958.1564498958.1564498958.1
Intended use: 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
Intended use: The cookie is used like _gat_gtag_UA_ to throttle the request rate.
Expiration date: after 10 minutes

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

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

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

Name: __utmv
Value: not specified
Intended use: The cookie is used to store user-defined user data. It is always updated when information is sent to Google Analytics.
Expiration date: after 2 years

Remark: This list cannot claim to be exhaustive, as Google changes its choice of cookies from time to time.

Here we show you an overview of the most important data that is 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 "traveling" on our site.

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

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

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

IP address: The IP address is only displayed 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 known as IP location determination.

Technical information: Technical information includes your browser type, your internet provider or your screen resolution.

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

Other data includes contact details, any ratings, the playing of media (e.g. when you play a video on our site), the sharing of content via social media or adding to your favorites. This list is not exhaustive and is only intended to provide a general overview of data storage by Google Analytics.

How long and where is the data stored?

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

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

Google Analytics has a standard retention period of 26 months for your user data. Your user data will then be deleted. However, we have the option of choosing the retention period for user data ourselves. There are five options available to us for this:

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

Once the specified period has expired, the data will be deleted once a month. This retention period applies to your data linked to cookies, user recognition and advertising IDs (e.g. DoubleClick domain cookies). Reporting results are based on aggregated data and are stored independently of user data. Aggregated data is an amalgamation 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 obtain information about your data and to update, delete or restrict it. You can use the browser add-on to deactivate Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, dc.js) to prevent Google Analytics from using your data. You can download the browser add-on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de and install it. Please note that this add-on only deactivates data collection by Google Analytics.

If you generally want to deactivate, delete or manage cookies (independently of Google Analytics), there are separate instructions for each 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 stored on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

Google Analytics is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information on this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&tid=121629003. We hope we have been able to provide you with the most important information about data processing by Google Analytics. If you would like to find out more about the tracking service, we recommend these two links: http://www.google.com/analytics/terms/de.html and https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=de.

Google Analytics IP anonymization

We have implemented IP address anonymization from Google Analytics on this website. This function was developed by Google so that this website can comply with the applicable data protection regulations and recommendations of the local data protection authorities if they prohibit the 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.

You can find more information on IP anonymization at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2763052?hl=de.

Google Analytics reports on demographic characteristics and interests

We have activated the functions for advertising reports in Google Analytics. The reports on demographic characteristics and interests contain information on age, gender and interests. This allows us to get a better picture of our users without being able to assign this data to individual persons. 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 control the use of the activities and information of your Google account under "Advertising settings" on https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated using the checkbox.

Google Analytics deactivation link

If you click on the following deactivation link you can prevent Google from recording further visits to this website. Please note: Deleting cookies, using the incognito/private mode of your browser or using a different browser will result in data being collected again.

Deactivate Google Analytics

Google Analytics data processing add-on

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

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

Google Analytics Google Signals Privacy Policy

We have activated Google signals in Google Analytics. This updates the existing Google Analytics functions (advertising reports, remarketing, cross-device reports and reports on interests and demographic characteristics) to receive summarized and anonymized data from you, provided you have allowed personalized ads in your Google account.

The special thing about this is that it is cross-device tracking. This means that your data can be analyzed across devices. By activating Google signals, data is collected and linked to your Google account. For example, Google can recognize when you view a product on our website via a smartphone and only buy the product later via a laptop. Thanks to the activation of Google signals, we can launch cross-device remarketing campaigns that would otherwise not be possible in this form. Remarketing means that we can also show you our offer on other websites.

In Google Analytics, Google signals also record other visitor data such as location, search history, YouTube history and data about your actions on our website. This enables Google to provide us with better advertising reports and more useful information about your interests and demographic characteristics. This includes your age, what language you speak, where you live and what gender you are. Social criteria such as your profession, your marital status or your income are also included. All these characteristics help Google Analytics to define groups of people or target groups.

The reports also help us to better assess your behavior, wishes and interests. This enables us to optimize and adapt our services and products for you. This data expires by default after 26 months. Please note that this data is only collected if you have allowed personalized advertising in your Google account. This is always aggregated and anonymous data and never individual data. You can manage or delete this data in your Google account.

Hotjar privacy policy

We use Hotjar from Hotjar Limited (Level 2, St Julian's Business Centre, 3, Elia Zammit Street, St Julian's STJ 1000, Malta) on our website to statistically analyze visitor data. Hotjar is a service that analyzes the behavior and feedback of you as a user on our website through a combination of analysis and feedback tools. We receive reports and visual representations from Hotjar that show us where and how you "move" on our site. Personal data is automatically anonymized and never reaches Hotjar's servers. This means that you are not personally identified as a website user and we still learn a lot about your user behavior.

What is Hotjar?

As mentioned in the section above, Hotjar helps us to analyze the behavior of our website visitors. The tools Hotjar offers include heatmaps, conversion funnels, visitor recording, incoming feedback, feedback polls and surveys (you can find more information about these at https://www.hotjar.com/). Hotjar thus helps us to offer you a better user experience and a better service. On the one hand, it provides a good analysis of online behavior, and on the other hand, we also receive good feedback on the quality of our website. In addition to all the analytical aspects, we also want to know what you think about our website. And the feedback tool allows us to do just that.

Why do we use Hotjar on our website?

In recent years, the importance of user experience on websites has increased significantly. And for good reason. A website should be designed in such a way that you as a visitor feel comfortable and find your way around easily. Thanks to Hotjar's analysis and feedback tools, we can make our website and our offering more attractive. Hotjar's heatmaps are particularly valuable to us. Heatmaps are a form of representation for the visualization of data. Hotjar's heatmaps allow us to see exactly what you like to click on, tap on and where you scroll to, for example.

What data is stored by Hotjar?

As you browse our website, Hotjar automatically collects information about your user behavior. In order to be able to collect this information, we have integrated our own tracking code on our website. The following data can be collected via your computer or browser:

• IP address of your computer (collected and stored in an anonymous format)
• screen size
• Browser information (which browser, which version, etc.)
• Your location (but only the country)
• Your preferred language setting
• Visited websites (subpages)
• Date and time of access to one of our subpages (websites)

Cookies also store data that is placed on your computer (usually in your browser). No personal data is collected in these cookies. In principle, Hotjar does not pass on any collected data to third parties. However, Hotjar expressly points out that it is sometimes necessary to share data with Amazon Web Services. In this case, parts of your information are stored on their servers. However, Amazon is bound by a confidentiality obligation not to disclose this data.

Only a limited number of people (Hotjar employees) have access to the stored information. The Hotjar servers are protected by firewalls and IP restrictions (access only to authorized IP addresses). Firewalls are security systems that protect computers from unwanted network access. They are designed to act as a barrier between Hotjar's secure internal network and the Internet. Hotjar also uses third-party companies for its services, such as Google Analytics or Optimizely. These companies may also store information that your browser sends to our website.

The following cookies are used by Hotjar. As we refer to the cookie list from Hotjar's privacy policy at https://www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/cookie-information not every cookie has an exemplary value. The list shows examples of Hotjar cookies used and does not claim to be exhaustive.

Nameajs_anonymous_id
Value: %2258832463-7cee-48ee-b346-a195f18b06c3%22121629003-5
Intended use: The cookie is usually used for analytics purposes and helps count visitors to our website by tracking whether you have been to the site before.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: ajs_group_id
Value: 0
Intended use: This cookie collects data about user behavior. This data can then be assigned to a specific visitor group based on similarities between the website visitors.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: _hjid
Value: 699ffb1c-4bfb-483f-bde1-22cfa0b59c6c
Intended use: The cookie is used to maintain a Hotjar user ID that is unique to the website in the browser. This allows user behavior to be assigned to the same user ID on subsequent visits.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: _hjMinimizedPolls
Value: 462568121629003-8
Purpose: Whenever you minimize a Feedback Poll widget, Hotjar sets this cookie. The cookie ensures that the widget actually remains minimized when you surf our pages.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: _hjIncludedInSample
Value: 1
Intended use: This session cookie is set to inform Hotjar whether you are part of the selected persons (sample) used to create funnels.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: _hjClosedSurveyInvites
Intended use: This cookie is set when you see an invitation to a feedback survey via a pop-up window. The cookie is used to ensure that this invitation only appears to you once.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: _hjDonePolls
Intended use: As soon as you finish a feedback "question round" with the so-called Feedback Poll Widget, this cookie is set in your browser. This prevents Hotjar from sending you the same polls again in the future.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: _hjDoneTestersWidgets
Intended use: This cookie is used as soon as you enter your data in the "Recruit User Tester Widget". We want to use this widget to recruit you as a tester. The cookie is used so that this form does not appear again and again.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: _hjMinimizedTestersWidgets
Intended use: This cookie is set to ensure that the "Recruit User Tester" remains minimized on all our pages once you have minimized it.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: _hjShownFeedbackMessage
Intended use: This cookie is set if you have minimized or expanded the incoming feedback. This is done so that the incoming feedback is immediately loaded as minimized when you navigate to another page on which it should be displayed.
Expiration date: after one year

How long and where is the data stored?

We have included a tracking code on our website that is transmitted to the Hotjar servers in Ireland (EU). This tracking code contacts Hotjar's servers and sends a script to your computer or device that you use to access our site. The script collects certain data relating to your interaction with our website. This data is then sent to Hotjar's servers for processing. Hotjar has imposed a 365-day data retention period on itself. This means that all data collected by Hotjar that is older than one year is automatically deleted.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

Hotjar does not store any of your personal data for analysis purposes. The company even advertises with the slogan "We track behavior, not individuals" (i.e. "We track user behavior, but not identifiable, individual data). You also always have the option of preventing the collection of your data. All you have to do is click on the "opt-out page" and click on "Deactivate Hotjar". Please note that deleting cookies, using your browser's private mode or using a different browser will result in data being collected again. You can also activate the "Do Not Track" button in your browser. In the Chrome browser, for example, you need to click on the three bars in the top right-hand corner and go to "Settings". There you will find the option "Send a "Do Not Track" request with browser access" in the "Privacy" section. Now just activate this button and no data will be collected by Hotjar.

You can find more details on the privacy policy and what data is collected by Hotjar and how at https://www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/privacy?tid=121629003.

Newsletter privacy policy

When you register for our newsletter, you provide the above personal data and give us the right to contact you by e-mail. We use the data stored as part of the registration for the newsletter exclusively for our newsletter and do not pass it on.

If you unsubscribe from the newsletter - you will find the link to do so at the bottom of every newsletter - we will delete all data stored when you subscribed to the newsletter.

Google AdSense privacy policy

We use Google AdSense on this website. This is an advertising program of the company Google Inc. In Europe, the company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services. Google AdSense allows us to display advertisements on this website that are relevant to our topic. In this way, we offer you advertisements that ideally represent real added value for you. In this privacy policy about Google AdSense, we 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.

What is Google AdSense?

The Google AdSense advertising program has been around since 2003 and, unlike Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), you cannot place ads yourself. Google AdSense is used to display 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 advertisements you will see. Of course, we only want to show you advertising that interests you and offers you added value. Google checks which advertisements are suitable for our website and for our users based on your interests or user behavior and our offer. At this point, we would also like to mention that we are not responsible for the selection of advertisements. We only offer the advertising space on our website. Google selects the advertisements displayed. Since August 2013, the ads have also been adapted to the respective user interface. This means that whether you visit our website from your smartphone, PC or laptop, the ads adapt to your device.

Why do we use Google AdSense on our website?

Running a high-quality website requires a lot of dedication and commitment. Basically, we are never finished 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 opted for advertisements as a source of income. However, the most important thing for us is not to disturb your visit to our website with these advertisements. With the help of Google AdSense, you will only be offered advertising that matches our topics and your interests.

Similar to Google indexing for a website, a bot examines the relevant content and offers on our website. The content of the advertisements is then adapted and presented on the website. In addition to the content overlaps 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 better chance of earning a little something.

What data is stored by Google AdSense?

Among other things, cookies are used so that Google AdSense can display customized advertising tailored to you. 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 identification feature is replaced by a pseudonym) or IP addresses to be non-personally identifiable information. Under the GDPR, however, this 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 server. If the browser accepts the cookie, it will be stored there.

As part of AdSense, third-party providers may be able to place and read cookies in your browser or use web beacons to store data that they receive through the provision of ads on the website. Web beacons are small graphics that perform a log file analysis and record the log file. This analysis enables statistical evaluation for online marketing.

Google can use these cookies to collect certain information about your user behavior on our website. This includes

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

Google analyzes and evaluates the data on the displayed advertising material and your IP address. Google uses the data primarily to measure the effectiveness of an advertisement and to improve the advertising offer. This data is not linked to personal data that Google may have about you via 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 only has Google AdSense installed: 

Name: uid
Value: 891269189121629003-8
Intended use: The cookie is stored under the domain adform.net. It provides a uniquely assigned, machine-generated user ID and collects data about the activity on our website.
Expiration date: after 2 months

Name: C
Value: 1
Intended use: This cookie identifies whether your browser accepts cookies. The cookie is stored under the domain track.adform.net.
Expiration date: after 1 month

Name: cid
Value: 8912691894970695056,0,0,0,0
Intended use: This cookie is stored under the domain track.adform.net, stands for Client ID and is used to improve advertising for you. It can deliver more relevant advertising to the visitor and helps to improve campaign performance reports.
Expiration date: after 2 months

Name: IDE
Value: zOtj4TWxwbFDjaATZ2TzNaQmxrU121629003-1
Intended use: The cookie is stored under the domain doubleclick.net. It is used to register your actions after viewing or clicking on the ad. This allows us to measure how well an ad is received by our visitors.
Expiration date: after 1 month

Name: test_cookie
Value: not specified
Intended use: You can use the "test_cookies" to check whether your browser supports cookies at all. The cookie is stored under the domain doubleclick.net.
Expiration date: after 1 month

Name: CT592996
Value:733366
Intended use: Is stored under the domain adform.net. The cookie is set as soon as you click on an advertisement. We were unable to find out more detailed information about the use of this cookie.
Expiration date: after one hour

Remark: This list cannot claim to be exhaustive, as experience has shown that Google 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 that you carry out on the website. Cookies store this information about your interactions on our website. According to Google, the company collects and stores the information provided in a secure manner on Google's own servers in the USA.

If you do not have a Google account or are not logged in, Google usually stores the collected data with a unique identifier (ID) on your browser. The unique IDs stored in cookies are used, for example, to ensure personalized 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 stored 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: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you do not want any cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. This allows you to decide for each individual cookie whether or not to allow it. By downloading and installing this browser plug-in on https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996 all "advertising cookies" are also deactivated. Please note that deactivating these cookies does not prevent advertisements, but only personalized advertising.

If you have a Google account, you can go to the website https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated deactivate personalized advertising. You will still see ads, but they will no longer be tailored to your interests. However, the ads will still be displayed based on a few factors, such as your location, browser type and the search terms used.

You can find out what data Google collects and what it uses this data for at https://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/ read more.

Google Ads (Google AdWords) conversion tracking privacy policy

We use Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) as an online marketing measure to advertise our products and services. In this way, we want to make more people aware of the high quality of our offers on the Internet. As part of our advertising measures through Google Ads, we use conversion tracking from Google Inc. on our website. In Europe, however, Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services. With the help of this free tracking tool, we can better tailor our advertising offer to your interests and needs. In the following article, we will go into more detail about why we use conversion tracking, what data is stored and how you can prevent this data storage.

What is Google Ads conversion tracking?

Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is the in-house online advertising system of Google Inc. 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 gain a precise overview of the cost-benefit factor of our advertising campaigns. That's why we use the Google Ads conversion tracking tool.

But what exactly is a conversion? A conversion occurs when you go from being a purely interested website visitor to an active visitor. This always happens when you click on our ad and then take another action, such as visiting our website. We use Google's conversion tracking tool to 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. The aim is to ensure that our advertising campaigns only reach people who are interested in our offers. With the conversion tracking tool, we can see which keywords, ads, ad groups and campaigns lead to the desired customer actions. We can see how many customers interact with our ads on a device and then carry out a conversion. This data allows us to calculate our cost-benefit factor, measure the success of individual advertising measures and consequently optimize 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 by Google Ads Conversion Tracking?

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

Here is the data of the most important cookies for Google's conversion tracking:

Name: Conversion
Value: EhMI_aySuoyv4gIVled3Ch0llweVGAEgt-mr6aXd7dYlSAGQ121629003-3
Intended use: This cookie stores every conversion you make on our site after you have come to us via a Google Ad.
Expiration date: after 3 months

Name: _gac
Value: 1.1558695989.EAIaIQobChMIiOmEgYO04gIVj5AYCh2CBAPrEAAYASAAEgIYQfD_BwE
Intended use: This is a classic Google Analytics cookie and is used to record various actions on our website.
Expiration date: after 3 months

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

As soon as you complete an action on our website, Google recognizes the cookie and saves your action as a so-called conversion. As long as you are browsing our website and the cookie has not yet expired, we and Google will recognize that you have 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. Google Ads conversion tracking can be further refined and improved with the help of Google Analytics. For ads that Google displays in various places on the web, cookies with the name "__gads" or "_gac" may be set under our domain. Since September 2017, various campaign information has been stored by analytics.js using the _gac cookie. The cookie stores this data as soon as you visit one of our pages for which the automatic tagging of Google Ads has been set up. Unlike cookies that are 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 with statistical evaluations from Google. For example, we find out the total number of users who have clicked on our ad and we can see which advertising measures were well 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 it collects. 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 with the name "Conversion" and "_gac" (which is used in connection with Google Analytics) have an expiration 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: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you do not want any cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. This allows you to decide for each individual cookie whether or not to allow it. By downloading and installing this browser plug-in on https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996 all "advertising cookies" are also deactivated. Please note that deactivating these cookies does not prevent advertisements, but only personalized advertising.

Through 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 Google's general privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.

Embedded Social Media Elements Privacy Policy

We integrate elements of social media services on our website to display images, videos and texts.
When you visit pages that display these elements, data is transferred 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

Instagram Privacy Policy

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 Facebook Inc. since 2012 and is a Facebook product. 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 visit 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 therefore processed across all Facebook companies.

In the following, we want to give you a more detailed insight into why Instagram collects data, what data is involved and how you can largely control data processing. As Instagram belongs to Facebook Inc., we obtain our information from the Instagram guidelines on the one hand, but also from the Facebook data guidelines themselves on the other.

What is Instagram?

Instagram is one of the most popular social media networks in the world. Instagram combines the advantages of a blog with the advantages of audiovisual platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo. You can upload photos and short videos to "Insta" (as many users casually call the platform), edit them with various filters and also share them on other social networks. And if you don't want to be active yourself, you can also 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 presentation of our content is a matter of course for us. The embedded Instagram functions allow us to enrich our content with helpful, funny or exciting content from the Instagram world. As Instagram is a subsidiary of Facebook, the data collected can also be useful to us for personalized advertising on Facebook. This means that only people who are genuinely interested in our products or services receive our advertisements.

Instagram also uses the collected data for measurement and analysis purposes. We receive summarized statistics and thus more insight into your wishes and interests. It is important to note that these reports do not identify you personally.

What data is stored by Instagram?

When you visit one of our pages that has Instagram functions (such as Instagram images or plug-ins), your browser automatically connects to Instagram's servers. In the process, data is sent to Instagram, stored and processed. This happens regardless of whether you have an Instagram account or not. This includes information about our website, your computer, purchases made, advertisements you see and how you use our services. The date and time of your interaction with Instagram are 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 case with Instagram. Customer data includes, for example, name, address, telephone number and IP address. This customer data is only transmitted to Instagram once it has been "hashed". Hashing means that a data record is converted into a character string. This allows the contact data to be encrypted. The "event data" mentioned above is also transmitted. By "event data", Facebook - and consequently Instagram - means data about your user behavior. Contact data may also be combined with event data. The contact data collected is compared with the data that Instagram already has about you.

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

We assume that Instagram processes data in the same way as Facebook. This means that if you have an Instagram account or 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. This data is deleted or anonymized after 90 days at the latest (after reconciliation). Although we have looked closely at Instagram's data processing, we cannot say exactly what data Instagram collects and stores.

Below we show you the minimum cookies that are set in your browser when you click on an Instagram function (such as a button or an Insta image). In our test, we assume that you do not have an Instagram account. If you are logged in to Instagram, significantly more cookies will of course be set in your browser.

These cookies were used in our test:

Name: csrftoken
Value: “”
Intended use: This cookie is most likely set for security reasons to prevent falsification of requests. However, we were unable to find out more about this.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: mid
Value: “”
Intended use: Instagram sets this cookie to optimize its own services and offers in and outside of Instagram. The cookie defines a unique user ID.
Expiration date: After the end of the session

Name: fbsr_121629003124024
Value: not specified
Intended use: 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
Intended use: This is an Instagram cookie that ensures functionality on Instagram.
Expiration date: after the end of the session

Name: urlgen
Value: “{”194.96.75.33”: 1901}:1iEtYv:Y833k2_UjKvXgYe121629003”
Intended use: This cookie is used for Instagram's marketing purposes.
Expiration date: after the end of the session

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

How long and where is the data stored?

Instagram shares the information it receives between the Facebook companies with external partners and with people you connect with worldwide. Data processing is carried out in compliance with its own data policy. For security reasons, among others, your data is distributed 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 General Data Protection Regulation, you have the right to access, portability, rectification and erasure 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 deleting your Instagram account works:

First, open the Instagram app. On your profile page, go to the bottom and click on "Help section". You will now be taken to the company's website. On the website, click on "Manage your account" and then on "Delete your account".

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

As mentioned above, Instagram stores your data primarily via cookies. You can manage, deactivate or delete these cookies in your browser. Depending on your browser, the management always works a little differently. Here we show you the instructions for the most important browsers.

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 stored on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

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

Instagram is a subsidiary of Facebook Inc. and Facebook is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. This framework ensures correct data transfer between the USA and the European Union. Under https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000GnywAAC  to find out more. We have tried to provide you with the most important information about data processing by Instagram. At https://help.instagram.com/519522125107875
you can find out more about Instagram's data policy.

ShareThis privacy policy

We have integrated ShareThis functions from ShareThis Inc (4005 Miranda Ave, Suite 100, Palo Alto, 94304 California, USA) on our website. These are, for example, "share" plug-ins for various social media channels. You can use these functions to share content from our website on social media channels. When you access a website with a ShareThis function, your data may be transferred to the company, stored and processed. This privacy policy explains why we use ShareThis, what data is processed and how you can prevent this data transfer.

What is ShareThis?

ShareThis is a technology company that offers website operators tools to increase website quality. By using the ShareThis social plugins, you can share content from our website on various social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others. The company offers content sharing for over 40 different channels and is used by over 3 million website operators worldwide. The data collected by ShareThis is also used for individual advertisements.

Why do we use ShareThis on our website?

We want to convince with our content and of course we are happy when our content is recommended to others. Then we know we're on the right track. The easiest way to do this is via "share/share buttons" directly on our website. Thanks to the large number of different social media channels, our content can also be presented to a wide audience. This helps us to become better known and more successful on the Internet. In addition, the plug-ins also serve you, because you can share interesting content with your social media community with just one click.

What data is stored by ShareThis?

If you share content with ShareThis and you are logged in with the respective social media account, data such as the visit to our website and the sharing of content can be assigned to the user account of the corresponding social media channel. ShareThis uses cookies, pixels, HTTP headers and browser identifiers to collect data on your visitor behavior. In addition, some of this data is shared with third parties after pseudonymization.

Here is a list of the data that may be processed:

• Unique ID of a cookie placed in the web browser
• General click behavior
• Addresses of the websites visited
• Search queries via which a visitor reached the page with ShareThis
• Navigation from website to website if this has taken place via ShareThis services
• Time spent on a website
• Which elements were clicked or highlighted
• The IP address of the computer or mobile device
• Mobile advertising IDs (Apple IDFA or Google AAID)
• Information contained in HTTP headers or other transmission protocols used
• Which program was used on the computer (browser) or which operating system was used (iOS)

ShareThis uses cookies, examples of which are listed below. You can find out more about ShareThis cookies at https://www.sharethis.com/privacy/.

Name: __unam
Value: 8961a7f179d1d017ac27lw87qq69V69121629003-5
Intended use: This cookie counts the "clicks" and "shares" on a website.
Expiration date: after 9 months

Name: __stid
Value: aGCDwF4hjVEI+oIsABW7121629003Ag==
Intended use: This cookie stores user behavior, such as the web pages accessed, navigation from page to page and the time spent on the website.
Expiration date: after 2 years

Name: __sharethis_cookie_test__
Value: 0
Intended use: This cookie monitors "clickstream" activity. This means it monitors where you have clicked on the website.
Expiration date: after the end of the session

Remark: We cannot claim completeness here. Which cookies are set in individual cases depends on the embedded functions and their use.

How long and where is the data stored?

ShareThis stores collected data for a period of up to 14 months from the date of data collection. ShareThis cookies expire 13 months after the last update. Since ShareThis is an American company, data is transferred and stored on American ShareThis servers.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

If you no longer wish to see advertising based on data collected by ShareThis, you can click the opt-out button on https://www.sharethis.com/privacy/ use. This sets an opt-out cookie that you must not delete in order to retain this setting.

You can also change your preferences for usage-based online advertising via http://www.youronlinechoices.com/at/ in the preference management.

You also have the option of managing, deactivating or deleting data stored via cookies in your browser. Exactly how the management works depends on your browser. Here you will find instructions for the currently most popular browsers.

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 stored on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

You can also set up your browser so that you are always informed when a cookie is to be set.

ShareThis is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information on this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000L1HMAA0&status=Active. If you would like to know more about the processing of your data by ShareThis, you can find all the information at https://www.sharethis.com/privacy/.

AddThis privacy policy

We use AddThis plug-ins from Oracle America, Inc (500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065, USA) on our website. These plug-ins allow you to share content from our website quickly and easily with other people. When you visit a website with an AddThis function, your data may be transferred to AddThis, stored and processed. This privacy policy explains why we use AddThis, what data is processed and how you can prevent this data transfer.

What is AddThis?

Among other things, AddThis develops software tools that are integrated into websites to enable users to share content on various social media channels or by email. In addition, AddThis also offers functions for website analysis. The data collected is also used to offer interest-based advertising to Internet users. The service is used by more than 15 million website operators worldwide.

Why do we use AddThis on our website?

By using the AddThis buttons, you can share interesting content from our website on various social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest. If you like our content, we will of course be delighted if you share it with your social community. And the easiest way to do this is via the AddThis buttons.

What data is stored by AddThis?

If you share content with AddThis and you are logged in with the respective social media account, data such as the visit to our website and the sharing of content can be assigned to the user account of the corresponding social media channel. AddThis uses cookies, pixels, HTTP headers and browser identifiers to collect data on your visitor behavior. In addition, some of this data is shared with third parties after pseudonymization.
Here is an exemplary list of the data that may be processed:

• Unique ID of a cookie placed in the web browser
• Address of the website visited
• Time of the website visit
• Search queries via which a visitor reached the page with AddThis
• Time spent on a website
• The IP address of the computer or mobile device
• Mobile advertising IDs (Apple IDFA or Google AAID)
• Information contained in HTTP headers or other transmission protocols used
• Which program was used on the computer (browser) or which operating system was used (iOS)

AddThis uses cookies, which we list below as examples and excerpts. You can find out more about AddThis cookies at http://www.addthis.com/privacy/privacy-policy.

Name: bt2
Value: 8961a7f179d87qq69V69121629003-3
Intended use : This cookie is used to record parts of the website visited in order to recommend other parts of the website.
Expiration date: after 255 days

Name: bku
Value: ra/99nTmYN+fZWX7121629003-4
Intended use: This cookie registers anonymized user data such as your IP address, geographical location, websites visited and which ads you have clicked on.
Expiration date: after 179 days

Remark: Please bear in mind that this is an exemplary list and that we cannot claim to be exhaustive.

AddThis also shares collected information with other companies. You can find more details on this at http://www.addthis.com/privacy/privacy-policy#section5. AddThis also uses the data received to create target groups and interest profiles in order to offer interest-based advertising to users in the same advertising network.

How long and where is the data stored?

AddThis stores the collected data for 13 months from the date of collection. 1% of the data is kept as a "sample data set" for a maximum of 24 months in order to preserve the business relationship. However, direct and indirect identification (such as your IP address and cookie ID) is hashed in this "sample data set". This means that the personal data can no longer be linked to you without additional information. As AddThis is headquartered in the USA, the data collected is also stored on American servers.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You have the right to access and delete your personal data at any time. If you no longer wish to see advertising based on data collected by AddThis, you can click the opt-out button on http://www.addthis.com/privacy/opt-out . This sets an opt-out cookie that you must not delete in order to retain this setting.

You can also change your preferences for usage-based online advertising via http://www.youronlinechoices.com/at/ in the preference management.

Your browser offers you the option of preventing data processing or managing it according to your wishes. Data processing works slightly differently depending on the browser. Here you will find the instructions for the currently most popular browsers:

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 stored on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

AddThis is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information on this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt00000000181AAA. If you would like to know more about the processing of your data by AddThis, you can find further information at http://www.addthis.com/privacy/privacy-policy.

Google reCAPTCHA privacy policy

Our primary goal is to secure and protect our website for you and for us in the best possible way. To ensure this, we use Google reCAPTCHA from Google Inc. For the European region, the company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services. With reCAPTCHA we can determine whether you are really a flesh and blood person and not a robot or other spam software. By spam we mean any unsolicited information that is sent to us electronically. With the classic CAPTCHAs, you usually had to solve text or picture puzzles to verify your identity. With reCAPTCHA from Google, we don't usually have to bother you with such puzzles. In most cases, all you have to do is tick a box to confirm that you are not a bot. With the new Invisible reCAPTCHA version, you no longer even have to tick the box. You can find out exactly how this works and, above all, which data is used for this in the course of this privacy policy.

What is reCAPTCHA?

reCAPTCHA is a free captcha service from Google that protects websites from spam software and misuse by non-human visitors. This service is most commonly used when you fill out forms on the Internet. A Captcha service is a type of automatic Turing test that is designed to ensure that an action on the Internet is performed by a human and not by a bot. In the classic Turing test (named after the computer scientist Alan Turing), a human determines the difference between a bot and a human. With captchas, this is also done by a computer or software program. Classic captchas work with small tasks that are easy for humans to solve but present considerable difficulties for machines. With reCAPTCHA, you no longer have to actively solve puzzles. The tool uses modern risk techniques to distinguish humans from bots. All you have to do here is tick the "I am not a robot" text field, and with Invisible reCAPTCHA even this is no longer necessary. With reCAPTCHA, a JavaScript element is integrated into the source code and then the tool runs in the background and analyzes your user behaviour. The software calculates a so-called captcha score from these user actions. Google uses this score to calculate the probability that you are human even before you enter the captcha. reCAPTCHA or captchas in general are always used when bots could manipulate or abuse certain actions (e.g. registrations, surveys, etc.).

Why do we use reCAPTCHA on our website?

We only want to welcome people of flesh and blood on our site. Bots or spam software of all kinds can safely stay at home. That's why we do everything we can to protect ourselves and offer you the best possible user experience. For this reason, we use Google reCAPTCHA from Google. This way we can be pretty sure that we remain a "bot-free" website. By using reCAPTCHA, data is transmitted to Google to determine whether you are actually a human being. reCAPTCHA therefore serves the security of our website and, by extension, your security. For example, without reCAPTCHA it could happen that a bot registers as many e-mail addresses as possible during registration in order to subsequently "spam" forums or blogs with unwanted advertising content. With reCAPTCHA, we can prevent such bot attacks.

What data is stored by reCAPTCHA?

reCAPTCHA collects personal data from users in order to determine whether the actions on our website actually originate from people. The IP address and other data that Google requires for the reCAPTCHA service may therefore be sent to Google. IP addresses are almost always truncated within the member states of the EU or other signatory states to the Agreement on the European Economic Area before the data is sent to a server in the USA. The IP address is not combined with other Google data unless you are logged in with your Google account while using reCAPTCHA. First, the reCAPTCHA algorithm checks whether Google cookies from other Google services (YouTube, Gmail, etc.) have already been placed on your browser. Then reCAPTCHA places an additional cookie in your browser and takes a snapshot of your browser window.

The following list of collected browser and user data is not intended to be exhaustive. Rather, they are examples of data that, to our knowledge, are processed by Google.

• Referrer URL (the address of the page from which the visitor came)
• IP address (e.g. 256.123.123.1)
• Information about the operating system (the software that enables your computer to operate. Common operating systems are Windows, Mac OS X or Linux)
• Cookies (small text files that store data in your browser)
• Mouse and keyboard behavior (every action you perform with the mouse or keyboard is saved)
• Date and language settings (which language or date you have preset on your PC is saved)
• All JavaScript objects (JavaScript is a programming language that enables websites to adapt to the user. JavaScript objects can collect all kinds of data under one name)
• Screen resolution (shows how many pixels the image display consists of)

It is undisputed that Google uses and analyzes this data even before you click on the "I am not a robot" checkbox. With the Invisible reCAPTCHA version, you don't even have to check the box and the entire recognition process runs in the background. Google does not tell you in detail exactly how much and what data it stores.

The following cookies are used by reCAPTCHA: Here we refer to the reCAPTCHA demo version from Google at https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api2/demo. All these cookies require a unique identifier for tracking purposes. Here is a list of cookies that Google reCAPTCHA has set on the demo version:

Name: IDE
Value: WqTUmlnmv_qXyi_DGNPLESKnRNrpgXoy1K-pAZtAkMbHI-121629003-8
Intended use: This cookie is set by the company DoubleClick (also owned by Google) to register and report the actions of a user on the website when interacting with advertisements. This allows the effectiveness of advertising to be measured and appropriate optimization measures to be taken. IDE is stored in browsers under the domain doubleclick.net.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: 1P_JAR
Value: 2019-5-14-12
Purpose: This cookie collects statistics on website usage and measures conversions. A conversion occurs, for example, when a user becomes a buyer. The cookie is also used to display relevant advertisements to users. The cookie can also be used to prevent a user from seeing the same ad more than once.
Expiration date: after one month

Name: ANID
Value: U7j1v3dZa1216290030xgZFmiqWppRWKOr
Intended use: We were unable to find out much information about this cookie. In Google's privacy policy, the cookie is mentioned in connection with "advertising cookies" such as "DSID", "FLC", "AID", "TAID". ANID is stored under domain google.com.
Expiration date: after 9 months

Name: CONSENT
Value: YES+AT.de+20150628-20-0
Intended use: The cookie stores the status of a user's consent to the use of various Google services. CONSENT is also used for security purposes to verify users, prevent fraudulent login information and protect user data from unauthorized attacks.
Expiration date: after 19 years

Name: NID
Value: 0WmuWqy121629003zILzqV_nmt3sDXwPeM5Q
Intended use: NID is used by Google to customize advertisements to your Google searches. With the help of the cookie, Google "remembers" your most frequently entered search queries or your previous interaction with ads. So you always get customized ads. The cookie contains a unique ID to collect the user's personal settings for advertising purposes.
Expiration date: after 6 months

Name: DV
Value: gEAABBCjJMXcI0dSAAAANbqc121629003-4
Intended use: As soon as you have checked the "I am not a robot" box, this cookie will be set. The cookie is used by Google Analytics for personalized advertising. DV collects information in anonymized form and is also used to make user distinctions.
Expiration date: after 10 minutes

Remark: This list cannot claim to be exhaustive, as experience has shown that Google changes its choice of cookies from time to time.

How long and where is the data stored?

By inserting reCAPTCHA, data is transferred from you to the Google server. Where exactly this data is stored is not made clear by Google, even after repeated requests. Without having received confirmation from Google, it can be assumed that data such as mouse interaction, time spent on the website or language settings are stored on the European or American Google servers. The IP address that your browser transmits to Google is not merged with other Google data from other Google services. However, if you are logged in to your Google account while using the reCAPTCHA plug-in, the data will be merged. The deviating data protection provisions of Google apply to this.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

If you do not want any data about you and your behavior to be transmitted to Google, you must log out of Google completely and delete all Google cookies before you visit our website or use the reCAPTCHA software. In principle, the data is automatically transmitted to Google as soon as you visit our website. To delete this data again, you must contact Google support at https://support.google.com/?hl=de&tid=121629003 contact.

Therefore, by using our website, you consent to Google LLC and its representatives automatically collecting, processing and using data.

You can find out more about reCAPTCHA on Google's web developer page at https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/. Although Google goes into more detail here about the technical development of reCAPTCHA, you will search in vain for precise information about data storage and data protection issues. A good overview of the basic use of data at Google can be found in the company's own privacy policy at https://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/.

jQuery CDN privacy policy

We use jQuery CDN services from the jQuery Foundation to deliver our website and all our individual subpages (web pages) to you quickly and easily on different devices. jQuery is distributed via the Content Delivery Network (CDN) of the American software company StackPath (LCC 2012 McKinney Ave. Suite 1100, Dallas, TX 75201, USA). This service is used to store, manage and process your personal data.

A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of regionally distributed servers that are connected to each other via the Internet. This network enables content, especially very large files, to be delivered quickly, even during large load peaks.

jQuery uses JavaScript libraries to deliver our website content quickly. A CDN server loads the necessary files for this. As soon as a connection to the CDN server is established, your IP address is recorded and saved. This only happens if this data is not already stored in your browser from a previous visit to the website.

StackPath's privacy policy explicitly states that StackPath uses aggregated and anonymized data from various services (such as jQuery) to enhance security and for its own services. However, this data cannot identify you as a person.

If you do not want this data transfer to occur, you always have the option of using Java script blockers such as ghostery.com or noscript.net to install. However, you can also simply deactivate the execution of JavaScript codes in your browser. If you decide to deactivate JavaScript codes, the usual functions will also change. For example, a website will no longer load as quickly.

StackPath is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information on this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000CbahAAC&status=Active.
You can find more information on data protection at StackPath at https://www.stackpath.com/legal/privacy-statement/ and about jQuery at https://openjsf.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/84/2019/11/OpenJS-Foundation-Privacy-Policy-2019-11-15.pdf.

jsdelivr.com-CDN privacy policy

So that we can deliver our individual websites to you quickly and flawlessly on all different devices, we use the open source services of jsdelivr.com from the Polish software company ProspectOne, Królewska 65A/1, 30-081, Kraków, Poland.

This is a content delivery network (CDN). This is a network of regionally distributed servers that are connected via the Internet. As a result, content, especially large files, can be delivered quickly and optimally, even at high load peaks.

jsDelivr is structured in such a way that JavaScript libraries can be downloaded and hosted on npm and Github servers. However, WordPress plugins can also be loaded, provided they are hosted on WordPress.org are hosted. In order to provide this service, your browser may send personal data to jsdelivr.com jsDelivr can therefore collect and store user data such as IP address, browser type, browser version, which website is loaded or the time and date of the page visit. In the privacy policy of jsdelivr.com expressly states that the company does not use cookies or other tracking services.

If you want to prevent this data transmission, you can install a JavaScript blocker (see for example https://noscript.net/). Please note, however, that this will mean that the website can no longer offer the usual service (such as fast loading speed).

Further information on data processing by the jsDelivr software service can be found in the company's privacy policy at https://www.jsdelivr.com/privacy-policy-jsdelivr-net.

BootstrapCDN privacy policy

In order to be able to deliver all our individual web pages (subpages of our website) to you quickly and securely on all devices, we use the Content Delivery Network (CDN) BootstrapCDN of the American software company StackPath, LLC 2012 McKinney Ave. Suite 1100, Dallas, TX 75201, USA.

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a network of regionally distributed servers that are connected to each other via the Internet. Through this network, content, especially very large files, can be delivered quickly even during large load peaks.

BootstrapCDN works in such a way that so-called JavaScript libraries are delivered to your browser. If your browser now downloads a file from BootstrapCDN, your IP address is transmitted to the StockPath company during the connection to the Bootstrap CDN server.

StackPath also mentions in its own privacy policy that the company uses aggregated and anonymized data from various services (such as BootstrapCDN) for the extension of the backup and for other StackPath services and clients. However, none of this data can identify a person.

If you want to prevent this data transfer, you can install a JavaScript blocker (see for example https://noscript.net/) or deactivate the execution of JavaScript codes in your browser. Please note, however, that this will mean that the website can no longer offer the usual service (such as fast loading speed).

StackPath is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information on this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000CbahAAC&status=Active.
You can find more information on data protection at StackPath and BootstrapCDN at https://www.bootstrapcdn.com/privacy-policy/.