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Privacy policy

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Privacy policy

This English version is provided for convenience; the German version is legally binding. We have written this privacy policy (version 05.11.2020-111463896) to explain to you, in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR, DSGVO), what information we collect, how we use data and what choices you have as a visitor to this website.

Unfortunately, it is in the nature of things that these explanations sound very technical; however, in preparing them we have endeavored to describe the most important points as simply and clearly as possible.

Automatic data storage

When you visit websites today, certain information is automatically created and stored, and this also applies to this website.

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

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

in files (web server log files).

As a rule, web server log files are stored for two weeks and then automatically deleted. We do not pass this data on, but we cannot rule out 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 websites store small text files in your browser. These files are called cookies.

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

Cookies store certain user data about you, such as your 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 the settings you are used to. In some browsers, each cookie has its own file; in others, such as Firefox, all cookies are stored in a single file.

There are both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created directly by our site; third-party cookies are created by partner websites (e.g. Google Analytics). Each cookie must be assessed individually, as each cookie stores different data. The expiry time of a cookie also varies from a few minutes to a few years. Cookies are not software programs and do not contain viruses, Trojans or other “pests”. Nor can cookies access information on your PC.

This is an example of what cookie data can look like:

Name: _ga

Value: GA1.2.1326744211.152111463896-9

Purpose: Distinguishing between website visitors

Expiry date: after 2 years

A browser should be able to support these minimum sizes:

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

What types of cookies are there?

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

There are 4 types of cookies:

Essential cookies

Functional cookies

Target-oriented cookies

Advertising cookies

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

How can I delete cookies?

You decide yourself how and whether you want to use cookies. Regardless of which service or website the cookies come from, you always have the option to delete cookies, disable them or only partially allow 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, or if you want to change or delete cookie settings, you can find this in your browser settings:

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

If you do not want cookies at all, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is about to be set. This way you can decide for each individual cookie whether to allow it or not. The procedure varies from browser to browser. It is best to search for the instructions in Google using the search term “delete cookies Chrome” or “disable cookies Chrome” in the case of a Chrome browser.

What about my data protection?

The so-called “Cookie Directive” has been in place since 2009. It stipulates that storing cookies requires your consent. Within the EU countries, however, reactions to this directive still vary considerably. In Austria, this directive was implemented in Section 96 (3) of the Austrian Telecommunications Act (TKG).

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

Rights under the General Data Protection Regulation

Under the provisions of the GDPR and the Austrian Data Protection Act (DSG), you are in principle entitled to the following rights:

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

If you believe that the processing of your data violates data protection law or that your data protection rights have otherwise been infringed in any way, you can lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority, which in Austria is the Data Protection Authority (Datenschutzbehörde), whose website you can find at https://www.dsb.gv.at/.

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 collected data is generally evaluated anonymously, and we cannot draw any conclusions about your person from your behavior on this website.

You can find out more about ways to object to this evaluation of visit data in the following privacy policy.

TLS encryption with https

We use https to transfer data over the internet in a tap-proof manner (data protection by design, Article 25 (1) GDPR). By using TLS (Transport Layer Security), an encryption protocol for secure data transfer on the internet, we can ensure the protection of confidential data. You can recognize that this safeguard for data transfer is in use by the small lock symbol at the top left of your browser and by the use of the https scheme (instead of http) as part of our web address.

Google Maps privacy policy

On our website we use Google Maps from Google Inc. For the European area, Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services. With Google Maps, we can show you locations more clearly and thus tailor our service to your needs. When Google Maps is used, data is transferred to Google and stored on Google servers. Here we would like to explain in more detail 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 map service from Google. With Google Maps, you can search online via a PC, a tablet or an app for the exact locations of cities, sights, accommodation or businesses. If businesses are represented on Google My Business, further information about the company is displayed in addition to the location. To show how to get there, map sections of a location can be embedded in a website using HTML code. Google Maps shows the earth’s surface as a road map or as an aerial or satellite image. Thanks to the Street View images and the high-quality satellite images, very precise representations are possible.

Why do we use Google Maps on our website?

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

What data is stored by Google Maps?

For Google Maps to be able to offer its full service, the company must collect and store data from you. This includes, among other things, 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 is also stored. However, this data storage takes place on the 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 as a result of integrating Google Maps:

Name: NID

Value: 188=h26c1Ktha7fCQTx8rXgLyATyITJ111463896-5

Purpose: NID is used by Google to tailor advertisements to your Google searches. With the help of the cookie, Google “remembers” your most frequently entered search queries or your previous interaction with ads. This way you always receive tailored advertisements. The cookie contains a unique ID that Google uses to collect your personal settings for advertising purposes.

Expiry date: after 6 months

Note: We cannot guarantee that the information on the stored data is complete. Changes can never be ruled out, especially where cookies are used. To identify the NID cookie, a separate test page was created on which only Google Maps was embedded.

How long and where is the data stored?

Google’s servers are located in data centers all over the world. However, most of the servers are located in America. For this reason, your data is increasingly stored in the USA. Here you can read exactly where Google’s data centers are located: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de

Google distributes the data across various storage media. This makes the data faster to retrieve and better protected against any attempts at manipulation. Each data center also has special emergency programs. If, for example, there are problems with Google’s hardware or a natural disaster knocks out the servers, the data nevertheless remains fairly safely protected.

Google stores some data for a fixed period. For other data, Google only offers the option of deleting 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 or 18 months respectively.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

With the automatic deletion function for location and activity data introduced in 2019, information on location determination and web/app activity is stored for either 3 or 18 months – depending on your choice – and then deleted. In addition, you can also manually delete this data from your history at any time via your Google account. If you want to prevent your location from being recorded altogether, you must pause the “Web and App Activity” section in your Google account. Click “Data and personalization” and then the “Activity controls” option. Here you can switch the activities on or off.

In your browser, you can also disable, delete or manage individual cookies. This works slightly differently depending on which browser you use. The following instructions show how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

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

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 would like to learn more about Google’s data processing, we recommend the company’s own 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 Google Inc. For the European area, Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services.

To use Google fonts, you do not have to log in or provide a password. Furthermore, no cookies are stored in your browser. The files (CSS, fonts) are requested via the Google domains fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com. According to Google, requests for CSS and fonts are completely separate from all other Google services. If you have a Google account, you need not worry that your Google account data will be transmitted to Google while Google Fonts is being used. Google records the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and of the fonts used and stores this data securely. We will look at exactly what this data storage involves in more detail below.

What are Google Fonts?

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

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

Why do we use Google Fonts on our website?

With Google Fonts, we can use fonts on our own website without having to upload them to our own server. Google Fonts is an important building block in keeping the quality of our website high. All Google fonts are automatically optimized for the web, which saves data volume and is a major advantage, especially for use on mobile devices. When you visit our site, the small file size ensures a fast loading time. Furthermore, Google Fonts are secure web fonts. Different image synthesis systems (rendering) in different browsers, operating systems and mobile devices can lead to errors. Such errors can visually distort some texts or even entire websites. Thanks to the fast Content Delivery Network (CDN), there are no cross-platform issues with Google Fonts. Google Fonts supports all common browsers (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera) and works reliably on most modern mobile operating systems, including Android 2.2+ and iOS 4.2+ (iPhone, iPad, iPod). We therefore use Google Fonts so that we can present our entire online service as attractively and consistently as possible.

What data is stored by Google?

When you visit our website, the fonts are loaded from a Google server. This external request transmits data to Google’s servers. This also enables Google to recognize that you or your IP address are visiting our website. The Google Fonts API was developed to reduce the use, storage and collection of end-user data to what is necessary for the proper provision of fonts. API, by the way, 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, where they are therefore protected. Using the usage figures collected, Google can determine how well the individual fonts are received. Google publishes the results on internal analysis pages such as Google Analytics. In addition, Google also uses data from its own web crawler to determine which websites use Google fonts. This data is published in the Google Fonts BigQuery database. Entrepreneurs and developers use the Google web service BigQuery to examine and move large amounts of data.

It should be borne in mind, however, that with every Google Fonts request, information such as language settings, IP address, browser version, browser screen resolution and browser name is automatically transmitted to Google’s 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 enables us to use the fonts with the help of a Google stylesheet. A stylesheet is a style template that can be used to change, for example, the design or the font of a website easily and quickly.

The font files are stored by Google for one year. Google’s aim is to fundamentally improve the loading time of websites. When millions of websites refer to the same fonts, they are cached after the first visit and appear again immediately on all other websites visited later. Google sometimes updates font files to reduce the file size, increase language coverage and improve the design.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

The data that Google stores for one day or one year cannot simply be deleted. The data is automatically transmitted to Google when the page is accessed. To have this data deleted early, you must use https://support.google.com/?hl=de&tid=111463896 to contact Google support. In this case, the only way to prevent data storage is not to visit our site.

Unlike other web fonts, Google allows us unrestricted access to all fonts. We can therefore draw without limit on a sea of fonts and get the best out of them for our website. You can find more about Google Fonts and other questions at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq?tid=111463896. Although Google addresses privacy-related matters there, it does not provide really detailed information on data storage. It is relatively difficult to obtain really precise information about stored data from Google.

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

Google Analytics privacy policy

On our website we use the analytics tracking tool Google Analytics (GA) of the American company Google Inc. For the European area, 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, if you click 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 adapt our website and our service to your wishes. Below we go into more detail about the tracking tool and, above all, inform you about what data is stored and how you can prevent this.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a tracking tool used to analyze the traffic on our website. For Google Analytics to work, a tracking code is built into the code of our website. When you visit our website, this code records various actions that you perform on our website. As soon as you leave our website, this data is sent to the Google Analytics servers and stored there.

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

  • Audience reports: Audience reports help us 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 we can get more people interested in our service.
  • Behavior reports: Here we learn how you interact with our website. We can trace the path you take on our site and which links you click.
  • Conversion reports: Conversion is the term for a process in which you perform a desired action as a result of a marketing message. For example, when you go from being a mere website visitor to a buyer or newsletter subscriber. With the help of these reports, we learn more about how our marketing measures are received by you. In this way we aim to increase our conversion rate.
  • Real-time reports: Here we always learn immediately what is happening on our website at that moment. For example, we can see how many users are reading this text right now.

Why do we use Google Analytics on our website?

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

The statistically evaluated data gives us a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of our website. On the one hand, we can optimize our site so that it is found more easily on Google by interested people. On the other hand, the data helps us to understand you better as a visitor. We therefore know very precisely what we need to improve on our website in order to offer you the best possible service. The data also helps us to carry out our advertising and marketing measures in a more individual and cost-effective way. After all, it only makes sense to show our products and services to people who are interested in them.

What data is stored by Google Analytics?

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

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

The following cookies are used by Google Analytics:

Name: _ga

Value: 2.1326744211.152111463896-5

Purpose: By default, analytics.js uses the _ga cookie to store the user ID. Basically, it serves to distinguish between website visitors.

Expiry date: after 2 years

Name: _gid

Value: 2.1687193234.152111463896-1

Purpose: This cookie is also used to distinguish between website visitors

Expiry date: after 24 hours

Name: _gat_gtag_UA_

Value: 1

Purpose: Used to throttle the request rate. If Google Analytics is deployed via Google Tag Manager, this cookie is named _dc_gtm_ .

Expiry date: after 1 minute

Name: AMP_TOKEN

Value: not specified

Purpose: The cookie contains a token that can be used to retrieve a user ID from the AMP Client ID service. Other possible values indicate an opt-out, a request or an error.

Expiry date: after 30 seconds up to one year

Name: __utma

Value: 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.

Expiry date: after 2 years

Name: __utmt

Value: 1

Purpose: Like _gat_gtag_UA_, this cookie is used to throttle the request rate.

Expiry 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 information is sent to Google Analytics.

Expiry date: after 30 minutes

Name: __utmc

Value: 167421564

Purpose: This cookie is used to set new sessions for returning visitors. It is a session cookie and is only stored until you close the browser again.

Expiry date: After the browser is closed

Name: __utmz

Value: m|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/

Purpose: The cookie is used to identify the source of visitor traffic on our website. This means that the cookie stores where you came to our website from. This may have been another page or an advertisement.

Expiry 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.

Expiry date: after 2 years

Note: This list cannot claim to be complete, as Google repeatedly changes 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. Heatmaps show exactly those areas that you click on. This gives us information about where you are “on the move” on our site.

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

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

Account creation: If 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 shortened form so that no unique assignment is possible.

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

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

Traffic source: Google Analytics, and of course we as well, are also interested in which website or which advertisement brought you to our site.

Other data includes contact details, any ratings, the playing of media (e.g. when you play a video via our site), the sharing of content via social media or adding to your favorites. The list does not claim to be complete and serves only as a general guide to data storage by Google Analytics.

How long and where is the data stored?

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

Your data is distributed across various physical storage media. This has the advantage that the data can be retrieved faster and is better protected against manipulation. Every Google data center has appropriate emergency programs for your data. If, for example, the hardware at Google fails or natural disasters knock out servers, the risk of a service interruption at Google nevertheless remains low.

By default, Google Analytics is set to retain your user data for 26 months. Your user data is then deleted. However, we have the option of choosing the retention period for user data ourselves. Five options are available to us for this:

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

Once the specified period has expired, the data is deleted once a month. This retention period applies to your data that is linked to cookies, user recognition and advertising IDs (e.g. cookies of the DoubleClick domain). Report 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 the data protection law of the European Union, you have the right to obtain information about your data and to update, delete or restrict it. By using the browser add-on to deactivate Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, dc.js), you prevent Google Analytics from using your data. You can use https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de to download and install the browser add-on. Please note that this add-on only deactivates data collection by Google Analytics.

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

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

Google Analytics is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information on this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&tid=111463896. We hope we have been able to give you the most important information about data processing by Google Analytics. If you would like 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 Analytics IP anonymization

We have implemented Google Analytics IP address anonymization on this website. This function was developed by Google so that this website can comply with the applicable data protection regulations and the recommendations of local data protection authorities if these prohibit storage of the full IP address. The anonymization or masking of the IP takes place as soon as the IP addresses arrive in the Google Analytics data collection network and before any storage or processing of the data takes place.

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

Google Analytics demographics and interests reports

We have enabled the advertising reporting features in Google Analytics. The demographics and interests reports contain information on age, gender and interests. This allows us to get a better picture of our users – without being able to assign this data to individual persons. You can find out more about the advertising features at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3450482?hl=de_AT&utm_id=ad.

You can stop the use of the activities and information of your Google account under “Ad settings” at https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated using the checkbox.

Google Analytics data processing amendment

We have concluded a direct customer agreement with Google for the use of Google Analytics by accepting the “Data Processing Amendment” in Google Analytics.

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

Embedded social media elements privacy policy

On our website, we embed elements of social media services 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:

Facebook privacy policy

On our website we use selected tools from Facebook. Facebook is a social media network of the company Facebook Ireland Ltd., 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, 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. Below we give an overview of the various Facebook tools, what 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 Facebook’s official name. However, as the term is hardly known, we have decided to simply call them Facebook tools. These include, among others:

  • Facebook pixel
  • social plug-ins (such as the “Like” or “Share” button)
  • Facebook Login
  • Account Kit
  • APIs (application programming interfaces)
  • SDKs (collections of programming tools)
  • Platform integrations
  • Plugins
  • Codes
  • Specifications
  • Documentation
  • Technologies and services

With these tools, Facebook extends its services and is able to obtain 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 genuinely interested in them. With the help of advertisements (Facebook Ads), we can reach exactly these people. However, in order for suitable advertising to be shown to users, Facebook needs information about people’s wishes and needs. For this purpose, the company is provided with information about user behavior (and contact details) on our website. As a result, Facebook collects better user data and can show interested people suitable advertising for our products or services. The tools thus enable tailored advertising campaigns on Facebook.

Facebook calls data about your behavior on our website “event data”. This data is also used for measurement and analysis services. This allows Facebook to create “campaign reports” on our behalf about the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns. Furthermore, analyses give us better insight into how you use our services, website or products. As a result, we use some of these tools to optimize your user experience on our website. For example, the social plug-ins allow you to share content from our site directly on Facebook.

What data is stored 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, telephone number and IP address may be sent.

Facebook uses this information to match the data with the data it holds about you itself (provided you are a Facebook member). Before customer data is transmitted to Facebook, so-called “hashing” takes place. This means that a data set of any size is transformed into a character string. This also serves to encrypt data.

In addition to contact details, “event data” is also transmitted. “Event data” refers to the information we receive about you on our website. For example, which subpages you visit or which products you buy from us. Facebook does not share the information it receives with third parties (such as advertisers) unless the company has explicit permission or is legally obliged to do so. “Event data” can also be linked to contact details. This allows Facebook to offer better personalized advertising. After the matching process already mentioned, Facebook deletes the contact details again.

In order to deliver advertisements in an optimized way, Facebook only uses event data if it has been combined with other data (collected by Facebook in other ways). Facebook also uses this event data for security, protection, development and research purposes. Much of this data is transferred to Facebook via cookies. Cookies are small text files that are used to store data or information in browsers. Depending on the tools used and on whether you are a Facebook member, different numbers of cookies are created in your browser. In the descriptions of the individual Facebook tools, we go into more detail about individual Facebook cookies. You can also find general information about the use of Facebook cookies at https://www.facebook.com/policies/cookies.

How long and where is the data stored?

In principle, Facebook stores data until it is no longer needed for its own services and Facebook products. Facebook has servers distributed all over the world where its data is stored. However, customer data is deleted within 48 hours after it has been matched with Facebook’s own user data.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation, you have the right to access, rectification, portability and erasure of your data.

Your data is only completely deleted if you delete your Facebook account entirely. This is how deleting your Facebook account works:

1) On Facebook, click Settings on the right.

2) Then click “Your Facebook Information” in the left-hand column.

3) Now click “Deactivation and Deletion”.

4) Now select “Delete Account” and then click “Continue to Account Deletion”

5) Now enter your password, click “Continue” and then “Delete Account”

The data that Facebook receives via our site is stored, among other things, using cookies (e.g. in the case of social plugins). In your browser, you can disable, delete or manage individual cookies or all cookies. This works in different ways depending on which browser you use. The following instructions show how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

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

Facebook 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=a2zt0000000GnywAAC. We hope we have given you the most important information about the use of the Facebook tools and the data processing they involve. If you would like to learn more about how Facebook uses your data, we recommend the data policy at https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/update.

Facebook social plug-ins privacy policy

So-called social plug-ins from Facebook Inc. are built into our website. You can recognize these buttons by the classic Facebook logo, such as the “Like” button (the hand with a raised thumb), or by a clear “Facebook plug-in” label. A social plug-in is a small part of Facebook that is integrated into our site. Each plug-in has its own function. The most frequently used functions are the well-known “Like” and “Share” buttons.

The following social plug-ins are offered by Facebook:

  • “Save” button
  • “Like” button, Share, Send and Quote
  • Page plug-in
  • Comments
  • Messenger plug-in
  • Embedded posts and video player
  • Group plug-in

At https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins you can find more detailed information on how the individual plug-ins are used. We use the social plug-ins on the one hand to offer you a better user experience on our site, and on the other hand because they enable Facebook to optimize our advertisements.

If you have a Facebook account or have ever visited facebook.com before, Facebook has already set at least one cookie in your browser. In this case, your browser sends information to Facebook via this cookie as soon as you visit our site or interact with social plug-ins (e.g. the “Like” button).

The information received is deleted or anonymized within 90 days. According to Facebook, this data includes your IP address, which website you visited, the date, the time and other information relating to your browser.

To prevent Facebook from collecting a lot of data during your visit to our website and linking it to the Facebook data, you must log out of Facebook during your visit to the website.

If you are not logged in to Facebook or do not have a Facebook account, your browser sends less information to Facebook because you have fewer Facebook cookies. Nevertheless, data such as your IP address or which website you visit can be transmitted to Facebook. We would like to expressly point out that we do not know exactly what the data contains. However, we try to inform you about the data processing as well as possible based on our current knowledge. You can also read how Facebook uses the data in the company’s data policy at https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/update.

At a minimum, the following cookies are set in your browser when you visit a website with Facebook social plug-ins:

Name: dpr

Value: not specified

Purpose: This cookie is used so that the social plug-ins on our website work.

Expiry date: after the end of the session

Name: fr

Value: 0jieyh4111463896c2GnlufEJ9..Bde09j…1.0.Bde09j

Purpose: This cookie is also necessary for the plug-ins to work properly.

Expiry date: after 3 months

Note: These cookies were set after a test, even if you are not a Facebook member.

If you are logged in to Facebook, you can use https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen to change your settings for advertisements yourself. If you are not a Facebook user, you can generally manage your usage-based online advertising at http://www.youronlinechoices.com/de/praferenzmanagement/. There you have the option of deactivating or activating providers.

If you would like to learn more about Facebook’s data protection, we recommend the company’s own data policy at https://www.facebook.com/policy.php.

Instagram privacy policy

We have integrated functions of Instagram into our website. Instagram is a social media platform of the company Instagram LLC, 1601 Willow Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025, USA. Since 2012, Instagram has been a subsidiary of Facebook Inc. and is one of the Facebook products. Including Instagram content on our website is called embedding. This allows us to show you content such as buttons, photos or videos from Instagram directly on our website. When you access pages of our website that have an integrated Instagram function, data is transmitted to Instagram, stored and processed. Instagram uses the same systems and technologies as Facebook. Your data is therefore processed across all Facebook companies.

Below we would like to give you a more detailed insight into why Instagram collects data, what data is involved and how you can largely control the data processing. As Instagram belongs to Facebook Inc., we obtain our information on the one hand from the Instagram policies and on the other hand also from the Facebook data policy itself.

What is Instagram?

Instagram is one of the best-known social media networks worldwide. Instagram combines the advantages of a blog with the advantages of audiovisual platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo. On “Insta” (as many users casually call the platform), you can upload photos and short videos, edit them with various filters and also share them on other social networks. And if you do not want to be active yourself, you can also simply follow other interesting users.

Why do we use Instagram on our website?

Instagram is the social media platform that has really taken off in recent years. And of course we have also responded to this boom. We want you to feel as comfortable as possible on our website. That is why a varied presentation of our content is a matter of course for us. Through the embedded Instagram functions, we can enrich our content with helpful, funny or exciting content from the world of Instagram. Since Instagram is a subsidiary of Facebook, the data collected can also be useful to us for personalized advertising on Facebook. This way, only people who are genuinely interested in our products or services see our advertisements.

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

What data is stored by Instagram?

When you come across one of our pages that have Instagram functions (such as Instagram images or plug-ins) built in, your browser automatically connects to Instagram’s servers. In the process, data is sent to Instagram, stored and processed. This happens regardless of whether you have an Instagram account or not. This includes information about our website, about your computer, about purchases made, about advertisements you see and about how you use our offering. Furthermore, the date and time of your interaction with Instagram are also stored. If you have an Instagram account or are logged in, Instagram stores significantly more data about you.

Facebook distinguishes between customer data and event data. We assume that this is exactly the same with Instagram. Customer data includes, for example, name, address, telephone number and IP address. This customer data is only transmitted to Instagram once it has been “hashed”. Hashing means that a data set is converted into a character string. This makes it possible to encrypt the contact data. In addition, the “event data” mentioned above is also transmitted. By “event data”, Facebook – and consequently also Instagram – means data about your user behavior. It may also happen that contact data is combined with event data. The collected contact data is matched with the data that Instagram already holds about you.

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

We assume that data processing at Instagram works in the same way as at Facebook. This means: if you have an Instagram account or have visited www.instagram.com, Instagram has set at least one cookie. If this is the case, your browser sends information to Instagram via the cookie as soon as you come into contact with an Instagram function. This data is deleted or anonymized again after 90 days at the latest (after matching). Although we have studied Instagram’s data processing intensively, we cannot say precisely what data Instagram collects and stores.

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

These cookies were used in our test:

Name: csrftoken

Value: “”

Purpose: This cookie is most likely set for security reasons to prevent request forgery. However, we were unable to find out more precise details.

Expiry date: after one year

Name: mid

Value: “”

Purpose: Instagram sets this cookie to optimize its own services and offerings on and off Instagram. The cookie sets a unique user ID.

Expiry date: after the end of the session

Name: fbsr_111463896124024

Value: not specified

Purpose: This cookie stores the login request for users of the Instagram app.

Expiry date: after the end of the session

Name: rur

Value: ATN

Purpose: This is an Instagram cookie that ensures functionality on Instagram.

Expiry date: after the end of the session

Name: urlgen

Value: “{”194.96.75.33”: 1901}:1iEtYv:Y833k2_UjKvXgYe111463896”

Purpose: This cookie serves Instagram’s marketing purposes.

Expiry date: after the end of the session

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

How long and where is the data stored?

Instagram shares the information it receives between the Facebook companies, with external partners and with people you connect with around the world. Data processing is carried out in compliance with its own data policy. Your data is distributed, among other things for security reasons, across Facebook servers all over the world. Most of these servers are located in the USA.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

Thanks to the General Data Protection Regulation, you have the right to access, portability, rectification and erasure of your data. You can manage your data in the Instagram settings. If you want to delete your data on Instagram completely, you must permanently delete your Instagram account.

And this is how deleting your Instagram account works:

First open the Instagram app. On your profile page, scroll down and click “Help Center”. You will now be taken to the company’s website. On the website, click “Managing Your Account” and then “Delete Your Account”.

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

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

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

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

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

you can take a closer look at Instagram’s data policies.

LinkedIn privacy policy

On our website we use social plug-ins of the social media network LinkedIn, of the company LinkedIn Corporation, 2029 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. The social plug-ins can be feeds, the sharing of content or links to our LinkedIn page. The social plug-ins are clearly marked with the well-known LinkedIn logo and allow you, for example, to share interesting content directly via our website. For the European Economic Area and Switzerland, the company LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company Wilton Place in Dublin is responsible for data processing.

By embedding such plug-ins, data can be sent to LinkedIn, stored and processed there. In this privacy policy, we want to inform you what data is involved, how the network uses this data and how you can manage or prevent data storage.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the largest social network for business contacts. Unlike Facebook, for example, the company concentrates exclusively on building business contacts. Companies can present services and products on the platform and establish business relationships. Many people also use LinkedIn to look for a job or to find suitable employees for their own company. In Germany alone, the network has over 11 million members. In Austria there are about 1.3 million.

Why do we use LinkedIn on our website?

We know how busy you are. You cannot follow every social media channel individually. Even if, as in our case, it would be worth it. Because we regularly post interesting news or reports that are worth sharing. That is why we have created the option on our website to share interesting content directly on LinkedIn or to link directly to our LinkedIn page. We regard built-in social plug-ins as an extended service on our website. The data that LinkedIn collects also helps us to show possible advertising measures only to people who are interested in our offering.

What data is stored by LinkedIn?

LinkedIn does not store any personal data merely as a result of the social plug-ins being embedded. LinkedIn calls this data generated by plug-ins passive impressions. However, if you click on a social plug-in, for example to share our content, the platform stores personal data as so-called “active impressions”. This happens regardless of whether you have a LinkedIn account or not. If you are logged in, the collected data is assigned to your account.

Your browser establishes a direct connection to LinkedIn’s servers when you interact with our plug-ins. In this way, the company logs various usage data. In addition to your IP address, this may include, for example, login data, device information or information about your internet or mobile network provider. If you access LinkedIn services via your smartphone, your location may also be determined (after you have allowed this). LinkedIn may also pass this data on to third-party advertisers in “hashed” form. Hashing means that a data set is converted into a character string. This makes it possible to encrypt the data in such a way that persons can no longer be identified.

Most data about your user behavior is stored in cookies. These are small text files that are usually set in your browser. Furthermore, LinkedIn may also use web beacons, pixel tags, ad tags and other device identifiers.

Various tests also show which cookies are set when a user interacts with a social plug-in. The data found cannot claim to be complete and serves merely as an example. The following cookies were set without being logged in to LinkedIn:

Name: bcookie

Value: =2&34aab2aa-2ae1-4d2a-8baf-c2e2d7235c16111463896-

Purpose: The cookie is a so-called “browser ID cookie” and consequently stores your identification number (ID).

Expiry date: After 2 years

Name: lang

Value: v=2&lang=de-de

Purpose: This cookie stores your default or preferred language.

Expiry date: after the end of the session

Name: lidc

Value: 1818367:t=1571904767:s=AQF6KNnJ0G111463896…

Purpose: This cookie is used for routing. Routing records the paths by which you came to LinkedIn and how you navigate through the website there.

Expiry date: after 24 hours

Name: rtc

Value: kt0lrv3NF3x3t6xvDgGrZGDKkX

Purpose: No further information could be found out about this cookie.

Expiry date: after 2 minutes

Name: JSESSIONID

Value: ajax:1114638962900777718326218137

Purpose: This is a session cookie that LinkedIn uses to maintain anonymous user sessions through the server.

Expiry date: after the end of the session

Name: bscookie

Value: “v=1&201910230812…

Purpose: This cookie is a security cookie. LinkedIn describes it as a secure browser ID cookie.

Expiry date: after 2 years

Name: fid

Value: AQHj7Ii23ZBcqAAAA…

Purpose: No further information could be found about this cookie.

Expiry date: after 7 days

Note: LinkedIn also works with third-party providers. That is why we also detected the two Google Analytics cookies _ga and _gat in our test.

How long and where is the data stored?

In principle, LinkedIn retains your personal data for as long as the company considers necessary to provide its own services. However, LinkedIn deletes your personal data when you delete your account. In some exceptional cases, LinkedIn retains some data in aggregated and anonymized form even after your account has been deleted. As soon as you delete your account, other people can no longer see your data within one day. LinkedIn generally deletes the data within 30 days. However, LinkedIn retains data if this is necessary due to a legal obligation. Data that can no longer be assigned to any person remains stored even after the account has been closed. The data is stored on various servers in America and presumably also in Europe.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You have the right to access your personal data and also to delete it at any time. You can manage, change and delete your data in your LinkedIn account. You can also request a copy of your personal data from LinkedIn.

This is how you access the account data in your LinkedIn profile:

In LinkedIn, click on your profile icon and select the “Settings and Privacy” section. Now click “Privacy” and then, in the section “How LinkedIn uses your data”, click “Change”. Within a short time, you can download selected data on your web activity and your account history.

You also have the option of preventing data processing by LinkedIn in your browser. As already mentioned above, LinkedIn stores most data via cookies that are set in your browser. You can manage, disable or delete these cookies. Management works slightly differently depending on which browser you have. You can find the instructions for the most common browsers here:

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

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

LinkedIn is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. This framework ensures correct data transfer between the USA and the European Union. Visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000L0UZAA0 to find out more about this. We have tried to give you the most important information about data processing by LinkedIn. At https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy you can learn even more about the data processing of the social media network LinkedIn.

Gravatar privacy policy

On our website we have integrated the Gravatar plug-in from Automattic Inc. (60 29th Street #343, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA). Among other things, Gravatar is automatically activated on all WordPress websites. The function makes it possible to display user images (avatars) with published posts or comments, provided the corresponding email address is registered at www.gravatar.com.

Through this function, data is sent to the company Gravatar or Automattic Inc., stored and processed there. In this privacy policy, we want to inform you what data is involved, how the network uses this data and how you can manage or prevent data storage.

What is Gravatar?

Gravatar basically stands for “Globally Recognized Avatar”, which means a globally available avatar (a user image) that is linked to the email address. The company Gravatar is the world’s leading provider of this service. As soon as a user enters an email address on a website that is also registered with the company Gravatar at www.gravatar.com, a previously stored image is automatically displayed together with a published post or comment.

Why do we use Gravatar on our website?

Anonymity on the internet is often talked about. An avatar gives users a face for the people commenting. In addition, you are generally more easily recognized online and can thus build up a certain degree of recognition. Many users enjoy the benefits of such a user image and also want to appear personal and authentic online. We naturally want to offer you the option of displaying your Gravatar on our website as well. We also like to see faces for our commenting users. With the activated Gravatar function, we too are extending our service on our website. After all, we want you to feel comfortable on our website and to receive a comprehensive and interesting offering.

What data is stored by Gravatar?

As soon as you publish a comment on a blog post, for example, that requires an email address, WordPress checks whether the email address is linked to an avatar at Gravatar. For this request, your email address is sent in encrypted or hashed form, together with your IP address and our URL, to the servers of Gravatar or Automattic. This is how it is checked whether this email address is registered with Gravatar.

If this is the case, the image stored there (Gravatar) is displayed together with the published comment. If you have registered an email address with Gravatar and comment on our website, further data is transmitted to Gravatar, stored and processed. In addition to the IP address and data on user behavior, this includes, for example, browser type, unique device identifier, preferred language, date and time of page entry, operating system and information about the mobile network. Gravatar uses this information to improve its own services and offerings and to gain better insights into the use of its own service.

The following cookies are set by Automattic when a user uses an email address registered with Gravatar for a comment:

Name: gravatar

Value: 16b3191024acc05a238209d51ffcb92bdd710bd19111463896-7

Purpose: We were unable to find out any precise information about this cookie.

Expiry date: after 50 years

Name: is-logged-in

Value: 1111463896-1

Purpose: This cookie stores the information that the user is logged in via the registered email address.

Expiry date: after 50 years

How long and where is the data stored?

Automattic deletes the collected data when it is no longer used for its own services and the company is not legally obliged to retain the data. Web server logs such as IP address, browser type and operating system are deleted after about 30 days. Until then, Automattic uses the data to analyze traffic on its own websites (for example all WordPress sites) and to fix possible problems. The data is also stored on Automattic’s American servers.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You have the right to access your personal data and also to delete it at any time. If you have registered with Gravatar using an email address, you can delete your account or the email address there again at any time.

Since an image is only displayed, and data thus only transferred to Gravatar, when an email address registered with Gravatar is used, you can also prevent the transfer of your data to Gravatar by commenting or writing posts on our website using an email address that is not registered with Gravatar.

You can manage, disable or delete in your browser any cookies that may be set while you are commenting. Please note, however, that any comment functions will then no longer be fully available. Managing cookies works a little differently depending on which browser you use. You can find the instructions for the most common browsers here:

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

Automattic 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=a2zt0000000CbqcAAC .

You can find more details on the privacy policy and on what data is collected by Gravatar and in what way at https://automattic.com/privacy/, and general information about Gravatar at http://de.gravatar.com/.

YouTube privacy policy

We have embedded YouTube videos on our website. This allows us to present interesting videos to you directly on our site. YouTube is a video portal that has been a subsidiary of Google since 2006. The video portal is operated by YouTube, LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA. When you access a page on our website that has a YouTube video embedded, 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 the European area.

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

What is YouTube?

On YouTube, users can watch, rate, comment on and upload videos free of charge. Over the last few years, YouTube has become one of the most important social media channels worldwide. So that we can display videos on our website, YouTube provides a code snippet that we have built into 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 offer you the best possible user experience on our website. And of course, interesting videos must 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, our website is found more easily on the Google search engine thanks to the embedded videos. Even when we place advertisements via Google Ads, Google – thanks to the collected data – can really only show these ads to people who are interested in our offerings.

What data is stored by YouTube?

As soon as you visit one of our pages that has a YouTube video built in, YouTube sets at least one cookie that stores your IP address and our URL. If you are logged in to your YouTube account, YouTube can usually assign your interactions on our website to your profile with the help of cookies. This includes data such as session duration, bounce rate, approximate location, and technical information such as browser type, screen resolution or your internet provider. Other data may include contact details, any ratings, the sharing of content via social media or adding to your favorites on YouTube.

If you are not logged in to a Google account or a YouTube account, Google stores data with a unique identifier that is linked to your device, browser or app. This means, for example, that your preferred language setting is retained. However, a lot of interaction data cannot be stored because fewer cookies are set.

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

Name: YSC

Value: b9-CV6ojI5Y111463896-1

Purpose: This cookie registers a unique ID in order to store statistics on the video viewed.

Expiry date: after the end of the session

Name: PREF

Value: f1=50000000

Purpose: This cookie also registers your unique ID. Through PREF, Google obtains statistics on how you use YouTube videos on our website.

Expiry date: after 8 months

Name: GPS

Value: 1

Purpose: This cookie registers your unique ID on mobile devices in order to track your GPS location.

Expiry date: after 30 minutes

Name: VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE

Value: 95Chz8bagyU

Purpose: This cookie tries to estimate the user’s bandwidth on our web pages (with an embedded YouTube video).

Expiry date: after 8 months

Further cookies that are set when you are logged in to your YouTube account:

Name: APISID

Value: zILlvClZSkqGsSwI/AU1aZI6HY7111463896-

Purpose: This cookie is used to create a profile of your interests. The data is used for personalized advertisements.

Expiry 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 the use of various Google services. CONSENT also serves security purposes, to verify users and to protect user data from unauthorized attacks.

Expiry date: after 19 years

Name: HSID

Value: AcRwpgUik9Dveht0I

Purpose: This cookie is used to create a profile of your interests. This data helps to display personalized advertising.

Expiry date: after 2 years

Name: LOGIN_INFO

Value: AFmmF2swRQIhALl6aL…

Purpose: This cookie stores information about your login data.

Expiry date: after 2 years

Name: SAPISID

Value: 7oaPxoG-pZsJuuF5/AnUdDUIsJ9iJz2vdM

Purpose: This cookie works by uniquely identifying your browser and your device. It is used to create a profile of your interests.

Expiry date: after 2 years

Name: SID

Value: oQfNKjAsI111463896-

Purpose: This cookie stores your Google account ID and your last login time in digitally signed and encrypted form.

Expiry date: after 2 years

Name: SIDCC

Value: AN0-TYuqub2JOcDTyL

Purpose: This cookie stores information about how you use the website and which advertising you may have seen before visiting our site.

Expiry date: after 3 months

How long and where is the data stored?

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

Google stores the collected data for different lengths of time. Some data you can delete at any time, other data is deleted automatically after a limited time, and still other data is stored by Google for a longer period. Some data (such as items from “My Activity”, photos or documents, products) that is stored in your Google account remains stored until you delete it. Even if you are not logged in to a Google account, you can delete some data that is linked to your device, browser or app.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

In principle, you can delete data in your Google account manually. With the automatic deletion function for location and activity data introduced in 2019, information is stored – depending on your choice – for either 3 or 18 months and then deleted.

Regardless of whether you have a Google account or not, you can configure your browser so that cookies from Google are deleted or deactivated. This works in different ways depending on which browser you use. The following instructions show how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

If you do not want cookies at all, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is about to be set. This way you can decide for each individual cookie whether to allow it or not. Since YouTube is a subsidiary of Google, there is a joint privacy policy. If you would like to learn more about how your data is handled, we recommend the privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.

YouTube subscribe button privacy policy

We have built the YouTube subscribe button (German: “Abonnieren” button) into our website. You can usually recognize the button by the classic YouTube logo. The logo shows the words “Subscribe” or “YouTube” in white lettering against a red background, with the white “play symbol” to the left of them. However, the button may also be displayed in a different design.

Our YouTube channel regularly offers you funny, interesting or exciting videos. With the built-in “subscribe button”, you can subscribe to our channel directly from our website and do not have to visit the YouTube website separately. In this way, we want to make access to our comprehensive content as easy as possible for you. Please note that this enables YouTube to store and process data from you.

If you see a built-in subscribe button on our site, YouTube – according to Google – sets at least one cookie. This cookie stores your IP address and our URL. YouTube can also learn information about your browser, your approximate location and your default language in this way. In our test, the following four cookies were set without being logged in to YouTube:

Name: YSC

Value: b9-CV6ojI5111463896Y

Purpose: This cookie registers a unique ID in order to store statistics on the video viewed.

Expiry date: after the end of the session

Name: PREF

Value: f1=50000000

Purpose: This cookie also registers your unique ID. Through PREF, Google obtains statistics on how you use YouTube videos on our website.

Expiry date: after 8 months

Name: GPS

Value: 1

Purpose: This cookie registers your unique ID on mobile devices in order to track your GPS location.

Expiry date: after 30 minutes

Name: VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE

Value: 11146389695Chz8bagyU

Purpose: This cookie tries to estimate the user’s bandwidth on our web pages (with an embedded YouTube video).

Expiry date: after 8 months

Note: These cookies were set after a test and cannot claim to be complete.

If you are logged in to your YouTube account, YouTube can use cookies to store many of your actions/interactions on our website and assign them to your YouTube account. This gives YouTube information such as how long you browse our site, which browser type you use, which screen resolution you prefer or which actions you perform.

YouTube uses this data on the one hand to improve its own services and offerings, and on the other hand to provide analyses and statistics for advertisers (who use Google Ads).

Google reCAPTCHA privacy policy

Our top priority is to secure and protect our website as well as possible for you and for us. To ensure this, we use Google reCAPTCHA from Google Inc. For the European area, Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services. With reCAPTCHA, we can determine whether you really are a human being of flesh and blood and not a robot or other spam software. By spam we mean any unwanted information that reaches us electronically without our having asked for it. With classic CAPTCHAs, you usually had to solve text or picture puzzles for verification. With Google’s reCAPTCHA, we usually do not have to bother you with such puzzles. In most cases it is sufficient here if you simply tick a box and thus confirm that you are not a bot. With the new Invisible reCAPTCHA version, you no longer even have to tick a box. You will find out exactly how this works and, above all, what data is used for it in the course of this privacy policy.

What is reCAPTCHA?

reCAPTCHA is a free captcha service from Google that protects websites from spam software and from abuse by non-human visitors. This service is most commonly used when you fill out forms on the internet. A captcha service is a type of automatic Turing test designed to ensure that an action on the internet is performed by a human and not by a bot. In the classic Turing test (named after the computer scientist Alan Turing), a human makes the distinction between bot and human. With captchas, this is also done by the computer or a software program. Classic captchas work with small tasks that are easy for humans to solve but pose considerable difficulties for machines. With reCAPTCHA, you no longer have to actively solve any puzzles. The tool uses modern risk techniques to distinguish humans from bots. Here you only have to tick the “I’m not a robot” text field, or with Invisible reCAPTCHA even that is no longer necessary. With reCAPTCHA, a JavaScript element is integrated into the source code and the tool then runs in the background and analyzes your user behavior. From these user actions, the software calculates a so-called captcha score. Google uses this score to calculate, even before the captcha is entered, how high the probability is that you are a human. reCAPTCHA, or captchas in general, are always used when bots could manipulate or abuse certain actions (such as registrations, surveys, etc.).

Why do we use reCAPTCHA on our website?

We only want to welcome humans of flesh and blood on our site. Bots or spam software of all kinds can safely stay at home. That is why we are pulling out all the stops to protect ourselves and to offer you the best possible user-friendliness. For this reason, we use Google reCAPTCHA from Google. This allows us to be fairly sure that we remain a “bot-free” website. By using reCAPTCHA, data is transmitted to Google to determine whether you really are a human. reCAPTCHA thus serves the security of our website and, consequently, your security as well. For example, without reCAPTCHA it could happen that during a registration a bot registers as many email addresses as possible in order to subsequently “spam” forums or blogs with unwanted advertising content. With reCAPTCHA we can avoid such bot attacks.

What data is stored by reCAPTCHA?

reCAPTCHA collects personal data from users to determine whether the actions on our website really come from humans. The IP address and other data that Google needs for the reCAPTCHA service may therefore be sent to Google. Within the member states of the EU or other contracting states of the Agreement on the European Economic Area, IP addresses are almost always shortened beforehand, before the data ends up on a server in the USA. The IP address is not combined with other Google data unless you are logged in to your Google account while using reCAPTCHA. First, the reCAPTCHA algorithm checks whether Google cookies from other Google services (YouTube, Gmail etc.) have already been placed on your browser. reCAPTCHA then sets an additional cookie in your browser and captures a snapshot of your browser window.

The following list of collected browser and user data does not claim to be complete. Rather, these are examples of data that, to our knowledge, are processed by Google.

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

It is undisputed that Google uses and analyzes this data even before you click on the “I’m not a robot” checkbox. With the Invisible reCAPTCHA version, there is not even any box to tick, and the entire recognition process runs in the background. Google does not tell you in detail how much data and exactly which data it stores.

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

Name: IDE

Value: WqTUmlnmv_qXyi_DGNPLESKnRNrpgXoy1K-pAZtAkMbHI-111463896-8

Purpose: This cookie is set by the company DoubleClick (also owned by Google) to register and report a user’s actions on the website in connection with advertisements. This allows advertising effectiveness to be measured and appropriate optimization measures to be taken. IDE is stored in browsers under the domain doubleclick.net.

Expiry date: after one year

Name: 1P_JAR

Value: 2019-5-14-12

Purpose: This cookie collects statistics on website use and measures conversions. A conversion occurs, for example, when a user becomes a buyer. The cookie is also used to display relevant advertisements to users. Furthermore, the cookie can be used to prevent a user from seeing the same ad more than once.

Expiry date: after one month

Name: ANID

Value: U7j1v3dZa1114638960xgZFmiqWppRWKOr

Purpose: We were unable to find out much information about this cookie. In Google’s privacy policy, the cookie is mentioned in connection with “advertising cookies” such as “DSID”, “FLC”, “AID”, “TAID”. ANID is stored under the domain google.com.

Expiry date: after 9 months

Name: CONSENT

Value: YES+AT.de+20150628-20-0

Purpose: The cookie stores the status of a user’s consent to the use of various Google services. CONSENT also serves security purposes, to verify users, to prevent fraudulent use of login credentials and to protect user data from unauthorized attacks.

Expiry date: after 19 years

Name: NID

Value: 0WmuWqy111463896zILzqV_nmt3sDXwPeM5Q

Purpose: NID is used by Google to tailor advertisements to your Google searches. With the help of the cookie, Google “remembers” your most frequently entered search queries or your previous interaction with ads. This way you always receive tailored advertisements. The cookie contains a unique ID used to collect the user’s personal settings for advertising purposes.

Expiry date: after 6 months

Name: DV

Value: gEAABBCjJMXcI0dSAAAANbqc111463896-4

Purpose: As soon as you have ticked the “I’m not a robot” checkbox, this cookie is set. The cookie is used by Google Analytics for personalized advertising. DV collects information in anonymized form and is also used to distinguish between users.

Expiry date: after 10 minutes

Note: This list cannot claim to be complete, as experience shows that Google repeatedly changes its choice of cookies.

How long and where is the data stored?

By integrating reCAPTCHA, data from you is transferred to the Google server. Google does not make clear exactly where this data is stored, even after repeated inquiries. Without having received confirmation from Google, it can be assumed that data such as mouse interaction, time spent on the website or language settings are stored on Google’s European or American servers. The IP address that your browser transmits to Google is generally not merged with other Google data from other Google services. However, if you are logged in to your Google account while using the reCAPTCHA plug-in, the data will be merged. Google’s differing privacy policy applies to this.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

If you do not want any data about you and your behavior to be transmitted to Google, you must log out of Google completely and delete all Google cookies before you visit our website or use the reCAPTCHA software. In principle, the data is automatically transmitted to Google as soon as you access our site. To have this data deleted again, you must use  https://support.google.com/?hl=de&tid=111463896 to contact Google support.

So by using our website, you agree that Google LLC and its representatives automatically collect, process and use data.

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

Cookiebot privacy policy

On our website we use functions of the provider Cookiebot. The company behind Cookiebot is Cybot A/S, Havnegade 39, 1058 Copenhagen, DK. Among other things, Cookiebot offers us the option of providing you with a comprehensive cookie notice (also called a cookie banner). By using this function, data from you can be sent to Cookiebot or Cybot, stored and processed. In this privacy policy, we inform you why we use Cookiebot, what data is transferred and how you can prevent this data transfer.

What is Cookiebot?

Cookiebot is a software product of the company Cybot. The software automatically creates a GDPR-compliant cookie notice for our website visitors. In addition, the technology behind Cookiebot scans, controls and evaluates all cookies and tracking measures on our website.

Why do we use Cookiebot on our website?

We take data protection very seriously. We want to show you exactly what is happening on our website and which of your data is stored. Cookiebot helps us to keep a good overview of all our cookies (first-party and third-party cookies). This allows us to inform you precisely and transparently about the use of cookies on our website. You always receive an up-to-date, privacy-compliant cookie notice and decide for yourself which cookies you allow and which you do not.

What data is stored by Cookiebot?

If you allow cookies, the following data is transferred to Cybot, stored and processed.

  • IP address (in anonymized form, the last 3 digits are set to 0)
  • Date and time of your consent
  • our website URL
  • technical browser data
  • encrypted, anonymous key
  • the cookies you have allowed (as proof of consent)

The following cookies are set by Cookiebot if you have consented to the use of cookies:

Name: CookieConsent

Value: {stamp:’P7to4eNgIHvJvDerjKneBsmJQd9111463896-2

Purpose: This cookie stores your consent status. This allows our website to read and follow the current status on future visits as well.

Expiry date: after one year

Name: CookieConsentBulkTicket

Value: kDSPWpA%2fjhljZKClPqsncfR8SveTnNWhys5NojaxdFYBPjZ2PaDnUw%3d%3111463896-6

Purpose: This cookie is set if you allow all cookies and have thus activated a “bulk consent”. The cookie then stores its own random and unique ID.

Expiry date: after one year

Note: Please bear in mind that this is an exemplary list and that we cannot claim completeness. In the cookie declaration at https://www.cookiebot.com/de/cookie-declaration/ you can see which other cookies may be used.

According to Cybot’s privacy policy, the company does not sell personal data. However, Cybot passes data on to trustworthy third parties or subcontractors that help the company achieve its own business objectives. Data is also passed on if this is legally required.

How long and where is the data stored?

All collected data is transferred, stored and forwarded exclusively within the European Union. The data is stored in an Azure data center (the cloud provider is Microsoft). At  https://azure.microsoft.com/de-de/global-infrastructure/regions/ you can find out more about all “Azure regions”. All user data is deleted by Cookiebot 12 months after registration (cookie consent) or immediately after termination of the Cookiebot service.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You have the right to access your personal data and also to delete it at any time. You can prevent data collection and storage, for example, by declining the use of cookies via the cookie notice. Your browser offers a further option for preventing data processing or managing it according to your wishes. Cookie management works slightly differently depending on the browser. Here you can find the instructions for the currently best-known browsers:

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

If you would like to learn more about the privacy policies of “Cookiebot” or of the company behind it, Cybot, we recommend that you read the privacy policy at https://www.cookiebot.com/de/privacy-policy/.

jQuery CDN privacy policy

In order to deliver our website and all our individual subpages (web pages) to you quickly and smoothly on different devices, we use services of jQuery CDN from the jQuery Foundation. jQuery is distributed via the Content Delivery Network (CDN) of the American software company StackPath (LCC 2012 McKinney Ave. Suite 1100, Dallas, TX 75201, USA). Through this service, personal data from you is stored, managed and processed.

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

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

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

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

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

You can find more information on data protection at StackPath at https://www.stackpath.com/legal/privacy-statement/ and on jQuery at https://openjsf.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/84/2019/11/OpenJS-Foundation-Privacy-Policy-2019-11-15.pdf.

Source: Created with the privacy policy generator by AdSimple® Blog Marketing in cooperation with aboutbusiness.at