Privacy

We have written this privacy statement (version 20.04.2020-311185843) to explain to you, in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, what information we collect, how we use data and what decision-making options you have as a visitor to this website.

Unfortunately, it is in the nature of things that these explanations sound very technical, but we have tried to describe the most important things as simply and clearly as possible when creating them.

Automatic data storage

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

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

• the address (URL) of the accessed web page
• Browser and browser version
• the operating system used
• the address (URL) of the previously visited page (referrer URL)
• the hostname and IP address of the device from which access is made
• 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 on this data, but we cannot exclude the possibility that this data may be viewed in the event of unlawful conduct.

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

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

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

There are both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created directly by our site, third-party cookies are created by partner websites (e.g. Google Analytics). Each cookie must be evaluated individually, as each cookie stores different data. The expiration 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 “pests”. Cookies also cannot access information from your PC.

For example, cookie data can look like this:

• Name: _ga
• Expiration time: 2 years
• Usage: differentiation of website visitors
• Example value: GA1.2.1326744211.152311185843

A browser should support the following minimum sizes:

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

What are the types of cookies?

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

We can distinguish 4 types of cookies:

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

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

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

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

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

How can I delete cookies?

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

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

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you generally do not want cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. Thus, for each individual cookie, you can decide whether to allow the cookie or not. The procedure varies depending on the browser. The best way is to search the instructions in Google with the search term “delete cookies Chrome” or “disable cookies Chrome” in case of Chrome browser or replace the word “Chrome” with the name of your browser, e.g. Edge, Firefox, Safari.

What about my privacy?

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

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

Storage of personal data

Personal data that you transmit to us electronically on this website, such as name, e-mail address, address or other personal information in the context of 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, kept secure and not disclosed to third parties.

We thus use your personal data only for communication with those visitors who expressly request contact and for the processing of the services and products offered on this website. We do not disclose your personal data without your consent, but we cannot exclude the possibility that this data may be viewed in the event of unlawful conduct.

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

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

Rights under the General Data Protection Regulation

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

• Right of rectification (Article 16 GDPR)
• Right to erasure (“right to be forgotten”) (Article 17 GDPR)
• Right to restriction of processing (Article 18 DSGVO)
• Right to notification – obligation to notify 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 that your data protection rights have been violated in any other way, you can contact the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI).

Evaluation of visitor behavior

In the following privacy policy, we inform you whether and how we evaluate data from your visit to this website. The evaluation of the collected data is usually anonymous and we cannot infer your person from your behavior on this website.

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

TLS encryption with https

We use https to transmit data tap-proof on the Internet (data protection by design of technology Article 25(1) DSGVO). By using TLS (Transport Layer Security), an encryption protocol for secure data transmission on the Internet, we can ensure the protection of confidential data. You can recognize the use of this data transfer protection 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 Maps Privacy Policy

We use Google Maps of the 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 Maps allows us to better show you locations and thus customize our service to your needs. By using Google Maps, data is transmitted to Google and stored on Google servers. Here we will now go into more detail about what Google Maps is, why we use this Google service, what data is stored and how you can prevent this.

What is Google Maps?

Google Maps is an Internet mapping service provided by the Google company. Google Maps lets you find exact locations of cities, landmarks, accommodations, or businesses online using a PC, tablet, or app. When companies are represented on Google My Business, other information about the company is displayed in addition to the location. To display directions, map sections of a location can be embedded into a website using HTML code. Google Maps shows the earth’s surface as a street map or as an aerial or satellite image. Thanks to the Street View images and the high-quality satellite images, very accurate representations are possible.

Why do we use Google Maps on our website?

All of our efforts on this site are aimed at providing you with a useful and meaningful time on our website. By integrating Google Maps, we can provide you with the most important information about various locations. You can see at a glance where we are located. The directions will always show you the best or fastest way to get to us. You can access the route for routes by car, public transport, on foot or by bike. For us, providing Google Maps is part of our customer service.

What data is stored by Google Maps?

In order for Google Maps to fully provide their service, the company must collect and store data from you. These include the search terms entered, your IP address and also the latitude or longitude coordinates. If you use the route planner function, the entered start address is also saved. However, this data storage happens on Google Maps websites. We can only inform you about this, but cannot influence it. Since we have integrated Google Maps into our website, Google sets at least one cookie (name: NID) in your browser. This cookie stores data about your user behavior. Google uses this data primarily to optimize its own services and to provide individual, personalized advertising for you.

The following cookie is set in your browser due to the integration of Google Maps:

Name: NID
Wert: 188=h26c1Ktha7fCQTx8rXgLyATyITJ311185843-5
Purpose: NID is used by Google to customize ads to your Google search. With the help of the cookie, Google “remembers” your most frequently entered search queries or your previous interaction with ads. This way you will always get customized ads. The cookie contains a unique ID that Google uses to collect your personal preferences for advertising purposes.
Expiration date: after 6 months

Note: We can not guarantee completeness in the information of the stored data. Especially when using cookies, changes can never be ruled out. In order to identify the cookie NID, a separate test page was created, where only Google Maps was integrated.

How long and where is the data stored?

Google servers are located in data centers around the world. However, most of the servers are located in America. For this reason, your data is also increasingly stored in the USA. You can find out exactly where Google’s data centers are located here: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de

Google distributes the data on various data carriers. This means that the data can be retrieved more quickly and is better protected against any attempts at manipulation. Each data center also has special emergency programs. For example, if there are problems with Google’s hardware or a natural disaster cripples the servers, the data will pretty much remain protected anyway.

Google stores some data for a set period of time. For other data, Google only offers the option to delete it manually. The Company also anonymizes information (such as advertising data) in server logs by removing a portion of the IP address and cookie information after 9 and18 months deletes.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

With the automatic deletion of location and activity data introduced in 2019, location and web/app activity information will be stored for either 3 or 18 months, depending on your decision, and then deleted. Moreover, you can also delete this data from the history manually at any time via the Google account. If you want to completely prevent your location tracking, you need to pause the “Web and App Activity” section in Google Account. Click “Data and personalization” and then click the “Activity setting” option. Here you can switch the activities on or off.

In your browser, you can also deactivate, delete or manage individual cookies. Depending on which browser you use, this always works slightly differently. The following instructions show how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

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

Google is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which governs the accurate and secure transfer of personal data. For more information, visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI. If you would like to learn more about Google’s data processing, we recommend that you read the company’s in-house privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.

Google Fonts Privacy Policy

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

You do not need to log in or set 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, CSS and fonts requests 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, while using Google Fonts, will be transmitted to Google. Google records the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and the fonts used and stores this data securely. We will take a detailed look at how the data storage looks exactly.

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 released under the SIL Open Font License, while others are released under the Apache license. Both are free software licenses.

Why do we use Google Fonts on our website?

Google Fonts allows us to use fonts on our own website, but we don’t have 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 with mobile devices. When you visit our site, the low file size ensures fast loading time. Furthermore, Google Fonts are secure web fonts. Different image synthesis systems (rendering) in different browsers, operating systems and mobile devices can lead to errors. Such errors can sometimes visually distort texts or entire web pages. Thanks to the fast Content Delivery Network (CDN), there are no cross-platform issues with Google Fonts. Google Fonts supports all major browsers (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera) and works reliably on most modern mobile operating systems, including Android 2.2+ and iOS 4.2+ (iPhone, iPad, iPod). So, we use the Google Fonts so that we can display our entire online service as beautifully and consistently as possible.

What data is stored by Google?

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

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

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

How long and where is the data stored?

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

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

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

The data that Google stores for a day or a year cannot simply be deleted. The data is automatically transmitted to Google when the page is called up. To delete this data ahead of time, you will need to contact Google Support at https://support.google.com/?hl=de&tid=311185843. Data storage you prevent in this case only if you do not visit our site.

Unlike other web fonts, Google allows us unlimited access to all fonts. So we can access an unlimited sea of fonts and get the most out of our website. For more on Google Fonts and other issues, visit https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq?tid=311185843. There, Google addresses privacy-related matters, but really detailed information about data storage is not included. 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/nachlesen.

Newsletter Privacy Policy

When you sign up for our newsletter, you submit the above personal information and give us the right to contact you by email. We use the data stored as part of the registration for the newsletter exclusively for our newsletter and do not pass them on.

If you unsubscribe from the newsletter – you will find the link for this at the bottom of each newsletter – we will delete all data that was stored with the subscription to the newsletter.

Sendinblue Privacy Policy

You can sign up for our newsletter for free on our website. To make sure this works, we use the Sendinblue email delivery service for our newsletter. This is a service of the German company Sendinblue GmbH, Köpenicker Str. 126, 10179 Berlin.

We are of course very pleased if you subscribe to our newsletter. In this way, we can always provide you with up-to-date, first-hand information about what is going on in our company at any given time. However, you should know that during the subscription process to the newsletter, all the data you enter (such as your email address or your first and last name) will be stored and managed on our server and at Sendinblue. This also involves personal data. For example, in addition to the time and date of registration, your IP address is also stored. In the course of the registration you also agree that we can send you the newsletter and it is further referred to this privacy policy.
The newsletter service also provides us with helpful analytics. This means that when we send out a newsletter, we learn, for example, whether and when the newsletter was opened by you. Even if and on which link you click in the newsletter is recognized and recorded by the software. This information helps enormously to adapt and optimize our service to your wishes and concerns. After all, we naturally want to provide you with the best possible service. Thus, in addition to the data already mentioned above, such data about your user behavior is also stored.

You can revoke your consent to this data processing at any time. For example, if you click on the unsubscribe link directly in the newsletter. After unsubscribing, the personal data will be deleted from our server and from the Sendinblue servers, which are located in Germany. You have a right to free information about your stored data and, if applicable, also a right to deletion, blocking or correction.

If you wish to obtain more detailed information on data processing, we recommend that you consult the company’s privacy policy at https://de.sendinblue.com/legal/privacypolicy/ and also the following information page at https://de.sendinblue.com/informationen-newsletter-empfaenger/.

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. With the help of the reports we receive from Google Analytics, we can better tailor our website and service to your needs. In the following, we will go into more detail about the tracking tool and, in particular, inform you about what data is stored and how you can prevent it.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a tracking tool used for traffic analysis of our website. In order for Google Analytics to work, a tracking code is built into the code of our website. When you visit our website, this code records various actions 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 get reports about your user behavior. These may include, but are not limited to, the following reports:

• Target group reports: Through target group reports, we get to know our users better and know more precisely who is interested in our service.
• Ad reports: Ad reports make it easier for us to analyze and improve our online advertising.
• Acquisition reports: Acquisition reports give us helpful information on how to get more people interested in our service.
• Behavioral reports: This is where we learn how you interact with our website. We can track which path you take on our site and which links you click on.
• Conversion reports: Conversion is the name given to a process in which you take a desired action as a result of a marketing message. For example, if you go from being just a website visitor to a buyer or newsletter subscriber. These reports help us learn more about how our marketing efforts are resonating with you. This is how we want to increase our conversion rate.
• Real-time reports: Here we always find out 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 provide you with the best possible service. Google Analytics statistics and data help us achieve this goal.

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

What data is stored by Google Analytics?

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

Identifiers such as cookies and app instance IDs 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 share Google Analytics data unless we, as the website owner, authorize it. Exceptions may occur when required by law.

The following cookies are used by Google Analytics:

Name: _ga
Wert:2.1326744211.152311185843-5
Purpose: By default, analytics.js uses the _ga cookie to store the user ID. Basically, it is used to distinguish the website visitors.
Expiration date: after 2 years

Name: _gid
Wert:2.1687193234.152311185843-1
Purpose: The cookie is also used to distinguish website visitors.
Expiration date: after 24 hours

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

Name: AMP_TOKEN
Value: no data
Purpose: The cookie has a token that can be used to retrieve a user ID from the AMP client ID service. Other possible values indicate a logout, a request, or an error.
Expiration date: after 30 seconds up to one year

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

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

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

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

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

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

Note: This list cannot claim to be complete, as Google is constantly changing its choice of cookies.

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

Heatmaps: Google creates so-called heatmaps. Via heatmaps you can see exactly those areas you click on. This way we get information where you are “traveling” on our site.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source of origin: Google Analytics or us, of course, also interested in which website or which advertising you came to our site.

Other data includes contact information, any ratings, playing media (for example, if you play a video through our site), sharing content through social media, or adding to your favorites. The list does not claim to be complete and only serves as a general orientation of the data storage by Google Analytics.

How long and where is the data stored?

Google has your servers spread all over the world. Most servers are located in America and consequently your data is mostly stored on American servers. You can find out exactly where Google’s data centers are located here: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de

Your data is distributed on different physical media. This has the advantage that the data can be retrieved more quickly and is better protected against manipulation. There are appropriate emergency programs for your data in every Google data center. For example, if Google’s hardware fails or natural disasters cripple servers, the risk of service interruption at Google still remains low.

Google Analytics defaults to a retention period of 26 months for your user data. Then your user data will be deleted. However, we have the option to choose the retention period of user data. We have five variants available for this purpose:

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

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

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

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

If you generally want to disable, delete or manage cookies (independently of Google Analytics), there are separate instructions for each browser:

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

Google Analytics is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which governs the accurate and secure transfer of personal data. For more information, visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&tid=311185843. We hope we have been able to provide you with the most important information about the data processing of Google Analytics. If you want to learn 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 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 match our theme. Thus, we offer you ads that ideally represent a real added value for you. In the course of this privacy policy on Google AdSense, we explain why we use Google AdSense on our website, what data from you 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. In contrast to Google Ads (formerly: Google AdWords), you cannot place ads yourself here. 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 shows you only ads that match our content. Google has its own algorithm that calculates which ads you get to see. Of course, we only want to provide you with advertising that is of interest to you and offers you added value. Google checks which advertisements are suitable for our website and for our users on the basis of your interests or your user behavior and on the basis of our offer. At this point we would also like to mention right away that we are not responsible for the selection of the advertisements. We only offer the advertising space with our website. The selection of the displayed advertising is made by Google. 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, your PC or laptop, the ads adapt to your device.

Why do we use Google AdSense on our website?

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

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

What data is stored by Google AdSense?

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

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

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

Google may collect certain information about your user behavior on our website via these cookies. These include:

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

In the process, Google analyzes and evaluates the data on the displayed advertising materials and your IP address. Google uses the data primarily to measure the effectiveness of an ad and to improve the advertising offer. This data is not linked to any personal data that Google may have about you through other Google services.

Below we present cookies that Google AdSense uses for tracking purposes. Here we refer to a test website that has Google AdSense installed exclusively:

Name: uid
Value: 891269189311185843-8
Purpose: The cookie is stored under the domain adform.net. It provides a uniquely assigned, machine-generated user ID and collects data about activity on our website.
Expiration date: after 2 months

Name: C

Value: 1
Purpose: 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
Wert: 8912691894970695056,0,0,0,0
Purpose: 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 ads to the visitor and helps improve campaign performance reports.
Expiration date: after 2 months

Name: IDE
Wert: zOtj4TWxwbFDjaATZ2TzNaQmxrU311185843-1
Purpose: The cookie is stored under the domain doubleclick.net. It is used to register your actions after viewing or clicking 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
Purpose: With the help of the “test_cookies” you can check if your browser supports cookies at all. The cookie is stored under the domain doubleclick.net.
Expiration date: after 1 month

Name: CT592996
Value:733366
Purpose: Stored under the domain adform.net. The cookie is set as soon as you click on an advertisement. We could not find out more detailed information about the use of this cookie.
Expiration date: after one hour

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

How long and where is the data stored?

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

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

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, due to economic or legal necessities, has to store certain data for an indefinite, longer period of time.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You always have the option to delete or disable cookies that are on your computer. How exactly this works depends on your browser.

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

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you generally do not want cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. Thus, for each individual cookie, you can decide whether to allow the cookie or not. Downloading and installing this browser plug-in on https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996 will also disable all “advertising cookies”. Keep in mind that by disabling these cookies, you do not prevent the ads, only the personalized ads.

If you have a Google account, you can disable personalized advertising on the https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated website. You will continue to see ads here as well, but they will no longer be customized to your interests. Still, ads are displayed based on a few factors, such as your location, browser type, and search terms used.

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

Google Ads (Google AdWords) Conversion Tracking Privacy Policy

We use Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) as an online marketing measure to promote our products and services. In this way, we want to make more people aware of the high quality of our offerings on the Internet. As part of our advertising measures through Google Ads, we use the conversion tracking of the company Google Inc. on our website. In Europe, however, the company 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 adapt 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 in the process, 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 an accurate overview of the cost-benefit factor of our advertising campaigns. That’s why we use the conversion tracking tool from Google Ads.

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

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

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

What data is stored by Google Ads conversion tracking? We have included a conversion tracking tag or code snippet on our website to better analyze certain user actions. Now, when you click on one of our Google Ads ads, the cookie “Conversion” is stored on your computer (usually in the browser) or mobile device by a Google domain. Cookies are small text files that store information on your computer.

Here are the data of the most important cookies for conversion tracking by Google:

Name: Conversion

Value: EhMI_aySuoyv4gIVled3Ch0llweVGAEgt-mr6aXd7dYlSAGQ311185843-3
Purpose: This cookie stores every conversion you make on our site after coming to us through a Google Ad.
Expiration date: after 3 months

Name: _gac

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

Note: The _gac cookie only appears in connection with Google Analytics. The above list does not claim to be complete, as Google also 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 surf our website and the cookie has not yet expired, we and Google will recognize that you found us through 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 using Google Analytics. For ads that Google displays in various locations on the web, cookies named “__gads” or “_gac” may be set under our domain. Since September 2017, various campaign information is stored by analytics.js with 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 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 get a report from Google with statistical analysis. For example, we learn the total number of users who clicked on our ad and we 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 collected data. According to Google, the data is encrypted and stored on secure servers. In most cases, conversion cookies expire after 30 days and do not transmit any personal data. The cookies named “Conversion” and “_gac” (which is used in conjunction with Google Analytics) have an expiration date of 3 months.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You have the option not to participate in Google Ads conversion tracking. If you disable 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 can find the instructions on how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you generally do not want cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. Thus, for each individual cookie, you can decide whether to allow the cookie or not. Downloading and installing this browser plug-in on https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996 will also disable all “advertising cookies”. Keep in mind that by disabling these cookies, you do not prevent the ads, only the personalized ads.

Through the certification for the American-European data protection agreement “Privacy Shield”, the American company Google LLC must comply with the data protection laws applicable in the EU. If you would like to learn more about Google’s privacy policy, we recommend Google’s general privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.