How long and where is the data stored?

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

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

Hotjar does not store any of your personal data for analysis. The company even advertises with the slogan “We track behavior, not individuals” (ie “We track user behavior, but no identifiable, individual data). You always have the option to prevent your data from being collected. All you have to do is go to the “ opt-out page ” and click “Deactivate Hotjar”. Please note that deleting cookies, using the private mode of your browser or using another browser will result in data being collected again. You can also activate the “Do Not Track” button in your browser. In the Chrome browser, for example, you have to click on the three bars at the top right and go to "Settings". There you will find the option “Send a“ Do Not Track ”request with browser access” in the “Data protection” section. Now all you have to do is activate this button and Hotjar will not collect any data.

You can find more details about the data protection guideline and which data is collected by Hotjar and how it is collected at https://www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/privacy?tid=121496965 .

Newsletter privacy policy

If you subscribe to our newsletter, you transmit the above personal data and give us the right to contact you by email. We only use the data saved when registering for the newsletter for our newsletter and do not pass it on.

If you unsubscribe from the newsletter - you will find the link for this at the bottom of every newsletter - then we will delete all data that was saved when you registered for the newsletter.

MailChimp privacy policy

Like many other websites, we also use the services of the newsletter company MailChimp on our website. MailChimp is operated by The Rocket Science Group, LLC, 675 Ponce de Leon Ave NE, Suite 5000, Atlanta, GA 30308 USA. Thanks to MailChimp, we can send you interesting news very easily via newsletter. With MailChimp we don't have to install anything and we can still draw on a pool of really useful functions. In the following, we will go into more detail about this email marketing service and inform you about the most important aspects of data protection.

What is MailChimp?

MailChimp is a cloud-based newsletter management service. “Cloud-based” means that we don't have to install MailChimp on our own computer or server. Instead, we use the service via an IT infrastructure - which is available via the Internet - on an external server. This way of using software is also called SaaS (Software as a Service).

With MailChimp we can choose from a wide range of different email types. Depending on what we want to achieve with our newsletter, we can carry out individual campaigns, regular campaigns, autoresponders (automatic e-mails), A / B tests, RSS campaigns (sending out in a predefined time and frequency) and follow-up campaigns .

Why do we use MailChimp on our website?

In principle, we use a newsletter service so that we can stay in contact with you. We want to tell you what's new with us or what attractive offers we currently have in our program. We always look for the simplest and best solutions for our marketing measures. And for this reason, we also decided to use Mailchimp's newsletter management service. Although the software is very easy to use, it offers a large number of helpful features. In this way we can create interesting and beautiful newsletters in just a short time. With the design templates we offer, we design each newsletter individually and thanks to the "responsive design" our content is also displayed legibly and beautifully on your smartphone (or any other mobile device).

With tools such as the A / B test or the extensive analysis options, we can see very quickly how you get our newsletters. In this way we can react if necessary and improve our offer or our services.

Another advantage is Mailchimp's "cloud system". The data is not stored and processed directly on our server. We can retrieve the data from external servers and in this way save our storage space. In addition, the maintenance effort is significantly lower.

Which data is saved by MailChimp?

The Rocket Science Group LLC (MailChimp) maintains online platforms that enable us to contact you (provided you have subscribed to our newsletter). If you become a subscriber to our newsletter via our website, confirm your membership in an email list from MailChimp by email. So that MailChimp can also prove that you have registered yourself in the "list provider", the date of entry and your IP address are saved. MailChimp also stores your email address, name, physical address and demographic information such as language or location.

This information is used to send you e-mails and to enable certain other MailChimp functions (such as evaluation of the newsletter).

MailChimp also shares information with third party service providers to provide better services. MailChimp also shares some data with third-party advertising partners in order to better understand the interests and concerns of its customers so that more relevant content and targeted advertising can be provided.

Using so-called "web beacons" (small graphics in HTML emails), MailChimp can determine whether the email has arrived, whether it has been opened and whether links have been clicked. All of this information is stored on the MailChimp servers. This gives us statistical evaluations and enables us to see exactly how well you received our newsletter. In this way we can adapt our offer much better to your wishes and improve our service.

MailChimp may also use this data to improve its own service. This can, for example, technically optimize shipping or determine the location (country) of the recipient.

The following cookies can be set by Mailchimp. This is not a complete list of cookies, but rather an exemplary selection:

Name: AVESTA_ENVIRONMENT
Value: Prod
Purpose: This cookie is necessary to make the Mailchimp services available. It is always set when a user registers for a newsletter mailing list.
Expiration date: after the session ends

Name: ak_bmsc
Value: F1766FA98C9BB9DE4A39F70A9E5EEAB55F6517348A7000001121496965-3
Purpose: The cookie is used to distinguish a person from a bot. This enables secure reports on the use of a website to be generated.
Expiry date: after 2 hours

Name: bm_sv
Value: A5A322305B4401C2451FC22FFF547486 ~ FEsKGvX8eovCwTeFTzb8 // I3ak2Au…
Purpose: The cookie is from MasterPass Digital Wallet (a MasterCard service) and is used to offer a visitor a safe and easy virtual payment process. For this, the user is anonymously identified on the website.
Expiry date: after 2 hours

Name: _abck
Value: 8D545C8CCA4C3A50579014C449B045121496965-9
Purpose: We could not find out any more information about the purpose of this cookie
Expiry date: after one year

Sometimes it can happen that you open our newsletter for a better presentation via a given link. This is the case, for example, if your e-mail program does not work or the newsletter is not displayed properly. The newsletter is then displayed on a MailChimp website. MailChimp also uses cookies (small text files that save data on your browser) on its own websites. Personal data can be processed by MailChimp and its partners (e.g. Google Analytics). This data collection is the responsibility of MailChimp and we have no influence on it. In the “Cookie Statement” from MailChimp (at: https://mailchimp.com/legal/cookies/ ) you can find out exactly how and why the company uses cookies.

How long and where is the data stored?

Since MailChimp is an American company, all collected data is also stored on American servers.

In principle, the data remains permanently stored on Mailchimp's servers and is only deleted when you request it. You can have your contact deleted by us. This permanently removes all your personal data for us and anonymizes you in the Mailchimp reports. However, you can also request the deletion of your data directly from MailChimp. Then all your data will be removed there and we will receive a notification from MailChimp. After we received the email, we have 30 days to delete your contact from all connected integrations.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You can withdraw your consent to receive our newsletter at any time within the received email by clicking on the link in the area below. If you have unsubscribed by clicking on the unsubscribe link, your data will be deleted from MailChimp.

If you get to a MailChimp website via a link in our newsletter and cookies are set in your browser, you can delete or deactivate these cookies at any time.

Deactivating or deleting works a little differently depending on the browser. The following instructions show how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing 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. You can decide for each individual cookie whether or not to allow it.

MailChimp is an active participant in the EU-US 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=a2zt0000000TO6hAAG&tid=121496965 . You can find out more about the use of cookies at MailChimp at https://mailchimp.com/legal/cookies/ , information on data protection at MailChimp (privacy) can be found at https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/ .

MailChimp order data processing contract

We have concluded a contract with MailChimp on order data processing (Data Processing Addendum). This contract serves to secure your personal data and ensures that MailChimp adheres to the applicable data protection regulations and does not pass on your personal data to third parties.

You can find more information about this contract at https://mailchimp.com/legal/data-processing-addendum/ .

Google Ads (Google AdWords) Conversion Tracking Privacy Policy

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

What is Google Ads Conversion Tracking?

Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is the in-house online advertising system of the company 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 area, Google Ads offers the best platform for this. Of course, we also want to get a precise overview of the cost-benefit factor of our promotions. That's why we use the Google Ads conversion tracking tool.

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

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

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

What data is saved by Google Ads conversion tracking?

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

Here are the data from the most important cookies for Google's conversion tracking:

Name: Conversion
Value: EhMI_aySuoyv4gIVled3Ch0llweVGAEgt-mr6aXd7dYlSAGQ121496965-3
Purpose: This cookie stores every conversion that you make on our site after you have come to us via a Google Ad.
Expiry date: after 3 months

Name: _gac
Value: 1.1558695989.EAIaIQobChMIiOmEgYO04gIVj5AYCh2CBAPrEAAYASAAEgIYQfD_BwE
Purpose: This is a classic Google Analytics cookie and is used to record various actions on our website.
Expiry 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 repeatedly uses other cookies for analytical evaluation.

As soon as you complete an action on our website, Google recognizes the cookie and saves your action as a so-called conversion. As long as you are surfing our website and the cookie has not yet expired, we and Google will recognize that you have found us through our Google Ads ad. The cookie is read out 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 refined and improved with the help of Google Analytics. For ads that Google shows in different places on the web, cookies with the name “__gads” or “_gac” may be set under our domain. Since September 2017, various campaign information has been saved by analytics.js with the _gac cookie. The cookie saves this data as soon as you visit one of our pages for which Google Ads automatic tagging has been set up. In contrast to cookies that are set for Google domains, Google can only read these conversion cookies when you are on our website. We do not collect or receive any personal data. We get a report from Google with statistical evaluations. For example, we find out the total number of users who clicked on our ad and we can see which advertising measures were well received.

How long and where is the data stored?

At this point we want 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 with the name "Conversion" and "_gac" (which is used in connection with Google Analytics) have an expiration date of 3 months.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You have the option not to participate in Google Ads conversion tracking. If you deactivate the Google conversion tracking cookie via your browser, you block conversion tracking. In this case you will not be included in the statistics of the tracking tool. You can change the cookie settings in your browser at any time. This works a little differently for each browser. Here you will find instructions on how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing 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. In this way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether or not to allow the cookie. By downloading and installing this browser plug-in at https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996 , all "advertising cookies" are also deactivated. Please note that by deactivating these cookies you will not prevent the advertisements, only the personalized advertisements.

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

Embedded social media elements data protection declaration

We integrate elements of social media services on our website in order to display images, videos and texts.
When you visit pages that display these elements, data is transferred from your browser to the respective social media service and stored there. We have no access to this data.
The following links take you to the pages of the respective social media services where it is explained how they handle your data:

• Instagram privacy policy: https://help.instagram.com/519522125107875

• The Google data protection declaration applies to YouTube: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de

• Facebook data policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy

• Twitter privacy policy: https://twitter.com/de/privacy

Facebook privacy policy

We use selected Facebook tools on our website. Facebook is a social media network operated by Facebook Ireland Ltd., 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbor, Dublin 2 Ireland. With the help of these tools we can offer you and people who are interested in our products and services the best possible offer. In the following we provide an overview of the various Facebook tools, which data is sent to Facebook and how you can delete this data.

What are Facebook tools?

In addition to many other products, Facebook also offers the so-called “Facebook Business Tools”. This is the official name of Facebook. But since the term is hardly known, we decided to just call them Facebook tools. These include:

• Facebook pixel

• social plug-ins (such as the "Like" or "Share" button)

• Facebook login

• Account Kit

• APIs (programming interface)

• SDKs (collection of programming tools)

• Platform integrations

• Plugins

• Codes

• Specifications

• Documentation

• Technologies and services

These tools enable Facebook to expand its services and to receive information about user activities outside of Facebook.

Why do we use Facebook tools on our website?

We only want to show our services and products to people who are really interested in them. With the help of advertisements (Facebook ads) we can reach exactly these people. However, in order to be able to show users appropriate advertising, Facebook needs information about people's wishes and needs. Information about user behavior (and contact details) is made available to the company on our website. As a result, Facebook collects better user data and can show interested people the right advertising about our products or services. The tools thus enable customized advertising campaigns on Facebook.

Facebook calls data about your behavior on our website “event data”. These are also used for measurement and analysis services. In this way, Facebook can create “campaign reports” on our behalf about the impact of our advertising campaigns. Furthermore, analyzes give us a better insight into how you use our services, website or products. Thereby we optimize your user experience on our website with some of these tools. For example, you can use the social plug-ins to share content on our site directly on Facebook.

Which data are saved by Facebook tools?

By using individual Facebook tools, personal data (customer data) can be sent to Facebook. Depending on the tools used, customer data such as name, address, tel