data protection

Privacy policy

Privacy Policy

We have written this privacy statement (version 11/07/2020-311193568) to explain to you, in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, what information we collect, how we use data and what choices you have as a visitor to this website.

Unfortunately, by their very nature, these explanations sound very technical, but we have tried to describe the most important things as simply and clearly as possible when drafting them.

Automatic data storage

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

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

the address (URL) of the website you are visiting

browser and browser version

the operating system used

the address (URL) of the previously visited page (referrer URL)

the host name and IP address of the device from which access is made

the date and time

in files (web server log files).

As a rule, web server log files are stored for a fortnight and then automatically deleted. We do not pass on this data, but we cannot exclude the possibility that this data may be viewed in the event of unlawful behaviour.

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 really useful little helpers. Almost all websites use cookies. More precisely, they are HTTP cookies, as there are also other cookies for other applications. HTTP cookies are small files that are stored on your computer by our website. These cookie files are automatically placed in the cookie folder, effectively the "brain" of your browser. A cookie consists of a name and a value. When defining a cookie, one or more attributes must also be specified.

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

There are both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created directly by our site, third-party cookies are created by partner websites (e.g. Google Analytics). Each cookie is to be evaluated 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 programmes and do not contain viruses, Trojans or other "pests". Cookies also cannot access information on your PC.

For example, cookie data may look like this

Name: _ga

Expiration time: 2 years

Usage: Differentiation of website visitors

Example value: GA1.2.1326744211.152311193568

A browser should support the following minimum sizes:

A cookie should be able to contain at least 4096 bytes

It should be possible to store at least 50 cookies per domain

A total of at least 3000 cookies should be able to be stored

What types of cookies are there?

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

We can distinguish between 4 types of cookies:

Absolutely necessary cookies.

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

Functional cookies

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

Goal-oriented cookies

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

Advertising cookies

These cookies are also called targeting cookies. They are used to provide the user with individually adapted advertising. This can be very practical, but also very annoying.

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

How can I delete cookies?

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

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

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome.

Safari: Manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you 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 you allow the cookie or not. The procedure varies depending on the browser. The best thing to do is 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 or replace the word "Chrome" with the name of your browser, e.g. Edge, Firefox, Safari.

What about my data protection?

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

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

Storage of personal data

Personal data that you submit to us electronically on this website, such as your name, e-mail address, address or other personal details when submitting a form or commenting on the blog, together with the time and IP address, will only be used by us for the stated purpose, kept secure and not passed on to third parties.

We therefore only use your personal data to communicate with those visitors who expressly request contact and to process the services and products offered on this website. We do not disclose your personal data without your consent, but we cannot rule out the possibility that this data may be accessed in the event of unlawful conduct.

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

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

Rights according to the General Data Protection Regulation

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

Right to rectification (Article 16 DSGVO)

Right to erasure ("right to be forgotten") (Article 17 DSGVO)

Right to restriction of processing (Article 18 GDPR)

Right to notification - obligation to notify in connection with 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 your data protection rights have otherwise been violated in any way, you can contact the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI).

Evaluation of visitor behaviour

In the following data protection declaration, we inform you whether and how we evaluate data from your visit to this website. The evaluation of the collected data is generally anonymous and we cannot draw any conclusions about your person from your behaviour on this website.

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

TLS encryption with https

We use https to transmit data in a tap-proof manner on the Internet (data protection by technical design Article 25(1) DSGVO). By using TLS (Transport Layer Security), an encryption protocol for secure data transmission on the Internet, we can ensure the protection of confidential data. You can recognise the use of this data transmission protection by the small lock symbol at the top left of the browser and the use of the https scheme (instead of http) as part of our internet address.

Google Maps privacy policy

We use Google Maps from Google Inc. on our website. Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services in Europe. Google Maps enables us to better show you locations and thus adapt our service to your needs. By using Google Maps, data is transmitted to Google and stored on Google servers. Here we would like to go into more detail about what Google Maps is, why we use this Google service, what data is stored and how you can prevent this.

What is Google Maps?

Google Maps is an internet map service provided by Google. With Google Maps, you can search for exact locations of cities, sights, accommodation or businesses online via a PC, tablet or app. If companies 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 integrated into a website using HTML code. Google Maps shows the earth's surface as a street map or as an aerial or satellite image. Thanks to the Street View images and the high-quality satellite images, very accurate representations are possible.

Why do we use Google Maps on our website?

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

What data is stored by Google Maps?

In order for Google Maps to fully provide their service, the company needs to 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 happens 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 behaviour. Google uses this data primarily to optimise its own services and to provide you with individual, personalised advertising.

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

Name: NID

Wert: 188=h26c1Ktha7fCQTx8rXgLyATyITJ311193568-5

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

Expiry date: after 6 months

Note: We cannot guarantee completeness in the information we store. Especially when using cookies, changes can never be excluded. In order to identify the cookie NID, a separate test page was created where only Google Maps was integrated.

How long and where is the data stored?

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

Google distributes the data on different data carriers. This means that the data can be accessed more quickly and is better protected against any attempts at manipulation. Each data centre also has special emergency programmes. If, for example, there are problems with Google's hardware or a natural disaster paralyses the servers, the data will pretty much remain protected anyway.

Google stores some data for a set period of time. For other data, Google only offers the option of deleting it manually. Furthermore, the company also anonymises information (such as advertising data) in server logs by deleting part of the IP address and cookie information after 9 and 18 months respectively.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

With the automatic deletion of location and activity data introduced in 2019, location and web/app activity information will be stored for either 3 or 18 months - depending on your decision - 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 completely prevent your location tracking, you must pause the "Web and App Activity" section in the Google Account. Click "Data and personalisation" and then on the "Activity setting" option. Here you can switch the activities on or off.

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

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome.

Safari: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

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

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 about this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI. If you want to learn more about Google's data processing, we recommend that you read the company's own privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.

Google Fonts privacy policy

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

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

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 are published under the Apache License. Both are free software licences.

Why do we use Google Fonts on our website?

Google Fonts allows us to use fonts on our own website, but we don't have to upload them to our own server. Google Fonts is an important component in keeping the quality of our website high. All Google Fonts are automatically optimised for the web and this saves data volume and is a great advantage especially for use with mobile devices. When you visit our site, the low file size ensures 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 sometimes distort the appearance of texts or entire web pages. Thanks to the fast Content Delivery Network (CDN), there are no cross-platform problems with Google Fonts. Google Fonts supports all major browsers (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera) and works reliably on most modern mobile operating systems, including Android 2.2+ and iOS 4.2+ (iPhone, iPad, iPod). We therefore use Google Fonts so that we can present our entire online service as beautifully and consistently as possible.

What data is stored by Google?

When you visit our website, the fonts are reloaded via a Google server. This external call-up transmits data to the Google servers. In this way, Google also recognises 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. By the way, API stands for "Application Programming Interface" and serves, among other things, as a data transmitter in the software sector.

Google Fonts stores CSS and font requests securely at Google and is thus protected. Through the collected usage figures, 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 be able to examine and move large amounts of data.

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

How long and where is the data stored?

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

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

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

The data that Google stores for a day or a year cannot simply be deleted. The data is automatically transmitted to Google when the page is accessed. In order to delete this data prematurely, you must contact Google support at https://support.google.com/?hl=de&tid=311193568. Data storage can only be prevented in this case if you do not visit our site.

Unlike other web fonts, Google allows us unlimited access to all fonts. So we can access an unlimited sea of fonts and get the most out of our website. You can find out more about Google Fonts and other issues at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq?tid=311193568. There, Google does go into privacy-related matters, but really detailed information about data storage is not included. It is relatively difficult to get really precise information from Google about stored data.

You can also find out what data Google basically collects and what it is used for at https://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/.

Google Fonts Local Privacy Policy

On our website we use Google Fonts from the company Google Inc. The company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for the European area. We have integrated the Google Fonts locally, i.e. on our web server - not on Google's servers. This means that there is no connection to Google servers and therefore no data transfer or storage.

What are Google Fonts?

Google Fonts used to be called Google Web Fonts. This is an interactive directory of over 800 fonts that Google provides free of charge. With Google Fonts, you could use fonts without uploading them to your own server. However, in order to prevent any transfer of information to Google servers in this regard, we have downloaded the fonts to our server. In this way, we act in a privacy-compliant manner and do not send any data to Google Fonts.

Unlike other web fonts, Google allows us unlimited access to all fonts. This means we have unlimited access to a sea of fonts and can thus get the most out of our website. You can find out more about Google Fonts and other issues at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq?tid=311193568.

Newsletter Privacy Policy

By subscribing to our newsletter, you are providing us with the above personal information and giving us the right to contact you by email. We use the data stored in the context of the newsletter registration exclusively for our newsletter and do not pass it on to third parties.

If you unsubscribe from the newsletter - you will find the link for this at the bottom of each newsletter - we will delete all data stored with the newsletter registration.

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. In this way, we want to draw more people's attention to the high quality of our offers on the Internet. As part of our advertising measures through Google Ads, we use the conversion tracking of the company Google Inc. on our website. In Europe, however, the company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services. With the help of this free tracking tool, we can better adapt our advertising offer to your interests and needs. In the following article, we will go into more detail about why we use conversion tracking, what data is stored in the process and how you can prevent this data storage.

What is Google Ads conversion tracking?

Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is the in-house online advertising system of Google Inc. We are convinced of the quality of our offer and want as many people as possible to get to know our website. In the online sector, Google Ads offers the best platform for this. Of course, we also want to get an accurate overview of the cost-benefit factor of our advertising campaigns. That's why we use the conversion tracking tool from Google Ads.

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

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

We use Google Ads to draw attention to our offer on other websites. The aim is to ensure that our advertising campaigns reach only 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 make a conversion. This data allows us to calculate our cost-benefit factor, measure the success of individual advertising measures and consequently optimise our online marketing measures. We can also use the data obtained to make our website more interesting for you and adapt our advertising offer even more individually to your needs.

What data is stored with Google Ads conversion tracking?

We have integrated a conversion tracking tag or code snippet on our website in order to be able to better analyse certain user actions. If you now click on one of our Google Ads ads, the "Conversion" cookie is stored on your computer (usually in the browser) or mobile device by a Google domain. Cookies are small text files that store information on your computer.

Here are the details of the most important cookies for Google's conversion tracking:

Name: Conversion

Value: EhMI_aySuoyv4gIVled3Ch0llweVGAEgt-mr6aXd7dYlSAGQ311193568-3

Purpose: This cookie stores every conversion you make on our site after coming 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 is not exhaustive, as Google also uses other cookies for analytical purposes.

As soon as you complete an action on our website, Google recognises the cookie and saves your action as a so-called conversion. As long as you surf our website and the cookie has not yet expired, we and Google will recognise that you found us via our Google Ads ad. The cookie is read and sent back to Google Ads with the conversion data. It is also possible that other cookies are used to measure conversions. The conversion tracking of Google Ads can be further refined and improved with the help of Google Analytics. For ads that Google displays in various locations on the web, cookies called "__gads" or "_gac" may be set under our domain. Since September 2017, various campaign information has been stored by analytics.js with the _gac cookie. The cookie stores this data as soon as you call up one of our pages for which the automatic tagging of Google Ads has been set up. Unlike cookies set for Google domains, Google can only read these conversion cookies when you are on our website. We do not collect or receive any personal data. We receive a report from Google with statistical evaluations. For example, we learn the total number of users who clicked on our ad and we see which advertising measures were well received.

How long and where is the data stored?

At this point, we would like to point out that we have no influence on how Google uses the collected data. According to Google, the data is encrypted and stored on secure servers. In most cases, conversion cookies expire after 30 days and do not transmit any personal data. The cookies named "Conversion" and "_gac" (which is used in conjunction with Google Analytics) have an expiry date of 3 months.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You have the option of not participating 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 slightly 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: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

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

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

Embedded social media elements Privacy policy

We embed elements of social media services on our website to display images, videos and text.

When you visit pages that display these elements, data is transmitted from your browser to the respective social media service and stored there. We have no access to this data.

The following links will 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

For YouTube, the Google privacy policy applies: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de

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

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

Facebook privacy policy

We use selected tools from Facebook on our website. Facebook is a social media network owned by Facebook Ireland Ltd, 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2 Ireland. These tools enable us to provide you and people interested in our products and services with the best possible experience. Below we provide an overview of the different Facebook tools, what data is sent to Facebook and how you can delete this data.

What are Facebook tools?

Among many other products, Facebook also offers the so-called "Facebook Business Tools". This is the official name of Facebook. However, since the term is hardly known, we have decided to call them simply Facebook Tools. Among them are:

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

Through these tools, Facebook extends services and has the ability to obtain information about user activity outside of Facebook.

Why do we use Facebook tools on our website?

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

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

What data is stored by Facebook tools?

By using individual Facebook tools, personal data (customer data) may 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 itself has about you (if you are a Facebook member). Before customer data is sent to Facebook, a process called "hashing" takes place. This means that a data record of any size is transformed into a string of characters. This also serves to encrypt data.

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

In order to deliver ads in an optimised 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 used to store data or information in browsers. Depending on the tools you use and whether you are a Facebook member, different numbers of cookies are created in your browser. We go into more detail about individual Facebook cookies in the descriptions of each Facebook tool. General information about the use of Facebook cookies can also be found at https://www.facebook.com/policies/cookies.

How long and where is the data stored?

Basically, Facebook stores data until it is no longer needed for its own services and Facebook products. Facebook has servers located around the world where your data is stored. However, customer data is deleted within 48 hours after it has been compared with your own user data.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

In accordance with the Basic Data Protection Regulation, you have the right to information, correction, transferability and deletion of your data.

A complete deletion of the data only takes place if you delete your Facebook account completely. And this is how deleting your Facebook account works:

1) Click on Settings on the right-hand side of Facebook.

2) Then click on "Your Facebook information" in the left-hand column.

3) Now click "Deactivation and deletion".

4) Now select "Delete account" and then click on "Continue and delete account".

5) Now enter your password, click "Continue" and then click "Delete account".

The storage of data that Facebook receives via our site takes place, among other things, via cookies (e.g. for social plugins). In your browser, you can deactivate, delete or manage individual or all cookies. Depending on which browser you use, this works in different ways. The following instructions show how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome.

Safari: Managing cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete and manage cookies

If you generally do not want cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. This way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether you 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 about this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000GnywAAC. We hope we have provided you with the most important information about the use and data processing by Facebook tools. If you want to learn more about how Facebook uses your data, we recommend that you read the data policy at https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/update.

Instagram privacy policy

We have incorporated features from Instagram on our website. Instagram is a social media platform of the company Instagram LLC, 1601 Willow Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025, USA. Instagram has been a subsidiary of Facebook Inc. since 2012 and is one of the Facebook products. Embedding 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 call up web pages on our website that have an Instagram function integrated, data is transmitted to Instagram, stored and processed. Instagram uses the same systems and technologies as Facebook. Your data is thus processed across all Facebook companies.

In the following, we would like to give you a more detailed insight into why Instagram collects data, what data it is and how you can largely control the data processing. As Instagram belongs to Facebook Inc., we obtain our information from the Instagram guidelines on the one hand, but also from the Facebook data guidelines themselves on the other.

What is Instagram?

Instagram is one of the most popular social media networks in the world. Instagram combines the advantages of a blog with the advantages of audiovisual platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo. You can upload photos and short videos on "Insta" (as many of the users casually call the platform), edit them with various filters and also distribute them on other social networks. And if you don't want to be active yourself, you can also just follow other interesting users.

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