Data protection

We have drawn up this data protection declaration (version 14.10.2020-311221558) to explain to you, in accordance with the provisions of the basic 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 simple and clear as possible.

Automatic data storage

When you visit websites today, 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 saves 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 host name and IP address of the device from which access is made
Date and time

in files (web server log files).

Usually web server log files are stored for two weeks and then automatically deleted. We do not pass on this data, but cannot exclude the possibility that this data may be viewed in the event of illegal behaviour.

Cookies

Our website uses HTTP cookies to store user-specific data.
In the following 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. Some 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.

There is one thing that cannot be dismissed: Cookies are really useful little helpers. Almost all websites use cookies. More precisely, they are HTTP cookies, since 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 stored in the cookie folder, quasi 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 visit our site again, your browser transmits the “user-related” information back to our site. Thanks to the cookies, our website knows who you are and offers you your accustomed standard settings. 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 sites (e.g. Google Analytics). Each cookie is unique because 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 on your PC.

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

Name: _ga
Expiry period: 2 years
Usage: Differentiation of website visitors
Example value: GA1.2.1326744211.152311221558

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 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 discuss the different types of HTTP cookies.

You can distinguish 4 types of cookies:

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

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

Target-oriented cookies
These cookies ensure a better user experience. For example, entered locations, font sizes or form data are stored.

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

Usually the first time you visit a website, you will be asked which of these types of cookies you wish to accept. And of course this decision is also stored in a cookie.

How can I delete cookies?

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

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

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

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

What about my privacy?

The so-called “cookie guidelines” have been in place since 2009. These state that the storage of cookies requires your consent. Within the EU countries, however, there are still very different reactions to these guidelines. In Germany the Cookie Guidelines have not been implemented as national law. Instead, the implementation of this directive was largely carried out in § 15 para.3 of the German Telemedia Act (TMG).

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

Storage of personal data

Personal information that you submit to us electronically on this website, such as your name, e-mail address, postal address or other personal information when submitting a form or comments on the blog, together with the time and IP address, will only be used by us for the purpose stated in each case, will be kept securely stored and will not be disclosed to third parties.

We use your personal data therefore only for communication with those visitors who expressly wish to contact us and for processing the services and products offered on this website. We will not pass on your personal data without your consent, but we cannot exclude the possibility that this data may be viewed in the event of unlawful behaviour.

If you send us personal data by e-mail – thus off 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 paragraph 1 a DSGVO (lawfulness of processing), the legal basis is that you give us your 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 basic data protection regulation

In accordance with the provisions of the DSGVO, you are basically entitled to the following rights:

Right of rectification (Article 16 DSGVO)
Right of cancellation (“right to be forgotten”) (Article 17 DPA)
Right to restrict processing (Article 18 DSGVO)
Right of notification – Obligation to notify in connection with the correction or deletion of personal data or the restriction of processing (Article 19 DPA)
Right to data transferability (Article 20 DSGVO)
Right of objection (Article 21 DSGVO)
Right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling (Article 22 DPA)

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

Evaluation of the visitor behaviour

In the following data protection declaration we inform you whether and how we evaluate data of your visit to this website. The evaluation of the collected data is usually anonymous and we cannot deduce your identity from your behaviour on this website.

You can find out more about how to object to this evaluation 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 through technology design article 25 paragraph 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 transmission security by the small lock symbol in the upper left corner of your 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 from Google Inc. for our website, and Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services in Europe. With Google Maps we can show you locations better and thus adapt our service to your needs. By using Google Maps, data is transferred to Google and stored on Google’s servers. Here we will go into more detail about what Google Maps is, why we use this Google service, what data is stored and how you can stop it.

What is Google Maps?

Google Maps is an Internet map service of the company Google. With Google Maps, you can search online for exact locations of cities, sights, accommodations or businesses using a PC, tablet or app. If companies are represented on Google My Business, additional information about the company is displayed next to the location. To display directions, map sections of a location can be embedded into a website using HTML code. Google Maps shows the surface of the earth as a road 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 our efforts on this site are aimed at providing you with a useful and meaningful time on our website. Through the integration of Google Maps we can provide you with the most important information about various locations. You can see at a glance where we have our headquarters. The route description always shows you the best or fastest way to reach us. You can call up the directions for routes by car, public transport, on foot or by bicycle. For us the provision of Google Maps is part of our customer service.

Which data is stored by Google Maps?

In order for Google Maps to offer its service in its entirety, the company must collect and store data about you. This includes the search terms entered, your IP address and also the latitude and longitude coordinates. If you use the route planner function, the start address entered will also be saved. However, this data storage happens on the websites of Google Maps. We can only inform you about it, but we 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 behaviour. Google uses this data primarily to optimise its own services and to provide individual, personalised advertising for you.

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

Name: NID
Value: 188=h26c1Ktha7fCQTx8rXgLyATyITJ311221558-5
Purpose: NID is used by Google to match ads to your Google search. Google uses the cookie to “remember” your most frequently entered search queries or your previous interaction with ads. So you 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 cannot guarantee the completeness of the data stored. 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?

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

Google distributes the data on different data carriers. This means that the data can be accessed more quickly and is better protected against any attempts at manipulation. Each data center also has special emergency programs. If, for example, there are problems with the Google hardware or a natural disaster paralyses the servers, the data is still protected.

Google stores some data for a specified 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 deleting part of the IP address and cookie information after 9 and 18 months respectively.

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 is stored for either 3 or 18 months, depending on your decision, and then deleted. You can also manually delete this data from your history at any time using your Google Account. If you want to completely stop your location tracking, you’ll need to pause the Web and App activity section of your Google Account. Click ‘Data and personalization’ and then click the ‘Activity setting’ option. Here you can turn activity on or off.

You can also deactivate, delete or manage individual cookies in your browser. Depending on which browser you use, this always works slightly differently. The following instructions show you 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 placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

Google 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. If you want to learn more about Google’s data processing, we recommend that you read the company’s own privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.

YouTube Privacy Policy

We have included YouTube videos on our website. So we can present you interesting videos directly on our site. YouTube is a video portal, which is a subsidiary of Google since 2006. The video portal is operated by YouTube, LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA. When you visit a page on our website that has an embedded YouTube video, your browser automatically connects to the servers of YouTube or Google. In the process, various data is transferred (depending on the settings). Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all data processing in Europe.

In the following, we would like to explain to you in more detail what data is processed, why we have included YouTube videos and how you can manage or delete your data.

What is YouTube?

On YouTube, users can view, rate, comment on and upload videos for free. Over the last few years, YouTube has become one of the most important social media channels worldwide. To enable us to display videos on our website, YouTube provides a code snippet that we have integrated on our site.

Why do we use YouTube videos on our website?

YouTube is the video platform with the most visitors and the best content. We strive to provide you with the best possible user experience on our website. And of course, interesting videos should not be missing. With the help of our embedded videos, we provide you with further helpful content in addition to our texts and images. In addition, the embedded videos make our website easier to find on the Google search engine. Even if we use Google Ads to place advertisements, Google can – thanks to the data collected – really only show these ads to people who are interested in our offers.

What data is stored by YouTube?

When you visit one of our sites that has a YouTube video embedded, YouTube at least sets a cookie that stores your IP address and our URL. If you are logged in to your YouTube account, YouTube can associate your interactions on our site with your profile, usually using cookies. This includes information such as session duration, bounce rate, approximate location, technical information such as browser type, screen resolution, or your Internet service provider. Other data may include contact information, any ratings, sharing content through social media, or adding to your favorites on YouTube.

If you’re not signed in to a Google Account or a YouTube account, Google stores data with a unique identifier associated with your device, browser, or app. For example, your preferred language setting is preserved. But much interaction data can’t be stored because fewer cookies are set.

In the following list we show cookies that were set in a test in the browser. On the one hand we show cookies that are set without a registered YouTube account. On the other hand we show cookies that are set with a registered account. The list cannot claim to be complete, because the user data always depends on the interactions on YouTube.

Name: YSC
Value: b9-CV6ojI5Y311221558-1
Purpose: This cookie registers a unique ID to store statistics of the video viewed.
Expiration date: after session end

Name: PREF
Value: f1=50000000
Purpose: This cookie also registers your unique ID. Google gets statistics about how you use YouTube videos on our website via PREF.
Expiration date: after 8 months

Name: GPS
Value: 1
Purpose: This cookie registers your unique ID on mobile devices to track your GPS location.
Expiration date: after 30 minutes

Name: VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
Value: 95Chz8bagyU
Purpose: This cookie attempts to estimate the bandwidth of the user on our websites (with built-in YouTube video).
Expiration date: after 8 months

Other cookies that are set when you are logged in with your YouTube account:

Name: APISID
Value: zILlvClZSkqGsSwI/AU1aZI6HY7311221558-
Purpose: This cookie is used to create a profile about your interests. The data will be used for personalized advertisements.
Expiration date: after 2 years

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

Name: HSID
Value: AcRwpgUik9Dveht0I
Purpose: This cookie is used to create a profile of your interests. This data helps us to display personalized advertising.
Expiration date: after 2 years

Name: LOGIN_INFO
Value: AFmmF2swRQIhALl6aL…
Purpose: This cookie stores information about your login data.
Expiration date: after 2 years

Name: SAPISID
Value: 7oaPxoG-pZsJuuF5/AnUdDUIsJ9iJz2vdM
Purpose: This cookie works by uniquely identifying your browser and device. It is used to create a profile about your interests.
Expiration date: after 2 years

Name: SID
Value: oQfNKjAsI311221558-
Purpose: This cookie stores your Google Account ID and last sign-in time in digitally signed and encrypted form.
Expiration date: after 2 years

Name: SIDCC
Value: AN0-TYuqub2JOcDTyL
Purpose: This cookie stores information about how you use the site and what advertisements you may have seen prior to visiting our site.
Expiration date: after 3 months

How long and where is the data stored?

The data that YouTube receives from you and processes are stored on Google’s servers. Most of these servers are located in America. You can see exactly where Google’s data centres are located at https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de. Your data is distributed across the servers. So the data can be retrieved faster and is better protected against manipulation.

Google stores the collected data for different lengths of time. Some data can be deleted at any time, others are automatically deleted after a limited time and some are stored by Google for a longer time. Some data (such as items from “My activity”, photos or documents, products) stored in your Google Account will remain stored until you delete them. Even if you’re not signed in to a Google Account, you can delete some data associated with your device, browser, or app.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

Basically, you can manually delete data in your Google Account. With the automatic deletion function of location and activity data introduced in 2019, information is stored for either 3 or 18 months, depending on your decision, and then deleted.

Whether or not you have a Google Account, you can configure your browser to delete or disable Google cookies. This works in different ways depending on the browser you use. The following instructions will show you 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 placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. In this way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether you want to allow it or not. Since YouTube is a subsidiary of Google, there is a common privacy policy. If you’d like to learn more about how we handle your information, we recommend you read the privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.

SoundCloud Privacy Policy

On our website we use functions (widgets) of the social media network SoundCloud of the company SoundCloud Limited, Rheinsberger Str. 76/77, 10115 Berlin, Germany. You can recognize the widgets by the well-known orange logo. By using functions such as playing music, data is transmitted to SoundCloud, stored and evaluated. In this privacy policy we will show you what data is involved, why we use SoundCloud and how you can manage or stop your data or data transfer.

What is SoundCloud?

The social media network SoundCloud is an online music platform for the exchange and distribution of audio files. On SoundCloud musicians or podcasters offer their audio files for download. In addition, SoundCloud can also be used to integrate the audio files into other websites. And this is exactly what we have done. Typical for SoundCloud are the graphical representations of the audio files in waveform and the comment bar. This allows registered users to listen to and comment on music or podcasts at any time.

Why do we use SoundCloud on our website?

Our goal is to provide you with the best possible service on our website. By this we do not only mean our products or services. Total customer service also includes how comfortable you feel on our website and how helpful our website is for you. Through the embedded SoundCloud playback feature, we can deliver acoustic content directly to your door. You don’t have to follow any link first to listen to an audio file, but can start right away from our website.

What data is stored on SoundCloud?

When you visit one of our websites that has a widget (like or share button or play function) built in, your browser connects to a SoundCloud server. Thereby data can be transferred from you to SoundCloud, where it is managed and stored. For example, SoundCloud learns your IP address and which page (in this case ours) you have visited and when. If you have a SoundCloud account and are logged in while surfing our website, the collected data is directly assigned to your account/account. You can only prevent this by logging out of SoundCloud while you are on our website. In addition to the above mentioned information, the cookies also store data about your user behavior. For example, whenever you click a button, play or pause a song, this information is stored in the cookies. The widget or SoundCloud is thus able to recognize you and sometimes the widget is also used to deliver personalized content to you. SoundCloud not only uses its own cookies, but also cookies from third party providers such as Facebook or Google Analytics. These cookies help the company to get more information about your behavior on external websites and its own platform. We as website operators do not receive any information about your user behavior through the cookies used by SoundCloud. The data transfer and therefore the information about technical devices and your behavior on the website takes place between you and SoundCloud.

In the following we show cookies that are set when you go to a website that has SoundCloud features embedded. This list is only an example of possible cookies and cannot claim to be complete. In this example the user does not have a SoundCloud account:

Name: sc_anonymous_id
Value: 208165-986996-398971-423805311221558-0
Purpose: This cookie makes it possible to integrate files or other content into websites and stores a user ID.
Expiration date: after 10 years

Note:
The sc_anonymous_id cookie is set immediately when you are on one of our websites that has a sound cloud feature built in. You do not need to interact with the function yet.

Name: __qca
Value: P0-1223379886-1579605792812311221558-7
Purpose: This cookie is a third-party cookie from Quantcast and collects information such as how often you visit the site or how long you stay on the site. The information collected is then shared with SoundCloud.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: Sclocale
Value: en
Purpose: The cookie stores the language setting you have preset.
Expiration date: after one year

Name: _soundcloud_session
Value: /
Purpose: We were not able to obtain any specific information about this cookie.
Expiration date: after session end

Name: _session_auth_key
Value: /
Purpose: The cookie can be used to store session information (i.e. user behavior) and to authenticate a client request.
Expiration date: after 10 years

SoundCloud also uses other third-party cookies such as _fbp, _ga, gid from Facebook and Google Analytics. All the information stored in the cookies is used by SoundCloud to improve its services and deliver personalized advertising.

How long and where is the data stored?

In principle, the collected data will remain stored at SoundCloud as long as a user account exists or as long as it is necessary for SoundCloud to achieve its business objectives. How long exactly is stored changes depending on the context and legal obligations. Even if you do not have an account and personal data has been stored, you have the right to request deletion of the data.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

If you have a SoundCloud account, you can manage your data processing or delete your entire account via “Settings”. You can also manage, delete or deactivate cookies in your browser according to your needs. The approach always depends on the browser you use. If you decide to delete or deactivate cookies, please note that not all functions may be available. The following instructions will tell you how to manage, delete or disable 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 placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

We hope we have given you a good overview of the traffic through SoundCloud. If you would like to learn more about SoundCloud’s privacy policy and general data handling practices, we encourage you to read their privacy policy at https://soundcloud.com/pages/privacy.

Source: Created with the AdSimple privacy generator in cooperation with hashtagmann.de