Basic information on data processing and legal basis
This data protection declaration informs you about the type, scope and purpose of the processing of personal data within our online offer and the websites, functions and content connected to it (hereinafter jointly referred to as “online offer” or “website”). The privacy policy applies regardless of the domains, systems, platforms and devices (e.g. desktop or mobile) used on which the online offer is executed.
The terms used, such as “personal data” or their “processing” we refer to the definitions in Article 4 of the General Data Protection Regulation (DSGVO).
The personal data of users processed within the scope of this online offer includes usage data (e.g., the web pages visited on our online offer, interest in our products) and content data (e.g., entries in the contact form).
The term “user” includes all categories of data subjects. They include our business partners, customers, interested parties and other visitors to our online offer. The terms used, such as “user”, are to be understood as gender-neutral.
We process users’ personal data only in compliance with the relevant data protection regulations. This means that the users’ data is only processed if a legal permission exists. I.e., in particular if the data processing is necessary for the provision of our contractual services (e.g. processing of orders) as well as online services, or is required by law, a consent of the user is available, as well as due to our legitimate interests (i.e. interest in the analysis, optimization and economic operation and security of our online offer within the meaning of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f. DSGVO, in particular in the case of range measurement, creation of profiles for advertising and marketing purposes, and collection of access data and use of third-party services.
We point out that the legal basis of the consents Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a. and Art. 7 DSGVO, the legal basis for processing for the performance of our services and implementation of contractual measures Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b. DSGVO, the legal basis for processing to fulfill our legal obligations Art. 6 para. 1 lit. c. DSGVO, and the legal basis for processing to protect our legitimate interests Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f. DSGVO.
Security measures
We take organizational, contractual and technical security measures in accordance with the state of the art to ensure that the provisions of data protection laws are complied with and thus to protect the data processed by us against accidental or intentional manipulation, loss, destruction or against access by unauthorized persons.
The security measures include in particular the encrypted transmission of data between your browser and our server.
Disclosure of data to third parties and third-party providers
Data is only passed on to third parties within the framework of legal requirements. We only pass on users’ data to third parties if this is necessary, for example, on the basis of Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. b) DSGVO for contractual purposes or on the basis of legitimate interests pursuant to Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f. DSGVO in the economic and effective operation of our business.
If we use subcontractors to provide our services, we take appropriate legal precautions and corresponding technical and organizational measures to ensure the protection of personal data in accordance with the relevant legal provisions.
If content, tools or other means from other providers (hereinafter collectively referred to as “third party providers”) are used within the scope of this data protection declaration and their named registered office is located in a third country, it is to be assumed that a data transfer to the third party providers’ countries of domicile takes place. Third countries are countries in which the GDPR is not directly applicable law, i.e. basically countries outside the EU or the European Economic Area. The transfer of data to third countries takes place either if there is an adequate level of data protection, user consent or otherwise legal permission.
Contact
If you send us inquiries via contact form, your data from the inquiry form, including the contact data you provided there, will be stored by us for the purpose of processing the inquiry and in case of follow-up questions. We do not pass on this data without your consent.
The processing of the data entered in the contact form is therefore based exclusively on your consent (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO). You can revoke this consent at any time. For this purpose, an informal communication by e-mail to us is sufficient. The legality of the data processing operations carried out until the revocation remains unaffected by the revocation.
The data you entered in the contact form will remain with us until you request us to delete it, revoke your consent to store it, or the purpose for storing the data no longer applies (e.g. after we have completed processing your request). Mandatory legal provisions – in particular retention periods – remain unaffected.
Comments and contributions
When users leave comments or other contributions, their IP addresses are stored on the basis of our legitimate interests within the meaning of Art. 6 (1) lit. f. DSGVO are stored for 7 days.
This is done for our security in case someone leaves unlawful content in comments and posts (insults, prohibited political propaganda, etc.). In this case, we ourselves can be prosecuted for the comment or post and are therefore interested in the identity of the author.
Furthermore, we use the plugin Antispam Bee, which compares the IP addresses of commenters with known spam emails and filters them out.
Collection of access data and log files
We collect on the basis of our legitimate interests within the meaning of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f. DSGVO, we collect data about each access to the server on which this service is located (so-called server log files). The access data includes the name of the website accessed, file, date and time of access, amount of data transferred, notification of successful access, browser type and version, the user’s operating system, referrer URL (the previously visited page), IP address and the requesting provider.
Log file information is stored for security reasons (e.g. for the clarification of abuse or fraud) for a maximum of seven days and then deleted. Data whose further storage is required for evidentiary purposes is exempt from deletion until final clarification of the respective incident.
Cookies are pieces of information that are transmitted from our web server or third-party web servers to the users’ web browsers and stored there for later retrieval. Cookies may be small files or other types of information storage.
We use “session cookies”, which are only stored for the duration of the current visit to our online presence (e.g. to enable the storage of your login status or the shopping cart function and thus the use of our online offer at all). In a session cookie, a randomly generated unique identification number is stored, a so-called session ID. In addition, a cookie contains information about its origin and the storage period. These cookies cannot store any other data. Session cookies are deleted when you have finished using our online offer and log out or close the browser, for example.
Users are informed about the use of cookies in the context of pseudonymous range measurement within the scope of this privacy policy.
If users do not want cookies to be stored on their computer, they are asked to deactivate the corresponding option in the system settings of their browser. Stored cookies can be deleted in the system settings of the browser. The exclusion of cookies can lead to functional restrictions of this online offer.
You can object to the use of cookies that are used for range measurement and advertising purposes via the Network Advertising Initiative deactivation page (http://optout.networkadvertising.org/) and additionally the US website (http://www.aboutads.info/choices) or the European website (http://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/your-ad-choices/).
Google Analytics
Based on our legitimate interests (i.e. interest in the analysis, optimization and economic operation of our online offer within the meaning of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f. DSGVO) Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc (“Google”). Google uses cookies. The information generated by the cookie about the use of the online offer by the users is usually transmitted to a Google server in the USA and stored there.
Google is certified under the Privacy Shield agreement and thereby offers a guarantee of compliance with European data protection law (https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&status=Active).
Google will use this information on our behalf for the purpose of evaluating your use of our website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. In doing so, pseudonymous usage profiles of the users can be created from the processed data.
We use Google Analytics to display the ads placed within advertising services of Google and its partners only to those users who have also shown an interest in our online offer or who have certain characteristics (e.g. interests in certain topics or products determined on the basis of the websites visited), which we transmit to Google (so-called “Remarketing Audiences”, or “Google Analytics Audiences”). With the help of Remarketing Audiences, we also want to ensure that our ads correspond to the potential interest of users and do not have a harassing effect.
We only use Google Analytics with IP anonymization enabled. This means that the IP address of users is truncated by Google within member states of the European Union or in other states party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the USA and shortened there.
The IP address transmitted by the user’s browser is not merged with other data from Google. Users can prevent the storage of cookies by setting their browser software accordingly; users can also prevent the collection of the data generated by the cookie and related to their use of the online offer to Google, as well as the processing of this data by Google, by downloading and installing the browser plugin available at the following link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de.
For more information about Google’s data use, settings and opt-out options, please visit Google’s websites: https://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/partners (“Data use by Google when you use our partners’ websites or apps”), http://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads (“Data use for advertising purposes”), http://www.google.de/settings/ads (“Manage information Google uses to serve ads to you”).
Google Re/Marketing Services
We use on the basis of our legitimate interests (i.e. interest in the analysis, optimization and economic operation of our online offer within the meaning of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f. DSGVO) the marketing and remarketing services (in short “Google Marketing Services”) of Google Inc, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA, (“Google”).
Google is certified under the Privacy Shield agreement and thereby offers a guarantee of compliance with European data protection law (https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&status=Active).
Google’s marketing services allow us to display advertisements for and on our website in a more targeted manner in order to present users only with ads that potentially match their interests. If, for example, a user is shown ads for products he or she was interested in on other websites, this is referred to as “remarketing”. For these purposes, when our website and other websites on which Google marketing services are active are called up, a code is executed directly by Google and so-called (re)marketing tags (invisible graphics or code, also known as “web beacons”) are integrated into the website. With their help, an individual cookie, i.e. a small file, is stored on the user’s device (comparable technologies can also be used instead of cookies). The cookies can be set by various domains, including google.com, doubleclick.net, invitemedia.com, admeld.com, googlesyndication.com or googleadservices.com. This file records which websites the user has visited, which content he is interested in and which offers he has clicked on, as well as technical information on the browser and operating system, referring websites, time of visit and other information on the use of the online offer. The IP address of the user is also recorded, whereby we inform Google Analytics that the IP address is shortened within Member States of the European Union or in other contracting states to the Agreement on the European Economic Area and only in exceptional cases is transferred in full to a Google server in the USA and shortened there. The IP address is not merged with the user’s data within other Google offerings. The aforementioned information may also be linked on the part of Google with such information from other sources. If the user subsequently visits other websites, he can be shown ads tailored to his interests.
The user’s data is processed pseudonymously as part of Google’s marketing services. This means that Google does not store and process the name or e-mail address of the user, for example, but processes the relevant data on a cookie basis within pseudonymous user profiles. I.e. from Google’s perspective, the ads are not managed and displayed for a specifically identified person, but for the cookie holder, regardless of who this cookie holder is. This does not apply if a user has expressly allowed Google to process the data without this pseudonymization. The information collected by Google marketing services about users is transmitted to Google and stored on Google’s servers in the USA.
The Google marketing services we use include, among others, the online advertising program “Google AdWords”. In the case of Google AdWords, each AdWords customer receives a different “conversion cookie”. Cookies can therefore not be tracked across the websites of AdWords customers. The information obtained using the cookie is used to create conversion statistics for AdWords customers who have opted in to conversion tracking. The AdWords customers learn the total number of users who clicked on their ad and were redirected to a page tagged with a conversion tracking tag. However, they do not receive any information that can be used to personally identify users.
We may integrate third-party advertisements based on the Google marketing service “DoubleClick”. DoubleClick uses cookies to enable Google and its partner websites to serve ads based on users’ visits to this website or other websites on the Internet.
We may include third-party advertisements based on Google’s “AdSense” marketing service. AdSense uses cookies to enable Google and its partner websites to serve ads based on users’ visits to this website or other websites on the Internet.
We may also use the “Google Optimizer” service. Google Optimizer allows us to track the effect of various changes to a website (e.g. changes to the input fields, design, etc.) as part of so-called “A/B testing”. Cookies are placed on users’ devices for these testing purposes. Only pseudonymous data of the users is processed in the process.
Furthermore, we may use the “Google Tag Manager” to integrate and manage Google analysis and marketing services on our website.
For more information on the use of data for marketing purposes by Google, please visit the overview page: https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads, Google’s privacy policy is available at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy.
If you wish to object to interest-based advertising by Google marketing services, you can use the settings and opt-out options provided by Google: http://www.google.com/ads/preferences.
Integration of third-party services and content
We use within our online offer on the basis of our legitimate interests (i.e. interest in the analysis, optimization and economic operation of our online offer within the meaning of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f. DSGVO) to integrate content or services offered by third-party providers, such as videos or fonts (hereinafter uniformly referred to as “content”). This always requires that the third-party providers of this content are aware of the IP address of the user, since without the IP address they could not send the content to their browser. The IP address is thus required for the display of this content. We endeavor to use only such content whose respective providers use the IP address only for the delivery of the content. Third-party providers may also use so-called pixel tags (invisible graphics, also known as “web beacons”) for statistical or marketing purposes. The “pixel tags” can be used to evaluate information such as visitor traffic on the pages of this website. The pseudonymous information may also be stored in cookies on the user’s device and may contain, among other things, technical information about the browser and operating system, referring websites, time of visit and other information about the use of our online offer, as well as be linked to such information from other sources.
The following presentation provides an overview of third-party providers and their content, along with links to their data protection statements, which contain further information on the processing of data and, in part already mentioned here, options for objection (so-called opt-out):
External Fonts from Google, Inc, https://www.google.com/fonts (“Google Fonts”). The integration of Google Fonts is done by a server call at Google (usually in the USA). Privacy policy: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/, Opt-Out: https://www.google.com/settings/ads/.
Maps of the service “Google Maps” of the third party provider Google Inc, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Privacy policy: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/, Opt-Out: https://www.google.com/settings/ads/.
Videos from the “YouTube” platform of the third-party provider Google Inc, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Privacy policy: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/, Opt-Out: https://www.google.com/settings/ads/.
Rights of users
Users have the right, upon request and free of charge, to receive information about the personal data we have stored about them.
In addition, users have the right to rectify inaccurate data, restrict processing and delete their personal data, if applicable, to assert their rights to data portability and, in the event that we assume that data processing is unlawful, to file a complaint with the competent supervisory authority.
Likewise, users may revoke consents, in principle with effect for the future.
Deletion of data
The data stored by us will be deleted as soon as they are no longer required for their intended purpose and the deletion does not conflict with any statutory retention obligations. If the user data is not deleted because it is required for other and legally permissible purposes, its processing will be restricted. I.e. the data is blocked and not processed for other purposes. This applies, for example, to user data that must be retained for reasons of commercial or tax law.
According to legal requirements, data is stored for 6 years in accordance with § 257 para. 1 HGB (commercial books, inventories, opening balances, annual financial statements, commercial letters, accounting vouchers, etc.) and for 10 years in accordance with § 147 para. 1 AO (books, records, management reports, accounting vouchers, commercial and business letters, documents relevant for taxation, etc.).
Right of objection
Users may object to the future processing of their personal data in accordance with the legal requirements at any time. The objection can be made in particular against processing for direct advertising purposes.
Changes to the data protection declaration
We reserve the right to change the data protection declaration in order to adapt it to changed legal situations, or in the event of changes to the service as well as data processing. However, this only applies with regard to declarations on data processing. Insofar as user consents are required or components of the data protection declaration contain provisions of the contractual relationship with the users, the changes will only be made with the consent of the users.
Users are requested to inform themselves regularly about the content of the data protection declaration.
