PRIVACY POLICY

We thank you for your interest in our website. We put a strong priority on the protection of your privacy. The following privacy policy contains detailed information on how we handle your data. Note: this English translation is provided for informational purposes only. The German version alone is legally binding.

1. ACCESS DATA AND HOSTING

You can visit our website without divulging any personal information. Each time a website is visited, the web service documents that visit in its server logfile, which typically contains the name of the requested file, your IP address, the date and time of the page was loaded, volumes of transferred data, and the requesting provider (access data).

This access data is used exclusively to ensure the smooth operation of the website as well as for analysis to improve our offerings. This is allowed in Section 6 Subsection 1(f) of the GDPR, as part of a weighing of interests, in the service of our justified interest in a correct presentation of our offerings. Access data is deleted no later than two weeks after the end of your visit to the site.

2. DATA COLLECTION AND USE FOR PROCESSING OF CONTRACT AND TO OPEN A CUSTOMER ACCOUNT

We collect personal data where you voluntarily share it with us as part of an order, or to contact us (such as using the contact form or email), or when opening a customer account. Mandatory fields are denoted as such, such as where we require the data to execute the contract, process your contact request, or open a customer account, and without which we could not process the order, open the account, or make contact with you. Which data is collected can be clearly ascertained based on the respective input forms. We use the data provided by you based on Section 6 Subsection 1(1.b) GDPR to fulfill the contract and process your queries. After complete fulfillment of the contract or deletion of your customer account, your data is then restricted from further processing and are deleted after the expiry of the statutory tax and commercial retention requirements, insofar as you have not expressly consented to additional use of your data or we have reserved the right to further data use as allowed by law and of which we are informing you in this privacy declaration. Customer accounts can be deleted at any time, such as through a message via the contact channels described below.

3. DATA FORWARDING

To fulfill the contract as per Section 6 Subsection 1(1.b) GDPR, we forward your data to the shipping company commissioned to deliver your order, insofar as this is necessary for the ordered goods. Depending on which payment processing firm you selected during the order process, we forward the payment data provided for this purpose to the commissioned financial institution, payment service firm, or payment service to handle the payment. In some cases, payment service firms collect this data themselves, insofar as you create an account there. In this case, you must register your payment data with the payment service provider during the order process. The privacy policy for the respective payment service provider applies in this case.

4. EMAIL NEWSLETTER AND POSTAL ADVERTISING

Email advertising with subscription to newsletter

If you subscribe to our newsletter, we use your required and/or separately requested data to send you our email newsletter on a regular basis, as allowed in Section 6 Subsection 1(1.a) GDPR.

It is possible to cancel the subscription to the newsletter at any time, either through a message to the contact options shown in the Legal Notes section of the website, or using the link provided for this purpose in the newsletter itself. When a subscription is canceled, we delete your email address, unless you have given express permission for your data to be used for other purposes or we have reserved the right to a different use of the data as allowed by law and about which this privacy declaration is informing you.

Email advertising without subscribing to the newsletter and your right of objection

If you provide your email address in connection with the sale of goods or services and have not objected to it specifically, we reserve the right to contact you as allowed in Section 7 Subsection 3 of the Law Against Unfair Competition (UWG) to send offers from our catalog on a routine basis by email for products similar to the one just purchased. This is allowed, as part of a weighing of interests, in the service of our justified interest in advertising our offerings to our customers.

You can object to this use of your email address at any time through a message to the contact channels listed in the Legal Notes section of the website or through a link provided for this purpose in the advertising email itself.

As part of its processing, the newspaper is dispatched on our behalf by a vendor, to whom we disclose your email. This service provider is based on one of the countries of the European Union or the European Economic Area.

Postal advertising and your rights of objection

Beyond this, we reserve the right to use your first and last name and postal address to send interesting offerings and information about our products via postal mail. This is allowed, as part of a weighing of interests, in the service of our justified interest in advertising our offerings to our customers, as specified in Section 6 Subsection 1(1.f) GDPR,

As part of their processing, the advertising mail is dispatched on our behalf by a vendor, to whom we disclose your email.

You can object to the storage and use of your data for these purposes at any time through a message to the contact channels described below.

5. COOKIES, WEB ANALYSIS, FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM

To provide an attractive look for our website and to allow for the use of certain functions to display suitable products or for market research purposes, we use ‘cookies’ on our various pages. These serve, as part of a weighing of interests, our justified interest in an optimized presentation of our offerings to our customers, as specified in Section 6 Subsection 1(1.f) GDPR, Cookies are small text files that are automatically stored on the device you use to browse our site. Some of these cookies (so-called ‘session cookies’) are deleted automatically at the end of your browser session, i.e., when you close your browser. Other cookies remain on the device you use to browse and allow us to recognize you when your browser loads our pages the next time you visit (persistent cookies). The duration of storage can be found in your browser’s cookie settings. You can configure your browser so that you are informed about the setting of cookies, and can decided whether to accept the cookies on an individual basis, to accept cookies for specific cases, or to generally bar the setting of cookies. Each browser differs in how cookie settings are administered. The process is detailed in the help menu of every browser, including an explanation of how to modify the cookie settings. The following links show where to find this information for the most common browsers:

Internet Explorer™: windows.microsoft.com/de-DE/windows-vista/Block-or-allow-cookies

Safari™: support.apple.com/kb/ph21411

Chrome™: support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py

Firefox™ support.mozilla.org/de/kb/cookies-erlauben-und-ablehnen

Opera™ : help.opera.com/Windows/10.20/de/cookies.html

Setting your browser to refuse cookies may restrict the full functionality of our website.

Use of Google (Universal) Analytics for web analysis

Insofar as you have proved consent as regulated in Section 6 Subsection 1(1.f) GDPR, this website uses Google (Universal) Analytics, a web analysis service of Google LLC (www.google.de) for website analysis. Google (Universal) Analytics uses methods that allow for an analysis of your usage of the website, such as through cookies. The automatically recorded information about your usage of this website is typically transferred to a Google server in the USA and stored there. Through the activation of IP anonymization on this website, your IP address is shortened prior to transmission within the member states of the European Union or in other members of the treaty on the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the USA and shortened there. The anonymized IP address transmitted by your browser as part of Google Analytics will never be combined with other data from Google. After the completion of the intended purposes and the end of the use of Google Analytics, all data we have collected in this regard will be deleted.

Google LLC is based on the USA and is certified based on the EU/US Privacy Shield. A current certificate can be viewed here. Based on this treaty between the USA and the European Commission, the latter organization attests to an appropriate level of privacy protection by the company certified for the Privacy Shield.

You can revoke your consent for future instances by downloading and installing the following browser plugin: tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout . It prevents the recording of the data created by the cooking and the data related to your usage of the website (incl. your IP address) as well as processing of said data by Google.

Instagram

Functions from the Instagram service are integrated into our pages. These functions are operated by Instagram Inc., 1601 Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA, 94025, USA. If you are logged into your Instagram account, then clicking on the Instagram button links the pages of our site to your Instagram profile. In this way, Instagram can associate your visit to our pages with our user account. We note herewith that we as the provider of the pages have no knowledge of the content of transmitted data and its usage by Instagram. For more information on this, please visit the Instagram privacy policy: https://instagram.com/about/legal/privacy

Facebook

Our website uses social plugins (“plugins”) from social network operator facebook.com, based at Facebook Ireland Ltd., 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland (“Facebook”). The plugins resemble one of the Facebook logos (“f”, the terms “Like”, “Gefällt mir” or “Thumbs Up” symbol) or are additionally denoted as “Facebook Social Plugin.”

When a user loads one of the pages of this website containing a plugin of this type, the user’s browsers forms a direct connection with Facebook’s servers. The content of the plugin are transmitted directly by Facebook to your browser and are integrated by Facebook into the website. The provider has no influence on the scope of the data that Facebook collected with the aid of this plugin.

The purpose and scope of data collection and its further processing and usage of the data by Facebook as well as related rights and configuration options to protect the user’s privacy can be found in the Facebook privacy policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/.

If a user is a member of Facebook and does not wish for Facebook to collect data about this website and to link it with the member data stored with Facebook, then the user must log out of Facebook and delete relevant cookies before using our website. Additional settings and options for objecting to the use of data for advertising purposes are possible within the Facebook profile settings. The settings are platform-agnostic, i.e., they will be adopted for all devices, such as a desktop PC or a mobile phone.

Facebook Pixel, Custom Audiences and Facebook Remarketing

On the basis of our justified interest in the analysis, optimization, and economical operation of our online offerings, we use the so-called “Facebook Pixel” from the Facebook network, operated by Facebook Inc., 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA, or, for those residing in the EU, Ireland Ltd., 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland (hereinafter “Facebook”).

Facebook is certified under the Privacy Shield agreement and in this way guarantees compliance with European data privacy laws.

The Facebook Pixel makes is possible for Facebook to define the visitors of our online offerings as a custom audience for the presentation of ads (“Facebook ads). We thus use the Facebook Pixel to ensure that the Facebook ads we purchase are only shown to Facebook users who have an interest in our online offerings or who present certain characteristics (such as interest in certain topics or products, based on the websites they visit) that we provide to Facebook. With the aid of the Facebook Pixel, we wish to ensure that our Facebook ads correspond to the potential interests of the user and are thus not harassing. With the aid of the Facebook Pixel, we can also better understand the effectiveness of Facebook ads for statistical and market research purposes by reviewing whether users were transferred to our website by clicking on a Facebook ad (known as ‘conversion’).

The processing of data by Facebook is handled in compliance with Facebook’s data use guidelines. For these reason we refer you to the guidelines on the presentation of Facebook ads in the Facebook privacy policy: https://www.facebook.com/policy.php. Specific information and details about the Facebook Pixel and its functionality can be find in the Facebook help section: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/651294705016616.

You can object to the collection by the Facebook Pixel and the use of your data for the presentation of Facebook ads. To configure which types of advertisements are displayed to you on Facebook, you can visit the page set up by Facebook for that purpose and follow the instructions on configuring user-based ads: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads. The settings are platform-agnostic, i.e., they will be adopted for all devices, such as a desktop PC or a mobile phone.

Mailchimp

The newsletter is sent using the service of “MailChimp,” a newsletter platform operated by US-based Rocket Science Group, LLC, 675 Ponce De Leon Ave NE #5000, Atlanta, GA 30308, USA. The privacy policy of the mailing service provider can be seen here: https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/. The Rocket Science Group LLC d/b/a MailChimp is certified under the Privacy Shield agreement, which represents a guarantee that it adheres to European data privacy standards. We use the mailing service provide based on our justified interests as per Section 6 Subsection 1(f) GDPR on the basis of a commissioned data processing contract as per Section 28 Subsection 3(1) GDPR.

The email service provider can use the recipients’ data in pseudonymous form, i.e., without association to a specific user, to optimize and improve its own services, such as through technical optimization of dispatch and depiction of the newsletter, or for statistical purposes. The email service provider does not, however, use the data to contact recipients directly, or divulge the data to third parties.

6. CONTACT OPPORTUNITIES AND YOUR RIGHTS

You have the following rights as the Data Subject:

  • as per Section 15 GDPR, the right to demand information in the scope described therein about your personal data that we have processed;
  • as per Section 16 GDPR, the right to demand immediate rectification of incorrect or incomplete personal data that we have stored;
  • as per Section 17 GDPR, the right to demand the deletion of your personal data that we have stored, insofar as the continued processing is not needed
    • to exercise the right of free expression and information;
    • to fulfill a legal obligation;
    • for reasons in the public interest, or
    • for the enforcement, execution, or defense of legal claims;
  • as per Section 18 GDPR, you have the right to demand limits to the processing of your personal data, insofar
    • as you dispute the correctness of the data;
    • the processing is wrongful, but you object to its deletion;
    • we no longer require the data, but you require the data for the enforcement, execution, or defense of legal claims; or
    • you have filed an objection to processing as per Section 21 GDPR;
  • as per Section 20 GDPR, you have the right to demand that personal data that you have divulged to us be provided to you in a structured, standard, machine-readable format or for its transfer to another authorized party;
  • as per Section 77 GDPR, you have the right to complain to an oversight agency. In general, you can contact the oversight agencies of your customary place of residence or work, or of our corporate headquarters.

For questions related to the collection, processing, or use of your personal data, for information, correction, blocking, or deletion of data or to revoke issued consent, or to object to a specific type of data usage, please contact us directly using the contact data in the Legal Notes section of this website.

Right to Object

Where it does not clash directly with our right to process personal data as declared above and as part of a weighing of interests, you can object to such processing in the future. If processing is made for the purposes of direct marketing, you can exercise this right at any time as indicated above. Insofar as the processing is conducted for other purposes, you have a right to object only if there are reasons present that arise from your special situation.

Upon exercising of your right to object, we will cease to process your personal data for those purposes in the future, excepting where we can demonstrate binding, specially protected reasons for this processing that outweigh your interests, rights, and liberties, or if the processing is required for the enforcement, execution, or defense of legal claims. This does not apply for processing for the purposes of direct marketing. We will then no longer process your personal data for that purpose.