Table of Contents

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• Privacy Policy

• Automatic Data Retention

• Cookies

• Storage of Personal Data

• Rights in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation

• Evaluation of Visitor Behaviour

• TLS encryption with https

• Google Maps Privacy Policy

• Google Fonts Local Privacy Policy

• Facebook Pixel Privacy Policy

• Amazon Associates Program Privacy Policy

• Embedded Social Media elements Privacy Policy

• Instagram Privacy Policy

• Zoom Privacy Policy

• Wix Privacy Policy

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Privacy Policy

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We created this Privacy Policy (version 25.11.2020-111495977), to declare which information we collect, how we use data and which options the users of our website have, according to the guidelines of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679

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Unfortunately, these subjects sound rather technical due to their nature, but we have put much effort into describing the most important things as simply and clearly as possible.

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Automatic Data Retention

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Every time you visit a website nowadays, certain information is automatically created and saved, just as it happens on this website.

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Whenever you visit our website such as you are doing right now, our webserver (computer on which this website is saved/stored) automatically saves data such as

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• the address (URL) of the accessed website

• browser and browser version

• the used operating system

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

• the host name and the IP-address of the device the website is accessed from

• date and time

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in files (webserver-logfiles).

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Generally, webserver-logfiles stay saved for two weeks and then get deleted automatically. We do not pass this information to others, but we cannot exclude the possibility that this data will be looked at in case of illegal conduct.

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Cookies

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Our website uses HTTP-cookies to store user-specific data.
For your better understanding of the following Privacy Policy statement, we will explain to you below what cookies are and why they are in use.

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What exactly are cookies?

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Every time you surf the internet, you use a browser. Common browsers are for example Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. Most websites store small text-files in your browser. These files are called cookies.

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What should not be dismissed, is that cookies are very useful little helpers. Nearly all websites use cookies. More accurately speaking these are HTTP-cookies, since there are also different cookies for other uses. http-cookies are small files which our website stores on your computer. These cookie files are automatically put into the cookie-folder, which is like the “brain” of your browser. A cookie consists of a name and a value. Moreover, to define a cookie, one or multiple attributes must be specified.

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Cookies save certain parts of your user data, such as e.g. language or personal page settings. When you re-open our website, your browser submits these “user specific” information back to our site. Thanks to cookies, our website knows who you are and offers you the settings you are familiar to. In some browsers every cookie has its own file, in others such as Firefox, all cookies are stored in one single file.

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There are both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created directly by our site, while third-party cookies are created by partner-websites (e.g. Google Analytics). Every cookie is individual, since every cookie stores different data. The expiration time of a cookie also varies – it can be a few minutes, or up to a few years. Cookies are no software-programs and contain no computer viruses, trojans or any other malware. Cookies also cannot access your PC’s information.

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This is an example of how cookie-files can look:

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name: _ga
value: GA1.2.1326744211.152111495977-9
purpose: differentiation between website visitors
expiration date: after 2 years

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A browser should support these minimum sizes:

• at least 4096 bytes per cookie

• at least 50 cookies per domain

• at least 3000 cookies in total

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Which types of cookies are there?

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What exact cookies we use, depends on the used services. We will explain this in the following sections of the Privacy Policy statement. Firstly, we will briefly focus on the different types of HTTP-cookies.

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There are 4 different types of cookies:

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Essential Cookies

These cookies are necessary to ensure the basic function of a website. They are needed when a user for example puts a product into their shopping cart, then continues surfing on different websites and comes back later in order to proceed to the checkout. Even when the user closed their window priorly, these cookies ensure that the shopping cart does not get deleted.

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Purposive Cookies

These cookies collect info about the user behaviour and record if the user potentially receives any error messages. Furthermore, these cookies record the website’s loading time as well as its behaviour within different browsers.

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Target-orientated Cookies

These cookies care for an improved user-friendliness. Thus, information such as previously entered locations, fonts or data in forms stay saved.

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Advertising Cookies

These cookies are also known as targeting-Cookies. They serve the purpose of delivering individually adapted advertisements to the user. This can be very practical, but also rather annoying.

Upon your first visit to a website you are usually asked which of these cookie-types you want to accept. Furthermore, this decision will of course also be saved in a cookie.

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How can I delete cookies?

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You yourself take the decision if and how you want to use cookies. Thus, no matter what service or website cookies are from, you always have the option to delete, deactivate or only partially allow them. Therefore, you can for example block cookies of third parties but allow any other cookies.

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If you want change or delete cookie-settings and would like to determine which cookies have been saved to your browser, you can find this info in your browser-settings:

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Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari

Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge

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If you generally do not want to allow any cookies at all, you can set up your browser in a way, to notify you whenever a potential cookie is about to be set. This gives you the opportunity to manually decide to either permit or deny the placement of every single cookie. The settings for this differ from browser to browser. Therefore, it might be best for you to search for the instructions in Google. If you are using Chrome, you could for example put the search phrase “delete cookies Chrome” or “deactivate cookies Chrome” into Google.

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How is my data protected?

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There is a “cookie policy” that has been in place since 2009. It states that the storage of cookies requires the user’s consent. However, among the countries of the EU, these guidelines are often met with mixed reactions. In Austria the guidelines have been implemented in § 96 section 3 of the Telecommunications Act (TKG).

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If you want to learn more about cookies and do not mind 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”.

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Storage of Personal Data

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Any personal data you electronically submit to us on this website, such as your name, email address, home address or other personal information you provide via the transmission of a form or via any comments to the blog, are solely used for the specified purpose and get stored securely along with the respective submission times and IP-address. These data do not get passed on to third parties.

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Therefore, we use personal data for the communication with only those users, who have explicitly requested being contacted, as well as for the execution of the services and products offered on this website. We do not pass your personal data to others without your approval, but we cannot exclude the possibility this data will be looked at in case of illegal conduct.

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If you send us personal data via email – and thus not via this website – we cannot guarantee any safe transmission or protection of your data. We recommend you, to never send confidential data via email.

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Rights in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation

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You are granted the following rights in accordance with the provisions of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and the Austrian Data Protection Act (DSG):

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• right to rectification (article 16 GDPR)

• right to erasure (“right to be forgotten“) (article 17 GDPR)

• right to restrict processing (article 18 GDPR)

• righ to notification – notification obligation regarding rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing (article 19 GDPR)

• right to data portability (article 20 GDPR)

• Right to object (article 21 GDPR)

• right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing – including profiling – (article 22 GDPR)

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If you think that the processing of your data violates the data protection law, or that your data protection rights have been infringed in any other way, you can lodge a complaint with your respective regulatory authority. For Austria this is the data protection authority, whose website you can access at https://www.data-protection-authority.gv.at/.

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Evaluation of Visitor Behaviour

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In the following Privacy Policy, we will inform you on if and how we evaluate the data of your visit to this website. The evaluation is generally made anonymously, and we cannot link to you personally based on your behaviour on this website.

You can find out more about how to disagree with the evaluation of visitor data, in the Privacy Policy below.

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TLS encryption with https

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We use https to transfer information on the internet in a tap-proof manner (data protection through technology design Article 25 Section 1 GDPR). With the use of TLS (Transport Layer Security), which is an encryption protocol for safe data transfer on the internet, we can ensure the protection of confidential information. You can recognise the use of this safeguarding tool by the little lock-symbol, which is situated in your browser’s top left corner, as well as by the use of the letters https (instead of http) as a part of our web address.

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Google Maps Privacy Policy

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On our website we use Google Maps of the company Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA). With the use of Google Maps, we can show you locations in a better way and can therefore adjust our service to your needs. Due to the utilisation of Google Maps, data gets transferred to Google and is saved on Google’s servers. In the following, we want to explain in detail what Google Maps is, why we use this Google service, what data is stored and how you can prevent this.

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What is Google Maps?

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Google Maps is an internet maps service of the company Google Inc. With Google Maps you can search for exact locations of cities, sights, accommodations or businesses online via a PC, a tablet or an app. If businesses are represented on Google My Business, the respective location as well as other information about the company are shown there. In order to show route directions, a location’s map sections can be integrated in a website through a HTML-code. Google Maps depicts the earth’s surface as either a road map or as air and satellite images. Due to the street view and high-quality satellite images, it is possible for exact representations to be made.

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Why do we use Google Maps on our website?

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The efforts we make on this page have the goal of giving you a useful and meaningful experience on our website. Through the integration of Google Maps, we can offer you essential information on various locations. Therefore, you can spot our office address with one glance. Furthermore, the route directions always show you the best and fastest way to us. You can retrieve the route directions for traveling either by car, by public transport, on foot or by bike. The integration of Google Maps is a part of our customer service.

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What data is stored by Google Maps?

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For Google Maps to offer its full services, the company must collect and store your data. This includes your entered search terms, your IP-address as well as your longitude and latitude coordinates. When you use the route-planner function, the entered start address is stored also. However, this data retention happens on Google Maps‘ websites. We can only inform you about it but cannot influence it in any way. Since we have included Google Maps on our website, Google will set at least one cookie (Name: NID) into your browser. This cookie saves data on your user behaviour. Google primarily uses this data to optimise ist own services and to provide you with individual, personalised advertisements.

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The following cookies are set in your browser due to the integration of Google Maps:

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Name: NID
Value: 188=h26c1Ktha7fCQTx8rXgLyATyITJ111495977-5
Purpose: Google uses NID in order to adjust advertisments to your Google searches. With the cookie’s help Google “remembers“ your most frequently entered search queries or your previous interaction with ads. That way you always receive customised adertisments. The cookie contains a unique ID, wich Google uses to collect your personal settings for advertising porposes.
Expiration date: after 6 months

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Note: We cannot guarantee completeness of the information on saved data. This is, because especially concerning the use of cookies, changes can happen anytime. To identify the cookie NID, a test page was created, to which Google Maps was included.

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How long and where is the data saved?

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There are Google servers in data centres across the entire planet. However, most servers are in America. For this reason, your data is widely stored in the USA. Here you can read in detail about where the Google servers are located: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=en

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Google distributes data to various data carriers. This makes it possible to retrieve the data faster and to better protect it from possible attempted manipulations. Every server has emergency programs. Thus, should for example a problem with Google’s hardware occur or should a natural disaster impact the servers, any data will quite certainly stay protected.

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Moreover, Google saves some data for a specified period. With some other data on the other hand, Google only offers the opportunity for deleting it manually. Furthermore, the company anonymises information (e.g. advertising data) in server logs, by deleting a part of the IP-address and cookie information after 9 to 18 months.

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How can I delete my data, or prevent data retention?

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Due to the automatic delete function for location and activity data, which was introduced in 2019, information that is used for determining your location and web or app activity is saved for either 3 or 18 months, depending on your preferred decision, and is deleted thereafter.

Furthermore, it is possible to delete this data manually from your browser history via your Google account anytime. If you want to prevent the determination of your location altogether, you must pause the category “Web and app activity” in your Google account. Click on “Data and personalisation” and then choose the option “Activity controls”. Here you can switch the activities on or off.

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Moreover, in your browser you can deactivate, delete or manage individual cookies. This function can differ a little, depending on what browser you are using. The following instructions will show you how to manage cookies in your browser:

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Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari

Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge

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If you generally do not want to permit any cookies, you can set up your browser in a way that ensures you get informed whenever a cookie is about to be placed. That way you can decide to either permit or refuse every single cookie.

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Google is an active participant of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and safe transfer of personal data. You can find more information on this on https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI.

If you want to find out more about Google’s data processing, we recommend the company’s internal privacy statement on https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-GB.

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Google Fonts Local Privacy Policy

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On our website we use Google Fonts, from the company Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA).

We integrated Google Fonts locally, so on our own webserver and not on Google’s servers. Hence, there is no connection to Google’s servers and consequently no data transfer or retention.

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What are Google Fonts?

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Google Fonts was previously called Google Web Fonts. It is an interactive list with over 800 fonts which Google LLC offer for free use. With the use of Google Fonts, it is possible to utilise fonts without uploading them to your own server. For that matter, in order to prevent any transfer of information to Google’s servers, we downloaded the fonts to our own server. This way we comply with the data privacy and do not transmit any data to Google Fonts.

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Unlike other web fonts, Google offers us unrestricted access to all its fonts. Thus, we have a vast sea of font types at our disposal, which helps us to get the most out of our website. You can find out more answers and information on Google Fonts at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq?tid=111495977.

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Facebook Pixel Privacy Policy

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We use Facebook’s Facebook pixel on our website. For that, we have implemented a code on our website. The Facebook pixel is a segment of a JavaScript code, which, in case you arrived on our website via Facebook ads, loads an array or functions that enable Facebook to track your user actions. For example, if you buy a product on our website, the Facebook pixel is triggered and then saves your actions on our website in one or more cookies. These cookies enable Facebook to match your user data (customer data such as IP address, user ID) with the data of your Facebook account. After that, Facebook deletes your data again. The collected data is anonymous as well as inaccessible and can only be used for ad placement purposes. If you are a Facebook user and you are logged in, your visit to our website is automatically assigned to your Facebook user account.

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We exclusively want to show our products or services to persons, who are interested in them. With the aid of the Facebook pixel, our advertising measures can get better adjusted to your wishes and interests. Therefore, Facebook users get to see suitable advertisement (if they allowed personalised advertisement). Moreover, Facebook uses the collected data for analytical purposes and for its own advertisements.

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In the following we will show you the cookies, which were set on a test page through the integration of the Facebook pixel. Please consider that these cookies are only examples. Depending on the interaction that is made on our website, different cookies are set.

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Name: _fbp
Value: fb.1.1568287647279.257405483-6111495977-7
Purpose: Dieses Cookie verwendet Facebook, um Werbeprodukte anzuzeigen.
Expiration date: after 3 months

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Name: fr
Value: 0aPf312HOS5Pboo2r..Bdeiuf…1.0.Bdeiuf.
Purpose: Dieses Cookie wird verwendet, damit Facebook-Pixel auch ordentlich funktioniert.
Expiration date: after 3 months

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Name: comment_author_50ae8267e2bdf1253ec1a5769f48e062111495977-3
Value: Name of the author
Purpose: This cookie saves the text and name of a user who e.g. leaves a comment.
Expiration date: after 12 months

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Name: comment_author_url_50ae8267e2bdf1253ec1a5769f48e062
Value: https%3A%2F%2Fwww.testseite…%2F (URL of the author)
Purpose: This cookie saved the URL of the website that the user types into a text box on our website.
Expiration date: after 12 months

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Name: comment_author_email_50ae8267e2bdf1253ec1a5769f48e062
Value: email address of the author
Purpose: This cookie saves the email address of the user, if they provided it on the website.
Expiration date: after 12 months

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Note: The above-mentioned cookies relate to an individual user behaviour. Moreover, especially concerning the usage of cookies, changes at Facebook can never be ruled out.

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If you are registered at Facebook, you can change the settings for advertisements yourself at https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen. If you are not a Facebook user, you can manage your user based online advertising at https://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/your-ad-choices. You have the option to activate or deactivate any providers there.

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If you want to learn more about Facebook’s data protection, we recommend you the view the company’s in-house data policies at https://www.facebook.com/policy.php.

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Privacy Policy for Facebook‘s Automatic Advanced Matching

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Along with Facebook’s pixel function, we have also activated the automatic advanced matching. This function allows us to send hashed emails, names, genders, cities, states, postcodes and dates of birth or telephone numbers as additional information to Facebook, provided you have made them available to us. This activation gives us the opportunity, to customise advertising campaigns even better to persons who are interested in our services or products.

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Amazon Associates Program Privacy Policy

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We use the Amazon Associates Program of the company Amazon.com Inc on our website. The responsible bodies for the privacy statement are Amazon Europe Core S.à.r.l., Amazon EU S.à.r.l, Amazon Services Europe S.à.r.l. as well as Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., which are based at 5, Rue Plaetis, L-2338 Luxemburg, along with Amazon Instant Video Germany Ltd., which is located at Domagkstraße 28, 80807 Munich. Thereby, Amazon Germany Services Ltd. at Marcel-Breuer-Straße 12, 80807 Munich is responsible for data processing. Due to the use of the Amazon Associates Program, Amazon can receive, store and process your data.

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In this privacy statement we will inform you on what data this can be, why we use the program and how you can manage or prevent the data transmission.

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What is the Amazon Associates Program?

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The Amazon Associates Program is an affiliate marketing program of the online shipping company Amazon.co.uk. Like any affiliate program, the Amazon Associates Program is also based on the principle of intermediation commissions. Amazon (or we) place advertisements or partner links on our website, which let us receive a reimbursement of advertising costs (commission) if you click on them and buy a product on Amazon.

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Why do we use the Amazon Associates Program on our website?

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Our aim is to provide you a pleasant time with extensive, helpful content. Therefore, we put a lot of work and energy into the development of our website. With the aid of the Amazon Associates Program, we can receive a little remuneration for our work. Of course, every affiliate link to Amazon is related with our theme and shows offers that may interest you.

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What data is stored by the Amazon Associates Program?

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As soon as you interact with the products and services of Amazon, the company collects your data. Amazon differentiates between information you actively gave to the business and information that is collected and retained automatically. “Active information” include name, email address, telephone number, age, payment details or location information. So-called “automatic information” are primarily saved by cookies. This includes information, user behaviour, IP address, device information (browser type, operating systems) or the URL. Moreover, Amazon also saves the clickstream, which is the path (order of pages) you make as a user in order to get to a product. Amazon also stores cookies in your browser to retrace the origin of an order. This enables the company to identify if you clicked an Amazon ad or an affiliate link on our website.

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If you have an Amazon account and are logged in to it while you surf our website, the collected data can be allocated to your account. You can prevent this by logging out of Amazon before surfing our website.

In the following we will show you exemplary cookies that are placed in your browser when you click an Amazon link on our website.

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Name: uid
Value: 3230928052675285215111495977-9
Purpose: This cookie stores a unique user ID and collects information on your website activity.
Expiry date: after 2 months

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Name: ad-id
Value: AyDaInRV1k-Lk59xSnp7h5o
Purpose: This cookie is provided by amazon-adsystem.com and serves the company regarding various advertising purposes.
Expiry date: after 8 months

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Name: uuid2
Value: 8965834524520213028111495977-2
Purpose: This cookie allows targeted and interest-based advertising via the AppNexus platform. By the IP address it collects and retains anonymous data on what ads you clicked and which sites you opened.
Expiry date: after 3 months

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Name: session-id
Value: 262-0272718-2582202111495977-1
Purpose: This cookie stores a unique user ID that the server assigns to you for the duration of a website visit (session). If you visit the site again, the information saved in there gets retrieved again.
Expiry date: after 15 years

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Name: APID
Value: UP9801199c-4bee-11ea-931d-02e8e13f0574
Purpose: This cookie stores information on how you use a website, and on what ads you looked at before your visit to the website.
Expiry date: after one year

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Name: session-id-time
Value: tb:s-STNY7ZS65H5335FZEVPE|1581329862486&t:1581329864300&adb:adblk_no
Purpose: This cookie records the time you spend on a website with a unique cookie ID.
Expiry date: after 2 years

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Name: csm-hit
Value: 2082754801l
Purpose: We could not find any detailed information on this cookie.
Expiry date: after 15 years

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Note: Please note, that this list merely shows examples of cookies and does not claim to be exhaustive.

Amazon use the obtained information to better tailor their advertisements to their users’ interests.

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How long and where is my data saved?

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Amazon saves personal data for as long as it is required for both Amazon’s business services, and for legal reasons. As the company’s headquarters are in the USA, any collected data is stored on American servers.

How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

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You always have the right to access your personal data and clear it. If you have an Amazon account, you can manage or delete many of the collected data.

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Furthermore, your browser offers another option for managing Amazon’s processing and retention of data according to your preferences. There you can manage, clear or delete cookies.
This works a little different on every browser. Here you can find instructions for the most common browsers:

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Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari

Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge

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Amazon is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates correct transfer of personal data between the USA and EU. You can find more information on this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000TOWQAA4. We hope we could make you more familiar with the most important information on data transfer concerning the Amazon Associates Program. You can find more information at https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201909010.

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Embedded Social Media elements Privacy Policy

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We have embedded elements from social media services on our website, to display pictures, videos and texts. By visiting pages that present such elements, data is transferred from your browser to the respective social media service, where it is stored. We do not have access to this data.
The following links lead to the respective social media services’ sites, where you can find a declaration on how they handle your data:

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• Instagram Data Policy: https://help.instagram.com/519522125107875

• For YouTube, the Google Privacy Policy applies: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-GB

• Facebook Data Policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy

• Twitter Privacy Policy: https://twitter.com/en/privacy

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Instagram Privacy Policy

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We have integrated functions of Instagram to our website. Instagram is a social media platform of the company Instagram LLC, 1601 Willow Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025, USA. Since 2012, Instagram is a subsidiary company of Facebook Inc. and is a part of Facebook’s products. The inclusion of Instagram’s contents on our website is called embedding. With this, we can show you Instagram contents such as buttons, photos or videos directly on our website. If you open websites of our online presence, that have an integrated Instagram function, data gets transmitted to, as well as stored and processed by Instagram. Instagram uses the same systems and technologies as Facebook. Therefore, your data will be processed across all Facebook firms.

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In the following, we want to give you a more detailed insight on why Instagram collects data, what data these are and how you can control data processing. As Instagram belongs to Facebook Inc., we have, on the one hand received this information from the Instagram guidelines, and on the other hand from Facebook’s Data Policy.

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What is Instagram?

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Instagram is one of the most famous social media networks worldwide. Instagram combines the benefits of a blog with the benefits of audio-visual platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo. To “Insta“ (how the platform is casually called by many users) you can upload photos and short videos, edit them with different filters and also share them to other social networks. Also, if you do not want to be active on Instagram yourself, you can just follow other interesting users.

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Why do we use Instagram on our website?

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Instagram is a social media platform whose success has skyrocketed within recent years. Naturally, we have also reacted to this boom. We want you to feel as comfortable as possible on our website. Therefore, we attach great importance to diversified contents. With the embedded Instagram features we can enrich our content with helpful, funny or exciting Instagram contents.

 

Since Instagram is a subsidiary company of Facebook, the collected data can also serve us for customised advertising on Facebook. Hence, only persons who are genuinely interested in our products or services can see our ads.

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

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What data is saved by Instagram?

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Whenever you land on one of our sites, which have Instagram functions (i.e. Instagram photos or plugins) integrated to them, your browser automatically connects with Instagram’s servers. Thereby, data is sent to, as well as saved and processed by Instagram. This always happens, whether you have an Instagram account or not. Moreover, it includes information on our website, your computer, your purchases, the advertisements you see and on how you use our offer. The date and time of your interaction is also stored.

 

If you have an Instagram account or are logged in, Instagram saves significantly more data on you.

Facebook distinguishes between customer data and event data. We assume this is also the case for Instagram. Customer data are for example names, addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses. These data are only transmitted to Instagram, if they have been “hashed” first. Thereby, a set of data is transformed into a string of characters, which encrypts any contact data. Moreover, the aforementioned “event data“ (data on your user behaviour) is transmitted as well. It is also possible, that contact data may get combined with event data. The collected data data is matched with any data Instagram already has on you.

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Furthermore, the gathered data are transferred to Facebook via little text files (cookies) which usually get set in your browser. Depending on the Instagram function used, and whether you have an Instagram account yourself, the amount of data that gets stored varies.

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We assume data processing on Instagram works the same way as on Facebook. Therefore, if you have an account on Instagram or have visited www.instagram.com, Instagram has set at least one cookie. If this is the case, your browser uses the cookie to send information to Instagram, as soon as you come across an Instagram function. No later than 90 days (after matching) the data is deleted or anonymised. Even though we have studied Instagram’s data processing in-depth, we cannot tell for sure what exact data Instagram collects and retains.

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In the following we will show you a list of the least cookies placed in your browser when click on an Instagram function (e.g. button or an Insta picture). In our test we assume you do not have an Instagram account, since if you would be logged in to your Instagram account, your browser would place significantly more cookies.

The following cookies were used in our test:

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Name: csrftoken
Value: “”
Purpose: This cookie is most likely set for security reasons to prevent falsifications of requests. We could not find out more information on it.
Expiry date: after one year

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Name: mid
Value: “”
Purpose: Instagram places this cookie to optimise its own offers and services in- and outside of Instagram. The cookie allocates a unique user ID.
Expiry date: after end of session

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Name: fbsr_111495977124024
Value: no information
Purpose: This cookie stores the login request of Instagram app users.
Expiry date: after end of session

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Name: rur
Value: ATN
Purpose: This is an Instagram cookie which guarantees functionality on Instagram.
Expiry date: after end of session

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Name: urlgen
Value: “{”194.96.75.33”: 1901}:1iEtYv:Y833k2_UjKvXgYe111495977”
Purpose: This cookie serves Instagram’s marketing purposes.
Expiry date: after end of session

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Note: We do not claim this list to be exhaustive. The cookies that are placed in each individual case, depend on the functions embedded as well as on your use of Instagram.

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How long and where are these data stored?

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Instagram shares the information obtained within the Facebook businesses with external partners and persons you are globally connected with. Data processing is done according to Facebook’s internal data policy. Your data is distributed to Facebook’s servers across the world, partially for security reasons. Most of these servers are in the USA.

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How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?

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Thanks to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have the right of information, rectification, transfer and deletion of your data. Furthermore, you can manage your data in Instagram’s settings. If you want to delete your data on Instagram completely, you will have to delete your Instagram account permanently.

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And this is how an Instagram account can be deleted:

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First, open the Instagram app. Then, navigate to your profile page, select the three bars in the top right, choose “Settings” and then click “Help”. Now, you will be redirected to the company’s website, where you must click on “Managing Your Account” and then “Delete Your Account”.

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When you delete your account completely, Instagram deletes posts such as your photos and status updates. Any information other people shared about you are not a part of your account and do therefore not get deleted.

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As mentioned before, Instagram primarily stores your data via cookies. You can manage, deactivate or delete these cookies in your browser. Depending on your browser, managing them varies a bit. We will show you the instructions of the most relevant browsers here.

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Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari

Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox

Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge

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Generally, you can set your browser to notify you whenever a cookie is about to be set. Then you can individually decide upon the permission of every cookie.

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Instagram is a subsidiary company of Facebook Inc. and Facebook is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. This framework regulates correct transfer between the USA and the European Union. At https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000GnywAAC you can find out more about this. We gave our best to make you familiar with the most important information on data processing by Instagram. At https://help.instagram.com/519522125107875 you can find out more on Instagram’s data policies.

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