Privacy

We have written this privacy statement (version 03.01.2021-311246649) 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 decision-making options you have as a visitor to this website.

Unfortunately, it is in the nature of things that these explanations sound very technical, but we have tried to describe the most important things as simply and clearly as possible when creating 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 (computer on which this website is stored) automatically stores data such as

the address (URL) of the visited web page
browser and browser version
the operating system used
the address (URL) of the previously visited page (referrer URL)
the host name and IP address of the device from which access is made
the 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 on this data, but we cannot exclude the possibility that this data may be viewed in the event of unlawful behavior.
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. Popular 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 can't be denied: Cookies are really useful little helpers. Almost all websites use cookies. More precisely, they are HTTP cookies, as there are other cookies for other applications. HTTP cookies are small files that are stored on your computer by our website. These cookie files are automatically 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 cookies, our site 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 must be evaluated individually, as each cookie stores different data. Also, the expiration time of a cookie varies from a few minutes to a few years. Cookies are not software programs and do not contain viruses, Trojans or other "pests". Cookies also cannot access information on your PC.

For example, cookie data may look like this

Name: _ga
Expiration time: 2 years
Usage: Differentiation of website visitors
Example value: GA1.2.1326744211.152311246649

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 privacy policy. 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 adds a product to the shopping cart, then continues browsing on other pages, and only later goes to the checkout. These cookies do not delete the shopping cart even if the user closes his browser window.

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

  

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

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

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

How and whether you want to use cookies is up to you. Regardless of which service or website the cookies come from, you always have the option to delete, only partially allow or disable cookies. 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 it 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 placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: delete and manage cookies

If you generally don't want cookies, you can set your browser to notify you whenever a cookie is about to be set. This way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether or not to allow it. The procedure varies depending on the browser. The best way is to search the instructions in Google with the search term "delete cookies Chrome" or "disable cookies Chrome" in case of a Chrome browser or replace the word "Chrome" with the name of your browser, e.g. Edge, Firefox, Safari.
What about my privacy?

Since 2009, there are the so-called "Cookie Guidelines". This states that storing 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 Section 15 (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 information 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, stored securely and not shared with third parties.

We thus use your personal data only for communication with those visitors who expressly request contact and for the processing of the services and products offered on this website. We do not disclose your personal data without your consent, but we cannot exclude 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 Basic 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 DSGVO)
Right to notification - obligation to notify in connection with the rectification or erasure of personal data or the 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 been violated in any other way, you can contact the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI).
Evaluation of visitor behavior

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 behavior on this website.

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

We embed elements of social media services on our website to display images, videos and texts.
When you visit pages that display these elements, data is transmitted from your browser to the respective social media service and stored there. We do not have 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

YouTube Privacy Policy

We have incorporated YouTube videos on our website. This allows us to present interesting videos 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 call up a page on our website that has a YouTube video embedded, your browser automatically connects to the YouTube or Google servers. In the process, various data are 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.

In the following, 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 themselves free of charge. Over the past few years, YouTube has become one of the most important social media channels in the world. In order for us to display videos on our website, YouTube provides a snippet of code that we have included on our site.
Why do we use YouTube videos on our website?

YouTube is the video platform with the most visitors and the best content. We are committed to providing you with the best possible user experience on our website. And of course, interesting videos can't be missing from that. With the help of our embedded videos, we provide you with other helpful content in addition to our text and images. In addition, the embedded videos make our website easier to find on the Google search engine. Also, when we run ads through Google Ads, Google - thanks to the data it collects - can really only show these ads to people who are interested in what we have to offer.
What data is stored by YouTube?

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

If you are not logged into a Google account or a YouTube account, Google stores data with a unique identifier associated with your device, browser, or app. For example, your preferred language setting is retained. But a lot of interaction data can't be stored because fewer cookies are set.

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

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Name: YSC
Value: b9-CV6ojI5Y311246649-1
Purpose: This cookie registers a unique ID to store statistics of the video watched.
Expiration date: after session end

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

Name: GPS
Value: 1
Purpose: This cookie registers your unique ID on mobile devices to track GPS location.
Expiration 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 embedded YouTube video).
Expiration date: after 8 months

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

Name: APISID
Wert: zILlvClZSkqGsSwI/AU1aZI6HY7311246649-
Purpose: This cookie is used to create a profile about your interests. Used for personalized advertisements.
Expiration date: after 2 years

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

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

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

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

Name: SID
Value: oQfNKjAsI311246649-.
Purpose: This cookie stores your Google account ID and your last login time in digitally signed and encrypted form.
Expiration date: after 2 years

Name: SIDCC
Value: AN0-TYuqub2JOcDTyL
Purpose: This cookie stores information about how you use the website and what advertisements you may have seen before visiting our site.
Expiration date: after 3 months
How long and where is the data stored?

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

Google stores the collected data for different lengths of time. Some data you can delete at any time, others are automatically deleted after a limited time, and still others are stored by Google for a longer period of time. Some data (such as items from "My Activity", photos or documents, products) stored in your Google Account will remain stored until you delete it. Even if you are not signed into a Google Account, you can delete some data associated with your device, browser, or app.
How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

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

Whether you have a Google account or not, you can configure your browser to delete or disable cookies from Google. Depending on which browser you use, this works in different ways. 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 placed on your computer

Internet Explorer: delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: delete and manage cookies

​

If you do not want to have cookies in principle, 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. Since YouTube is a subsidiary of Google, there is a common privacy policy. If you want 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 implemented the YouTube Subscribe button on our website. You can usually recognize the button by the classic YouTube logo. The logo shows the words "Subscribe" or "YouTube" in white letters against a red background and the white "Play" icon to the left. However, the button can also be displayed in a different design.

Our YouTube channel always 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 go to the YouTube website specifically. In this way, we want to make it as easy as possible for you to access our extensive content. Please note that YouTube may store and process data about you as a result.

If you see a built-in subscribe button on our site, YouTube sets - according to Google - 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 preset language this way. In our test, the following four cookies were set without being logged into YouTube:

Name: YSC
Value: b9-CV6ojI5311246649Y
Purpose: This cookie registers a unique ID to store statistics of the video watched.
Expiration date: after session end

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

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

Name: VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
Value: 31124664995Chz8bagyU
Purpose: This cookie attempts to estimate the user's bandwidth on our web pages (with embedded YouTube video).
Expiration date: after 8 months

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

If you are logged into your YouTube account, YouTube can store many of your actions/interactions on our website using cookies and assign them to your YouTube account. YouTube thereby receives, for example, information on how long you surf 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 offers, and on the other hand to provide analyses and statistics for advertisers (who use Google Ads).