Data protection

privacy

We have written this data protection declaration (version 08/30/2020-311207592) in order 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 decision-making options you have as a visitor to this website .

Unfortunately, it is in the nature of things that these explanations sound very technical, but we have tried to describe the most important things as simply and clearly as possible when creating them.

Automatic data storage

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 the cookies, our website knows who you are and offers you your usual default setting. In some browsers each cookie has its own file, in others such as Firefox all cookies are stored in a single file.

There are both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created directly by our site, third-party cookies are created by partner websites (e.g. Google Analytics). Each cookie must be evaluated individually, 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:

Name: _ga
Expiry time: 2 years
Use: Differentiation of website visitors
Example value: GA1.2.1326744211.152311207592
A browser should support the following minimum sizes:

A cookie should contain at least 4096 bytes
At least 50 cookies should 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 explain the different types of HTTP cookies.

There are 4 types of cookies:

Strictly Necessary 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 deliver individually tailored advertising to the user. 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 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 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 search the instructions in Google with the search term “delete cookies Chrome” or “disable cookies Chrome” in case of a Chrome browser or replace the word “Chrome” with the name of your browser, e.g. Edge, Firefox, Safari.

What about my 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 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 are not afraid of 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 to communicate with those visitors who expressly request contact and to process 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.

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 under 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 erasure (“right to be forgotten”) (Article 17 GDPR)
Right to restriction of processing (Article 18 GDPR)
Right to notification – obligation to notify in connection with 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)
If you believe that the processing of your data violates data protection law or your data protection rights have otherwise been violated in any way, you can contact the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI).

Evaluation of visitor behavior

In the following data protection declaration we inform you whether and how we evaluate data from your visit to this website. The evaluation of the collected data is usually anonymous and we cannot draw any conclusions about your person from your behavior on this website.

You can find out more about the possibilities of objecting to this evaluation of visit data in the following data protection declaration.

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 set 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 makes available to its users free of charge.

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, but 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 time. 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 are 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. In order to be able to delete this data prematurely, you must contact Google Support at https://support.google.com/?hl=de&tid=311207592. 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=311207592. 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 read about what data Google collects and what this data is used for at https://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/.

Google Analytics Privacy Policy

We use the analysis tracking tool Google Analytics (GA) 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. We also use the data to carry out our advertising and marketing measures more individually and more 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 approve it. Exceptions may be made where required by law.

The following cookies are used by Google Analytics:

Name: _ga
Value: 2.1326744211.152311207592-5
Purpose: By default, analytics.js uses the _ga cookie to save the user ID. Basically, it serves to differentiate between website visitors.
Expiry date: after 2 years

Name: _gid
Value: 2.1687193234.152311207592-1
Purpose: The cookie is also used to distinguish between website visitors.
Expiry date: after 24 hours

Name: _gat_gtag_UA_ Value: 1
Purpose: 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

Name: AMP_TOKEN
Value: no information
Purpose: 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 to a year

Name: __utma
Value: 1564498958.1564498958.1564498958.1
Purpose: This cookie can be 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

Name: __utmt
value: 1
Purpose: Like _gat_gtag_UA_, the cookie is used to throttle the request rate.
Expiry date: after 10 minutes

Name: __utmb
Value: 3.10.1564498958
Purpose: 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

Name: __utmc
Value: 167421564
Purpose: 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

Name: __utmz
Value: m|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/
Purpose: 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. This may have been another page or an advertisement.
Expiry date: after 6 months

Name: __utmv
Value: not specified
Purpose: The cookie is used to store user-defined user data. It is always updated when information is sent to Google Analytics.
Expiry date: after 2 years

Note: 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:

Heatmaps: Google creates so-called heatmaps. 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 defines 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: 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: Google Analytics or us, of course, we 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 and install the browser add-on from https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de. 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. For more information, see https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&tid=311207592. 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.

Google Analytics reports on demographics and interests

We have activated the functions for advertising reports in Google Analytics. The Demographics and Interests reports include information about age, gender, and interests. This enables us to get a better picture of our users without being able to assign this data to individual persons. You can find out more about the advertising functions at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3450482?hl=de_AT&utm_id=ad.

You can end the use of the activities and information from your Google account under “Advertising settings” at https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated by checking the box.

Google Analytics deactivation link
If you click on the following deactivation link, you can prevent Google from recording further visits to this website. Caution: Deleting cookies, using your browser’s incognito/private mode, or using a different browser will result in data being collected again.

Disable Google Analytics

Google Tag Manager Privacy Policy
For our website we use the Google Tag Manager from Google Inc. The company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services in Europe. This tag manager is one of many helpful marketing products from Google. Using the Google Tag Manager, we can centrally install and manage code sections from various tracking tools that we use on our website.

In this privacy policy, we want to explain to you in more detail what the Google Tag Manager does, why we use it and how data is processed.

What is Google Tag Manager?

The Google Tag Manager is an organizational tool that we can use to integrate and manage website tags centrally and via a user interface. Tags are small code sections that, for example, record (track) your activities on our website. For this purpose, JavaScript code sections are used in the source code of our site. The tags often come from internal Google products such as Google Ads or Google Analytics, but tags from other companies can also be integrated and managed via the manager. Such tags take on different tasks. They can collect browser data, feed marketing tools with data, embed buttons, set cookies and also track users across multiple websites.

Why do we use Google Tag Manager for our website?

As the saying goes: Organization is half the battle! And of course that also applies to the maintenance of our website. In order to make our website as good as possible for you and all people who are interested in our products and services, we need various tracking tools such as Google Analytics. The data collected by these tools show us what interests you most, where we can improve our services and to which people we should still show our offers. And for this tracking to work, we have to embed the appropriate JavaScript codes into our website. In principle, we could integrate each code section of the individual tracking tools separately into our source code. However, this requires a relatively large amount of time and it is easy to lose track. That’s why we use the Google Tag Manager. We can easily build in the necessary scripts and manage them from one place. In addition, the Google Tag Manager offers an easy-to-use user interface and you do not need any programming knowledge. This is how we manage to keep order in our daily jungle.

What data is stored by Google Tag Manager?

The Tag Manager itself is a domain that does not set cookies and does not store any data. It acts as a mere “manager” of the implemented tags. The data is recorded by the individual tags of the different web analysis tools. The data is passed through to the individual tracking tools in the Google Tag Manager and not saved.

However, it looks completely different with the integrated tags of the various web analysis tools, such as Google Analytics. Depending on the analysis tool, various data about your web behavior is usually collected, stored and processed with the help of cookies. To do this, please read our data protection texts on the individual analysis and tracking tools that we use on our website.

In the Tag Manager account settings, we have allowed Google to receive anonymous data from us. However, this only relates to the use and utilization of our tag manager and not to your data, which is stored via the code sections. We enable Google and others to receive selected data in an anonymous form. We therefore agree to the anonymous transfer of our website data. Despite extensive research, we were not able to find out exactly which summarized and anonymous data is forwarded. In any case, Google deletes all information that could identify our website. Google combines the data with hundreds of other anonymous website data and creates user trends as part of benchmarking measures. In benchmarking, your own results are compared with those of your competitors. Processes can be optimized on the basis of the information collected.

How long and where is the data stored?

When Google saves data, this data is saved on Google’s own servers. The servers are spread all over the world. Most are in America. At https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=de you can read exactly where the Google servers are located.

How long the individual tracking tools store your data can be found in our individual data protection texts for the individual tools.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

The Google Tag Manager itself does not set any cookies, but manages tags from various tracking websites. In our data protection texts for the individual tracking tools, you will find detailed information on how to delete or manage your data.

Google is an active participant in the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure data transfer of personal data. For more information, see https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&tid=311207592. If you want to learn more about the Google Tag Manager, we recommend the FAQs at https://www.google.com/intl/de/tagmanager/faq.html.

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 – then we will delete all data that was saved with the registration for the newsletter.

Google Ads (Google AdWords) Conversion Tracking Privacy Policy

We use Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) as an online marketing measure to advertise our products and services. In this way 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 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 of 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:

Name: conversion
Value: EhMI_aySuoyv4gIVled3Ch0llweVGAEgt-mr6aXd7dYlSAGQ311207592-3
Purpose: This cookie saves every conversion that you make on our site after you came to us via a Google Ad.
Expiry date: after 3 months

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

Note: The _gac cookie only appears in connection with Google Analytics. The list above 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 disable the Google conversion tracking cookie via your browser, you block 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. Downloading and installing this browser plug-in from https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996 will also disable all “advertising cookies”. 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.

Google reCAPTCHA Privacy Policy

Our primary goal is to secure and protect our website for you and for us in the best possible way. To ensure this, we use Google reCAPTCHA from Google Inc. The company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services in Europe. With reCAPTCHA we can determine if you really are a real human being and not a robot or other spam software. We understand spam to mean any unwanted information that is sent to us electronically, unsolicited. With the classic CAPTCHAS, you usually had to solve text or image puzzles to check them. With reCAPTCHA from Google, we don’t have to bother you with such puzzles most of the time. In most cases, it is sufficient if you simply tick the box and confirm that you are not a bot. With the new Invisible reCAPTCHA version, you don’t even have to check the box. You can find out exactly how this works and, above all, what data is used for this in the course of this data protection declaration.

What is reCAPTCHA?

reCAPTCHA is a free captcha service provided by Google that protects websites from spam software and abuse by non-human visitors. Most often, this service is used when filling out forms on the Internet. A captcha service is a type of automatic Turing test designed to ensure that an action on the internet is being performed by a human and not a bot. In the classic Turing test (named after the computer scientist Alan Turing), a human determines the difference between a bot and a human. In the case of captchas, the computer or a software program also takes care of this. Classic captchas work with small tasks that are easy for humans to solve, but present significant difficulties for machines. With reCAPTCHA you no longer have to actively solve puzzles. The tool uses modern risk techniques to distinguish humans from bots. Here you only have to tick the text field “I’m not a robot” or with Invisible reCAPTCHA even that is no longer necessary. With reCAPTCHA, a JavaScript element is integrated into the source text and then the tool runs in the background and analyzes your user behavior. The software calculates a so-called Captcha score from these user actions. Google uses this score to calculate how likely it is that you are a human before you enter the Captcha. reCAPTCHA or Captchas in general are always used when bots could manipulate or misuse certain actions (such as registrations, surveys, etc.).

Why do we use reCAPTCHA on our website?

We only want to welcome flesh and blood people to our site. Bots or spam software of all kinds can safely stay at home. That’s why we’re doing everything we can to protect ourselves and offer you the best possible user experience. For this reason we use Google reCAPTCHA from Google. So we can be pretty sure that we remain a “bot-free” website. By using reCAPTCHA, data is transmitted to Google to determine whether you are really a human being. reCAPTCHA therefore serves to ensure the security of our website and subsequently also your security. For example, without reCAPTCHA it could happen that a bot registers as many email addresses as possible during registration in order to then “spam” forums or blogs with unwanted advertising content. With reCAPTCHA we can avoid such bot attacks.

What data is stored by reCAPTCHA?

reCAPTCHA collects personal data from users to determine whether the actions on our website really come from people. The IP address and other data that Google needs for the reCAPTCHA service can therefore be sent to Google. IP addresses are almost always shortened within the member states of the EU or other contracting states of the Agreement on the European Economic Area before the data ends up on a server in the USA. The IP address is not combined with other data from Google unless you are logged in with your Google account while using reCAPTCHA. First, the reCAPTCHA algorithm checks whether Google cookies from other Google services (YouTube, Gmail, etc.) are already placed on your browser. Then reCAPTCHA sets an additional cookie in your browser and captures a snapshot of your browser window.

The following list of collected browser and user data does not claim to be complete. Rather, they are examples of data that, to our knowledge, are processed by Google.

Referrer URL (the address of the page the visitor came from)
IP address (e.g. 256.123.123.1)
Information about the operating system (the software that enables your computer to operate. Known operating systems are Windows, Mac OS X or Linux)
Cookies (small text files that store data in your browser)
Mouse and keyboard behavior (every action you perform with the mouse or keyboard is saved)
Date and language settings (which language or which date you have preset on your PC is saved)
All JavaScript objects (JavaScript is a programming language that allows websites to adapt to the user. JavaScript objects can collect all kinds of data under one name)
Screen resolution (shows how many pixels the image display consists of)
It is undisputed that Google uses and analyzes this data even before you click on the “I’m not a robot” checkbox. With the Invisible reCAPTCHA version, you don’t even have to check the box and the whole recognition process runs in the background. Google does not tell you in detail how much and what data Google stores.

The following cookies are used by reCAPTCHA: Here we refer to the reCAPTCHA demo version from Google at https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api2/demo. All of these cookies require a unique identifier for tracking purposes. Here is a list of cookies set by Google reCAPTCHA on the demo version:

Name: IDE
Value: WqTUmlnmv_qXyi_DGNPLESKnRNrpgXoy1K-pAZtAkMbHI-311207592-8
Purpose: This cookie is set by the company DoubleClick (also belongs to Google) in order to register and report the actions of a user on the website when dealing with advertisements. In this way, the effectiveness of the advertising can be measured and appropriate optimization measures can be taken. IDE is stored in browsers under doubleclick.net domain.
Expiry date: after one year

Name: 1P_JAR
Value: 2019-5-14-12
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 display relevant advertisements to users. Furthermore, the cookie can be used to prevent a user from seeing the same ad more than once.
Expiry date: after one month

Name: ANID
Value: U7j1v3dZa3112075920xgZFmiqWppRWKOr
Purpose: We were not able to find out much information about this cookie. In Google’s privacy policy, the cookie is used in connection with “advertising cookies” such as e.g. For example, “DSID”, “FLC”, “AID”, “TAID” are mentioned. ANID is stored under domain google.com.
Expiry date: after 9 months

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 is also used for security to screen users, prevent fraudulent login information and protect user data from unauthorized attacks.
Expiry date: after 19 years

Name: NID
Value: 0WmuWqy311207592zILzqV_nmt3sDXwPeM5Q
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. So you always get tailor-made advertisements. The cookie contains a unique ID to collect the user’s personal settings for advertising purposes.
Expiry date: after 6 months

Name: DV
Value: gEAABBCjJMXcI0dSAAAANbqc311207592-4
Purpose: As soon as you have ticked the “I am not a robot” checkbox, this cookie will be set. The cookie is used by Google Analytics for personalized advertising. DV collects information in an anonymous form and is further used to make user distinctions.
Expiry date: after 10 minutes

Note: This list cannot claim to be complete, as experience has shown that Google changes the choice of its cookies again and again.

How long and where is the data stored?

By inserting reCAPTCHA, your data will be transferred to the Google server. Where exactly this data is stored is not made clear by Google, even after repeated inquiries. Without having received confirmation from Google, it can be assumed that data such as mouse interaction, time spent on the website or language settings are stored on the European or American Google servers. The IP address that your browser transmits to Google is generally not merged with other Google data from other Google services. However, if you are logged into your Google account while using the reCAPTCHA plugin, the data will be merged. The deviating data protection regulations of the company Google apply.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage?

If you do not want any data about you and your behavior to be transmitted to Google, you must log out of Google completely and delete all Google cookies before you visit our website or use the reCAPTCHA software. In principle, the data is automatically transmitted to Google as soon as you access our site. To delete this data again, you must contact Google Support at https://support.google.com/?hl=de&tid=311207592.

So if you use our website, you agree that Google LLC and its representatives automatically collect, process and use data.

You can learn a little more about reCAPTCHA on Google’s web developer page at https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/. Google goes into the technical development of the reCAPTCHA in more detail here, but you won’t find precise information about data storage and data protection-related topics there either. A good overview of the basic use of data at Google can be found in the in-house data protection declaration at https://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/.

Source: Created with AdSimple’s data protection generator in cooperation with hashtagmann.de