data protection

We have written this data protection declaration (version 17.04.2020-311170235) to explain to you in accordance with the provisions 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, 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.

Automatic data storage

When you visit websites these days, certain information is automatically created and stored, including on this website.

If you visit our website as it is now, our web server (computer on which this website is stored) automatically saves data such as

• the address (URL) of the accessed website

• Browser and browser version

• the operating system used

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

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

• 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 rule out that this data will be viewed in the event of illegal behavior.

Cookies

Our website uses HTTP cookies to save user-specific data.
In the following we explain what cookies are and why they are used so that you can better understand the following data protection declaration.

What exactly are cookies?

Whenever you surf the Internet, you are using a browser. Well-known browsers include Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. Most websites save small text files in your browser. These files are called cookies.

One thing cannot be dismissed out of hand: 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 areas of application. HTTP cookies are small files that our website stores on your computer. These cookie files are automatically placed in the cookie folder, which is 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 call up our site again, your browser transmits the "user-related" information back to our site. Thanks to cookies, our website knows who you are and offers you your usual standard settings. In some browsers each cookie has its own file, in others, such as Firefox, all cookies are stored in a single file.

There are both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created directly from our side, third-party cookies are created by partner websites (e.g. Google Analytics). Each cookie must 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 programs and do not contain viruses, Trojans or other "pests". Cookies cannot access information on your PC either.

For example, cookie data can look like this:

• Name: _ga

• Expiry time: 2 years

• Use: Differentiation of website visitors

• Exemplary value: GA1.2.1326744211.152311170235

A browser should support the following minimum sizes:

• A cookie should be able to contain at least 4096 bytes

• At least 50 cookies should be able to be stored per domain

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

What types of cookies are there?

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

There are 4 types of cookies:

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

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

Goal-oriented cookies
These cookies ensure better user-friendliness. For example, entered locations, font sizes or form data are saved.

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

When you visit a website for the first time, you will usually be asked which of these types of cookies you would like to allow. And of course this decision is also saved in a cookie.

How can I delete cookies?

You decide for yourself how and whether you want to use cookies. Regardless of which service or website the cookies originate 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 saved 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 stored on your computer

Internet Explorer: deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

If you generally do not want cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. In this way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether or not to allow the cookie. The procedure is different depending on the browser. It is best to search for the instructions in Google with the search term “delete cookies Chrome” or “deactivate 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 existed since 2009. It states that the storage of cookies requires the consent of the website visitor (i.e. you). Within the EU countries, however, there are still very different reactions to these guidelines. In Germany, the cookie guidelines have not been implemented as national law. Instead, this guideline was largely implemented in Section 15 (3) of the Telemedia Act (TMG).

If you want to know more about cookies and do not shy away from 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 transmit to us electronically on this website, such as name, e-mail address, address or other personal information in the context of submitting a form or comments in the blog, are saved by us together with the time and the IP Address is only used for the specified purpose, stored securely and not passed on to third parties.

We therefore only use your personal data for communication with those visitors who expressly request contact and for processing the services and products offered on this website. We do not pass on your personal data without your consent, but we cannot rule out that this data will be viewed in the event of illegal behavior.

If you send us personal data by e-mail - outside of this website - we cannot guarantee secure transmission and protection of your data. We recommend that you never send confidential data unencrypted by e-mail.

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

Rights according to the General Data Protection Regulation

According to the provisions of the GDPR, you have the following rights:

• Right to rectification (Article 16 GDPR)

• Right to cancellation ("right to be forgotten") (Article 17 GDPR)

• Right to restriction of processing (Article 18 GDPR)

• Right to notification - obligation to notify in connection with the correction or deletion of personal data or the restriction of processing (Article 19 GDPR)

• Right to data portability (Article 20 GDPR)

• Right of objection (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 claims have been violated in any other way, you can contact the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI) .

TLS encryption with https

We use https to transmit data securely on the Internet (data protection through technology design, Article 25 (1) GDPR ). By using TLS (Transport Layer Security), an encryption protocol for secure data transmission on the Internet, we can ensure the protection of confidential data. You can recognize the use of this data transmission protection by the small lock symbol in the top left of the browser and the use of the https (instead of http) scheme as part of our Internet address.

Google Maps privacy policy

We use Google Maps from Google Inc. on our website. 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 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's servers. Here we want to go into more detail about what Google Maps is, why we use this Google service, which 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 for exact locations of cities, sights, accommodations or companies online using a PC, tablet or app. If companies are represented on Google My Business, additional information about the company is displayed in addition to the location. In order 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 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 of our efforts on this page 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 based. The route description always shows you the best or fastest way to us. You can find directions for routes by car, public transport, on foot or by bike. For us, the provision of Google Maps is part of our customer service.

What data is saved by Google Maps?

In order for Google Maps to be able to offer its full service, the company must record and save data from you. This includes the search terms entered, your IP address and the latitude and longitude coordinates. If you use the route planner function, the entered start address is also saved. However, this data storage happens on the Google Maps website. We can only inform you about this, but we cannot influence it. Since we have integrated Google Maps into our website, Google places 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 you with individual, personalized advertising.

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

Name: NID
Value: 188 = h26c1Ktha7fCQTx8rXgLyATyITJ311170235-5
Purpose: NID is used by Google to adapt 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 always get customized 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 data stored is complete. Changes can never be ruled out, especially when using cookies. In order to identify the NID cookie, a separate test page was created, where only Google Maps was integrated.

How long and where is the data stored?

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

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

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

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

With the automatic deletion function of location and activity data introduced in 2019, information on location determination and web / app activity - depending on your decision - is stored for either 3 or 18 months and then deleted. You can also delete this data manually from the history at any time using your Google account. If you want to completely prevent your location from being recorded, you must pause the "Web and app activity" section in your Google account. Click Data & Personalization, then click the Activity Settings option. Here you can turn the activities on or off.

You can also deactivate, delete or manage individual cookies in your browser. Depending on which browser you are using, this always works a little differently. The following instructions show how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

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

Google is an active participant in the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information on this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI . If you want to find out more about data processing by Google, we recommend the company's own data protection declaration at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de .

Embedded social media elements data protection declaration

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

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

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

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

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

Newsletter privacy policy

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

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

Custom Google Search Privacy Policy

We have integrated the Google plug-in for user-defined searches on our website. Google is the largest and best-known search engine worldwide and is operated by the US company Google Inc. Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for the European area. The custom Google search can transfer data from you to Google. In this data protection declaration we inform you why we use this plug-in, which data is processed and how you can manage or prevent this data transfer.

What is Google Custom Search?

The plug-in for custom Google search is a Google search bar directly on our website. The search takes place like on www.google.com , only the search results focus on our content and products or on a limited search circle.

Why do we use custom Google search on our website?

A website with a lot of interesting content often becomes so big that you might lose track of it. Over time, we have also accumulated a lot of valuable material and, as part of our service, we want you to find our content as quickly and easily as possible. Custom Google Search makes finding interesting content a breeze. The built-in Google plug-in improves the overall quality of our website and makes searching easier for you.

What data is saved by the custom Google search?

The custom Google search will only transfer data from you to Google if you actively use the Google search built into our website. This means that only when you enter a search term in the search bar and then confirm this term (eg click on “Enter”) your IP address will be sent to Google, saved and processed in addition to the search term. Based on the cookies set (such as 1P_JAR), it can be assumed that Google will also receive data on website usage. If you are looking for content during your visit to our website using the built-in Google search function and are logged into your Google account at the same time, Google can also assign the data collected to your Google account. As the website operator, we have no influence on what Google does with the data collected or how Google processes the data.

The following cookies are set in your browser if you use the custom Google search and are not signed in with a Google account:

Name: 1P_JAR
Value: 2020-01-27-13311170235-5
Purpose: This cookie collects statistics on website usage and measures conversions. A conversion occurs, for example, when a user becomes a buyer. The cookie is also used to show relevant advertisements to users.
Expiry date: after one month

Name: CONSENT
Value: WP.282f52311170235-9
Purpose: The cookie stores the status of a user's consent to the use of various Google services. CONSENT also provides security to check users and to protect user data from unauthorized attacks.
Expiry date: after 18 years

Name: NID
Value: 196 = pwIo3B5fHr-8
Purpose: NID is used by Google to adapt advertisements to your Google search. With the help of the cookie, Google “remembers” your entered search queries or your previous interaction with advertisements. This way you always get customized advertisements.
Expiry date: after 6 months

Note: This list cannot claim to be complete, as Google changes the choice of their cookies again and again.

How long and where is the data stored?

The Google servers are distributed all over the world. Since Google is an American company, most of the data is stored on American servers. At https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de you can see exactly where the Google servers are.
Your data is distributed on various physical data carriers. This means that the data can be accessed more quickly and better protected against possible manipulation. Google also has emergency programs for your data. If, for example, there are internal technical problems at Google and the servers no longer function as a result, the risk of service interruption and data loss remains low.
Depending on what data it is, Google stores it for different lengths of time. You can delete some data yourself, others are automatically deleted or anonymized by Google. But there is also data that Google stores longer if this is necessary for legal or business reasons.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

According to the data protection law of the European Union, you have the right to receive information about your data, to update it, to delete it or to restrict it. There is some data that you can delete at any time. If you have a Google account, you can delete data about your web activity there or choose to delete it after a certain period of time.
In your browser, you also have the option of deactivating or deleting cookies or managing them according to your wishes and preferences. Here you will find instructions for the most important browsers:

Chrome: Delete, activate and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

Google is an active participant in the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information on this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI . We hope we were able to provide you with the most important information about data processing by Google. If you want to find out more about this, we recommend Google's extensive data protection declaration at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de .

YouTube privacy policy

We have installed YouTube videos on our website. So we can present you 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 visit a page on our website that has embedded a YouTube video, your browser automatically connects to the YouTube or Google servers. Different data are transmitted (depending on the settings). Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all data processing in Europe.

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

What is youtube

On YouTube, users can watch, rate, comment and upload videos for free. Over the past few years, YouTube has become one of the most important social media channels in the world. So that we can display videos on our website, YouTube provides a code excerpt that we have incorporated on our site.

Why do we use YouTube videos on our website?

YouTube is the video platform with the most visitors and the best content. We strive to offer you the best possible user experience on our website. And of course interesting videos shouldn't be missing. With the help of our embedded videos, we provide you with other helpful content in addition to our texts and images. In addition, our website is more easily found on the Google search engine thanks to the embedded videos. Even if we place advertisements via Google Ads, thanks to the data collected, Google can really only show these advertisements to people who are interested in our offers.

Which data is saved by YouTube?

As soon as you visit one of our pages that has a YouTube video integrated, YouTube sets at least one cookie that saves 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. Further data can be contact details, any ratings, sharing content via social media or adding it to your favorites on YouTube.

If you are not signed 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. For example, your preferred language setting is retained. But a lot of interaction data cannot be saved because fewer cookies are set.

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

Name: YSC
Value: b9-CV6ojI5Y311170235-1
Purpose: This cookie registers a unique ID in order to save statistics of the videos seen.
Expiration date: after the session ends

Name: PREF
Value: f1 = 50000000
Purpose: This cookie also registers your unique ID. Via PREF, Google receives 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 the GPS location.
Expiry date: after 30 minutes

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

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

Name: APISID
Value: zILlvClZSkqGsSwI / AU1aZI6HY7311170235-
Purpose: This cookie is used to create a profile about 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 provides security to check 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 about your interests. These data help 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 about your interests.
Expiry date: after 2 years

Name: SID
Value: oQfNKjAsI311170235-
Purpose: This cookie stores your Google Account ID and your last login time in a digitally signed and encrypted form.
Expiry date: after 2 years

Name: SIDCC
Value: AN0-TYuqub2JOcDTyL
Purpose: This cookie stores information on how you use the website and which advertisements 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 and processes from you is stored on the Google servers. Most of these servers are in America. At https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de you can see exactly where the Google data centers are located. Your data is distributed on the servers. This means that the data can be accessed more quickly and is better protected against manipulation.

Google stores the collected data for different lengths of time. You can delete some data at any time, others are automatically deleted after a limited time and 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 be stored until you delete them. Even if you are not signed in to a Google Account, you can delete some data associated with your device, browser or app.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

Basically, you can delete data in the Google account manually. With the automatic deletion function of location and activity data introduced in 2019, information is stored depending on your decision - 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 Google deletes or deactivates cookies. Depending on which browser you are using, 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: manage cookies and website data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: deleting and managing cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

If you generally do not want cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. You can decide for each individual cookie whether or not to allow it. Since YouTube is a subsidiary of Google, there is a common privacy policy. If you want to find out more about the handling of your data, we recommend the data protection declaration at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.

YouTube Subscribe Button Privacy Policy

We have installed 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 in front of a red background and the white “Play symbol” to the left. The button can, however, also have 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 call up the YouTube website. We want to make access to our comprehensive content as easy as possible for you. Please note that this allows YouTube to save and process your data.

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

Name: YSC
Value: b9-CV6ojI5311170235Y
Purpose: This cookie registers a unique ID in order to save statistics of the videos seen.
Expiration date: after the session ends

Name: PREF
Value: f1 = 50000000
Purpose: This cookie also registers your unique ID. Via PREF, Google receives 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 the GPS location.
Expiry date: after 30 minutes

Name: VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
Value: 31117023595Chz8bagyU
Purpose: This cookie tries to estimate the bandwidth of the user on our website (with built-in 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 into your YouTube account, YouTube can save many of your actions / interactions on our website with the help of cookies and assign them to your YouTube account. This gives YouTube information such as how long you have been surfing on our site, what type of browser you are using, what screen resolution you prefer or what actions you perform.

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

Source: Created with the data protection generator from AdSimple in cooperation with Gebäudewir.de