DATA PROTECTION

data protection

We have written this data protection declaration (version 20.04.2020-111268675) in order to provide you with information in accordance with the requirements of General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 to explain 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 when creating them.

Automatic data storage

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

If you visit our website as you are right 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 hostname and IP address of the device from which access is being 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 cannot rule out that this data will be viewed in the event of illegal behavior.

cookies

Our website uses HTTP cookies to store 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 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 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 stored in the cookie folder, which is basically 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 from you, such as language or personal page settings. When you visit 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 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 evaluated individually, since 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 also cannot access information on your PC.

For example, cookie data can look like this:

Surname: _ga
Value: GA1.2.1326744211.152111268675-9
Purpose of use: Differentiation of 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?

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:

Essential cookies
These cookies are necessary to ensure basic functions of the website. For example, these cookies are needed if a user puts a product in the shopping cart, 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 their 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 behavior of the website in different browsers.

Targeting cookies
These cookies ensure a better user experience. For example, entered locations, 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 tailored advertising. This can be very useful, but also very annoying.

Usually, when you visit a website for the first time, you will be 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 for yourself 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 or deactivating cookies or only partially allowing 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, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing Cookies and Website Data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

If you generally do not want any 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 you allow the cookie or not. The procedure differs depending on the browser. It is best to look for the instructions in Google with the search term “Delete cookies Chrome” or “Deactivate cookies Chrome” in the case of a Chrome browser.

What about my data protection?

The so-called “Cookie Guidelines” have been in place since 2009. It states that the storage of cookies requires your consent. Within the EU countries, however, there are still very different reactions to these directives. In Austria, however, this directive was implemented in Section 96 (3) of the Telecommunications Act (TKG).

If you want to know more about cookies and don't shy away from technical documentation, we recommend https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6265, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments 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 when submitting a form or comments on the blog, will be stored by us together with the time and the IP Address used only for the purpose stated, kept safe 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 the processing of 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 - thus outside of this website - we cannot guarantee a secure transmission and the protection of your data. We recommend that you never send confidential data unencrypted by e-mail.

TLS encryption with https

We use https to transmit data securely on the Internet (data protection through technology design Article 25 paragraph 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 protection of data transmission by the small lock symbol in the top left corner of the browser and the use of the https scheme (instead of http) as part of our Internet address.

Google Fonts Privacy Policy

We use Google Fonts on our website. These are the “Google fonts” from Google Inc. The company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services in Europe.

You do not need to register or enter a password to use Google fonts. Furthermore, no cookies are stored in your browser. The files (CSS, typefaces/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 don't have to worry about your Google account data 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. How the data storage looks exactly, we will look at in detail.

What are Google Fonts?

Google Fonts (formerly Google Web Fonts) is a directory of over 800 fonts that Google Make it available to your users for free.

Many of these fonts are released under the SIL Open Font License, while others are released 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 and do not 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 optimized 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 small file size ensures fast loading times. 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 partially distort texts or entire websites. 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). So we use Google Fonts so that we can present our entire online service as beautifully and uniformly as possible.

Which data is stored by Google?

When you visit our website, the fonts are reloaded via a Google server. This external call transmits data to the Google servers. In this way, Google also recognizes that you or your IP address is visiting our website. The Google Fonts API was designed to reduce the use, storage and collection of end-user data to what is necessary for proper font delivery. Incidentally, API stands for "Application Programming Interface" and serves, among other things, as a data transmitter in the software sector.

Google Fonts securely stores CSS and font requests on Google and is therefore protected. The collected usage figures allow Google to determine how well the individual fonts are received. Google publishes the results on internal analysis pages, such as Google Analytics. 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 noted, however, that with each Google Font request, information such as language settings, IP address, browser version, browser screen resolution and browser name are automatically transmitted 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 enables us to use the fonts using a Google style sheet. A style sheet is a template that you can use to change the design or font of a website, for example, quickly and easily.

The font files are stored by Google for one year. Google is thus pursuing the goal of fundamentally improving the loading time of websites. When millions of websites refer to the same fonts, they are cached after the first visit and immediately reappear on all other websites 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. To be able to delete this data prematurely, you must contact Google support https://support.google.com/?hl=de&tid=111268675 to contact. In this case, you only prevent data storage if you do not visit our site.

Unlike other web fonts, Google allows us unlimited access to all fonts. So we have unlimited access to a sea of fonts and thus get the best out of our website. You can find more about Google Fonts and other questions at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq?tid=111268675. Although Google addresses data protection issues there, it does not contain really detailed information about data storage. It is relatively difficult to get really precise information about stored data from Google.

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

Google Analytics Privacy Policy

We use the Google Analytics (GA) analysis tracking tool from the American company Google Inc. on our website. The company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services in Europe. Google Analytics collects data about your actions on our website. For example, if you click on a link, this action is stored in a cookie and sent to Google Analytics. The reports we receive from Google Analytics allow us to better tailor our website and service to your needs. In the following we will go into more detail about the tracking tool and, above all, inform you about which data is stored and how you can prevent this.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a tracking tool used to analyze traffic on our website. In order 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 take 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 reports may include the following:

  • Target group reports: With target group reports, we 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 provide us with helpful information on how to attract more people to our service.
  • Behavior Reports: Here we learn how you interact with our website. We can understand which path you take on our site and which links you click on.
  • Conversion reports: Conversion is a process in which you perform a desired action based on a marketing message. For example, when you go from being a mere website visitor to a buyer or newsletter subscriber. These reports enable us to learn more about how our marketing measures are resonating with you. This is how we want to increase our conversion rate.
  • Real-time reports: Here we always know immediately what is happening on our website. For example, we can see how many users are currently reading this text.

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 give us a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of our website. On the one hand, we can optimize our site so that interested people can find it more easily on Google. On the other hand, the data helps us to better understand you as a visitor. We therefore know exactly 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 more individually and cost-effectively. After all, it only makes sense to show our products and services to people who care.

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 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 any type of action you take 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 Google Analytics data unless we as the website operator authorize this. Exceptions may arise if required by law.

The following cookies are used by Google Analytics:

Surname: _ga
Value:2.1326744211.152111268675-5
Purpose of use: By default, analytics.js uses the _ga cookie to store the user ID. Basically, it serves to differentiate between website visitors.
Expiry Date: after 2 years

Surname: _gid
Value:2.1687193234.152111268675-1
Purpose of use: The cookie is also used to distinguish between website visitors
Expiry Date: after 24 hours

Surname: _gat_gtag_UA_
Value: 1
Purpose of use: Used to lower the request rate. If Google Analytics is provided via Google Tag Manager, this cookie is given the name _dc_gtm_ .
Expiry Date: after 1 minute

Surname: AMP_TOKEN
Value: not specified
Purpose of use: The cookie has 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 a year

Surname: __utma
Value:1564498958.1564498958.1564498958.1
Purpose of use: This cookie is used to track your behavior on the website and measure performance. The cookie is updated each time information is sent to Google Analytics.
Expiry Date: after 2 years

Surname: __utmt
Value: 1
Purpose of use: Like _gat_gtag_UA_, the cookie is used to throttle the request rate.
Expiry Date: after 10 minutes

Surname: __utmb
Value:3.10.1564498958
Purpose of use: 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

Surname: __utmc
Value: 167421564
Purpose of use: This cookie is used to set new sessions for returning visitors. This is a session cookie and is only stored until you close the browser.
Expiry Date: After closing the browser

Surname: __utmz
Value: m|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/
Purpose of use: The cookie is used to identify the source of traffic to our website. This means that the cookie stores where you came from on our website. That could have been another page or an advertisement.
Expiry Date: after 6 months

Surname: __utmv
Value: not specified
Purpose of use: The cookie is used to store custom user data. It is always updated when information is sent to Google Analytics.
Expiry Date: after 2 years

Annotation: This list cannot claim to be complete, since Google is constantly changing the choice of its cookies.

Here we show you an overview of the most important data that is collected with Google Analytics:

Heat maps: Google creates so-called heat maps. Heatmaps show exactly those areas that you click on. This is how we get information about where you are on our site.

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

bounce rate (Bounce rate): A bounce is when you only view 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 abbreviated form so that no clear 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: The technical information includes, among other things, your browser type, your Internet provider or your screen resolution.

Source of origin: Of course, Google Analytics or us are also interested in which website or which advertisement you came to our site from.

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

How long and where is the data stored?

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

Your data is distributed across different physical media. This has the advantage that the data can be called up more quickly and is better protected against manipulation. Every Google data center has emergency programs for your data. For example, if Google's hardware fails or natural disasters paralyze servers, the risk of a service interruption at Google remains low.

A standard storage period for your user data of 26 months is set for Google Analytics. Then your user data will be deleted. However, we have the option of choosing the retention period for user data ourselves. We have five options available for this:

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

When the specified period has expired, the data will be deleted once a month. This retention period applies to your data associated with cookies, user recognition and advertising IDs (e.g. cookies from 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 European Union data protection law, you have the right to access, update, delete or restrict your data. You can prevent Google Analytics from using your data by using the browser add-on to disable Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, dc.js). You can download the browser add-on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de download and install. Please note that this add-on only disables data collection by Google Analytics.

If you generally want to deactivate, delete or manage cookies (regardless of Google Analytics), there are separate instructions for each browser:

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing Cookies and Website Data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

Google Analytics is an active participant in the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure data transfer of personal data. You can find more information on this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&tid=111268675. We hope we were able to provide you with the most important information about data processing by Google Analytics. If you want 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.

Newsletter Privacy Policy

If you subscribe to our newsletter, you submit the above personal data and give us the right to contact you by email. We use the data stored when registering for the newsletter exclusively 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 - we will delete all data that was saved when you registered for the newsletter.

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

What is Google Ads conversion tracking?

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

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

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

We use Google Ads to draw attention to our offer on other websites. The aim is that our advertising campaigns really only reach those people who are interested in our offers. With the conversion tracking tool, we see which keywords, ads, ad groups and campaigns lead to the desired customer actions. We see how many customers interact with our ads on a device and then convert. This data enables us to calculate our cost-benefit factor, measure the success of individual advertising measures and consequently optimize our online marketing measures. With the help of the data obtained, we can also 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 embedded a conversion tracking tag or code snippet on our website to better analyze certain user actions. If you now click on one of our Google Ads ads, the "Conversion" cookie from a Google domain will be stored on your computer (usually in the browser) or mobile device. Cookies are small text files that store information on your computer.

Here is the data of the most important cookies for Google's conversion tracking:

Surname: conversion
Value: EhMI_aySuoyv4gIVled3Ch0llweVGAEgt-mr6aXd7dYlSAGQ111268675-3
Purpose of use: This cookie stores every conversion you make on our site after coming to us from a Google Ad.
Expiry Date: after 3 months

Surname: _gac
Value: 1.1558695989.EAIaIQobChMIiOmEgYO04gIVj5AYCh2CBAPrEAAYASAAEgIYQfD_BwE
Purpose of use: This is a classic Google Analytics cookie and is used to record various actions on our website.
Expiry Date: after 3 months

Annotation: The _gac cookie only appears in connection with Google Analytics. The above list does not claim to be complete, since Google also uses other cookies for analytical evaluation.

As soon as you complete an action on our website, Google recognizes the cookie and saves your action as a so-called conversion. As long as you surf our website and the cookie has not yet expired, we and Google will recognize that you have 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. Google Ads conversion tracking can be further refined and improved with the help of Google Analytics. For ads that Google displays in various places on the web, cookies with the name “__gads” or “_gac” may be set under our domain. Since September 2017, analytics.js has been storing various campaign information with the _gac cookie. The cookie saves this data as soon as you visit one of our pages for which Google Ads automatic tagging has been set up. 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 get 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" (used in connection with Google Analytics) have an expiry date of 3 months.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

You have the option not to participate in Google Ads conversion tracking. If you deactivate the Google conversion tracking cookie via your browser, you block the 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. Each browser works a little differently. Here are instructions on how to manage cookies in your browser:

Chrome: Delete, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Managing Cookies and Website Data with Safari

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

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Deleting and managing cookies

If you generally do not want any 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 you allow the cookie or not. By downloading and installing this browser plug-in on https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996 all "advertising cookies" are also deactivated. Keep in mind that by disabling these cookies you will not prevent the ads, only the personalized advertising.

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

Embedded Social Media Elements Privacy Policy

We integrate elements of social media services on our website to display images, videos and texts.
By visiting 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:

Source: Created with the Privacy Generator by AdSimple® in co-operation with aboutbusiness.at