Privacy policy
We take the protection of your personal data very seriously. We treat your personal data confidentially and in accordance with the statutory data protection regulations and this data protection declaration.
As a rule, it is possible to use our website without providing personal data. Insofar as personal data (e.g. name, address or e-mail address) is collected on our website, this is always done on a voluntary basis as far as possible. This data will not be passed on to third parties without your express consent.
We would like to point out that data transmission on the Internet (e.g. communication by e-mail) can have security gaps. Complete protection of data against access by third parties is not possible.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Comments
When visitors post comments on the website, we collect the data displayed in the comment form, as well as the visitor’s IP address and the user agent string (this identifies the browser) to assist in spam detection.
An anonymised string may be created from your email address (also called a hash) and passed to the Gravatar service to check if you are using it. The privacy policy of the Gravatar service can be found here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After your comment has been approved, your profile picture will be publicly visible in the context of your comment.
Media
If you are a registered user and upload photos to this website, you should avoid uploading photos with an EXIF GPS location. Visitors to this website may download photos stored on this website and extract their location information.
Contact forms
If you send us enquiries via a contact form, the information you provide in the enquiry form, including the contact details you provide there, will be stored by us for the purpose of processing the enquiry and in case of follow-up questions. We do not pass on this data without your consent.
Cookies
When you post a comment on our website, this may constitute consent to store your name, email address and website in cookies. This is a convenience feature so that when you post another comment you don’t have to re-enter all this data. These cookies are stored for one year.
If you have an account and log in to this website, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie does not contain any personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will set some cookies to store your login information and viewing options. Login cookies expire after two days and display option cookies expire after one year. If you select “Stay signed in” when you sign up, your sign-in will be maintained for a fortnight. When you log out of your account, the login cookies are deleted.
When you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie is stored in your browser. This cookie does not contain any personal data and only refers to the article ID of the article you have just edited. The cookie expires after one day.
Embedded content from other websites
Posts on this website may contain embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves exactly as if the visitor had visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Analytics services
Google Analytics
This website uses functions of the web analysis service Google Analytics. The provider is Google Inc, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA.
Google Analytics uses so-called “cookies”. These are text files that are stored on your computer and enable an analysis of your use of the website. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States.
IP anonymisation
We have activated the IP anonymisation function on this website. This means that your IP address is shortened by Google within member states of the European Union or in other contracting states of the Agreement on the European Economic Area before being transmitted to the USA. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the USA and shortened there. On behalf of the operator of this website, Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage to the website operator. The IP address transmitted by your browser as part of Google Analytics will not be merged with other Google data.
Browser plugin
You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. You can also prevent the collection of data generated by the cookie and related to your use of the website (including your IP address) by Google and the processing of this data by Google by downloading and installing the browser plugin available at the following link: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de.
Objection to data collection
You can prevent the collection of your data by Google Analytics by clicking on the following link. An opt-out cookie will be set, which will prevent the collection of your data during future visits to this website: Deactivate Google Analytics
For more information on how Google Analytics handles user data, please see Google’s privacy policy: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=de
Demographic characteristics with Google Analytics
This website uses the “demographic characteristics” function of Google Analytics. This allows reports to be generated that contain statements about the age, gender and interests of site visitors. This data comes from interest-based advertising from Google as well as visitor data from third-party providers. This data cannot be assigned to a specific person. You can deactivate this function at any time via the ad settings in your Google account or generally prohibit the collection of your data by Google Analytics as shown in the item “Objection to data collection”.
Social networks
Functions of the Twitter service are integrated on our pages. These functions are offered by Twitter Inc, 1355 Market Street, Suite 900, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA. By using Twitter and the “Re-Tweet” function, the websites you visit are linked to your Twitter account and made known to other users. In the process, data is also transmitted to Twitter. We would like to point out that we, as the provider of the pages, have no knowledge of the content of the transmitted data or its use by Twitter. You can find more information on this in Twitter’s privacy policy at https://twitter.com/privacy.
You can change your privacy settings on Twitter in the account settings at: https://twitter.com/account/settings.
Functions of the Instagram service are integrated on our pages. These functions are offered by Instagram Inc., 1601 Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA, 94025, USA. If you are logged into your Instagram account, you can link the content of our pages to your Instagram profile by clicking on the Instagram button. This allows Instagram to associate the visit to our pages with your user account. We would like to point out that we, as the provider of the pages, have no knowledge of the content of the transmitted data or its use by Instagram.
You can find more information on this in Instagram’s privacy policy:
https://instagram.com/about/legal/privacy/
YouTube
Our website uses plugins from the YouTube site operated by Google. The operator of the site is YouTube, LLC, 901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066, USA. When you visit one of our pages equipped with a YouTube plugin, a connection to the YouTube servers is established. This tells the YouTube server which of our pages you have visited.
If you are logged into your YouTube account, you enable YouTube to assign your surfing behaviour directly to your personal profile. You can prevent this by logging out of your YouTube account.
Further information on the handling of user data can be found in YouTube’s privacy policy at: https://www.google.de/intl/de/policies/privacy.
Further Information
How long we store your data
When you post a comment, it is stored indefinitely, including metadata. This allows us to automatically detect and approve follow-up comments instead of keeping them in a moderation queue.
For users who register on our website, we also store the personal information they provide in their user profiles. All users can view, change or delete their personal information at any time (the username cannot be changed). Administrators of the website can also view and change this information.
What rights you have to your information
If you have an account on this website or have posted comments, you may request an export of your personal information from us, including any information you have provided to us. You can also request the deletion of any personal data we hold about you. This does not include data that we need to retain for administrative, legal or security purposes.