Cookies

My website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of my website. This helps me to provide you with a good experience when you browse my site and also allows me to improve my site.

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that my site stores on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive.

I use the following cookies:

Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of my website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of my site, use a shopping cart or make use of e-billing services.

Analytical or performance cookies. These allow me to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around my website when they are using it. This helps me to improve the way my site works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to my site. This enables me to personalise my content for you, and remember your preferences.

Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to my site, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. I will use this information to make my site more relevant to your interests.

You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the table below:

 

Cookie Title Cookie Name	Value	Purpose	More Information
Sessions Cookies		I may use both “session” cookies and “persistent” cookies on the web site. I will use the session cookies to keep track of you whilst you navigate the site. I will use the persistent cookies to enable my site to recognise you when you visit. Most browsers allow you to reject all cookies, whilst some browsers allow you to reject just third party cookies. For example, in Chrome you can control what cookies you want to block. Blocking
		all cookies will, however, have a negative impact upon the usability of my site. Examples of purposes for which a cookie may be used: These cookies are essential for my site to or enables me to: (a) Estimate my audience size and usage pattern. (b) Store information about your preferences, and so allow me to customise my site and to provide you with offers that are targeted to your individual interests without your explicit consent at all times. (c) Speed up your searches. (d) Recognise you when you return to my site. (e) Allow you to use my site in a way that makes your browsing experience more convenient, for example, by allowing you to store items in an electronic shopping basket between visits. If you register with my site or complete my online forms, I will use cookies to remember your details during your current visit, and any future visits provided the cookie was not deleted in the interim.

 

Please note that third parties may also use cookies, over which I have no control, please be aware of this. Such third parties may include, for example,  providers of external services like web traffic analysis services. These third party cookies are likely to be analytical cookies or performance cookies or targeting cookies.

Throughout my site I may also link to other websites owned and operated by  third parties. These other third party websites may also use cookies or similar technologies in accordance with their own separate polices. For privacy information relating to these other third party websites, please consult their policies as appropriate which should be located on their own websites.

You can block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all parts of my site.

Analytics and advertising
Google Analytics

This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service. It is operated by 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 that allow an analysis of the use of the website by you. The information generated by the cookie about your use of this website is usually transmitted to a Google server in the USA and stored there.
Google Analytics cookies are stored based on Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO. The website operator has a legitimate interest in analyzing user behaviour to optimize both its website and its advertising.

IP anonymization

We have activated the IP anonymization feature on this website. Your IP address will be shortened by Google within the European Union or other parties to the Agreement on the European Economic Area prior to transmission to the United States. Only in exceptional cases is the full IP address sent to a Google server in the US and shortened there. Google will use this information on behalf of the operator of this website to evaluate your use of the website, to compile reports on website activity, and to provide other services regarding website activity and Internet usage for the website operator. The IP address transmitted by your browser as part of Google Analytics will not be merged with any other data held by Google.

Outsourced data processing

We have entered into an agreement with Google for the outsourcing of our data processing and fully implement the strict requirements of the German data protection authorities when using Google Analytics.

Demographic data collection by Google Analytics

This website uses Google Analytics’ demographic features. This allows reports to be generated containing statements about the age, gender, and interests of site visitors. This data comes from interest-based advertising from Google and third-party visitor data. This collected data cannot be attributed to any specific individual person. You can disable this feature at any time by adjusting the ads settings in your Google account or you can forbid the collection of your data by Google Analytics as described in the section “Refusal of data collection”.

WordPress Stats

This website uses the WordPress Stats tool to perform statistical analyses of visitor traffic. This service is provided by Automattic Inc., 60 29th Street # 343, San Francisco, CA 94110-4929, USA.

WordPress Stats uses cookies that are stored on your computer and allow an analysis of the use of the website. The
information generated by the cookies about the use of our website is stored on servers in the USA. Your IP address
will be anonymized after processing and before storage.
WordPress Stats cookies remain on your device until you delete them.

The storage of “WordPress Stats” cookies is based on Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO. The website operator has a legitimate
interest in analysing user behaviour to optimize both its website and its advertising.
You can configure your browser to inform you about the use of cookies so that you can decide on a case-by-case basis whether to accept or reject a cookie. Alternatively, your browser can be configured to automatically accept cookies under certain conditions or to always reject them, or to automatically delete cookies when closing your browser. The functionality of our services may be limited when cookies are disabled.
You can object to the collection and use of your data at any time with future effect by clicking on this link and setting an opt-out cookie in your browser: https://www.quantcast.com/opt-out/.
If you delete the cookies on your computer, you will have to set the opt-out cookie again.

Google Analytics Remarketing

Our websites use the features of Google Analytics Remarketing combined with the cross-device capabilities of Google AdWords and DoubleClick. This service is provided by Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA.

This feature makes it possible to link target audiences for promotional marketing created with Google Analytics Remarketing to the cross-device capabilities of Google AdWords and Google DoubleClick. This allows advertising to be displayed based on your personal interests, identified based on your previous usage and surfing behaviour on one device (e.g. your mobilephone), on other devices (such as a tablet or computer).
Once you have given your consent, Google will associate your web and app browsing history with your Google Account for this purpose. That way, any device that signs in to your Google Account can use the same personalized promotional messaging.
To support this feature, Google Analytics collects Google-authenticated IDs of users that are temporarily linked to our
Google Analytics data to define and create audiences for cross-device ad promotion.

You can permanently opt out of cross-device remarketing/targeting by turning off personalized advertising in your Google Account; follow this link: https://www.google.com/settings/ads/onweb/.
The aggregation of the data collected in your Google Account data is based solely on your consent, which you may give or withdraw from Google per Art. 6 (1) (a) DSGVO. For data collection operations not merged into your Google Account (for example, because you do not have a Google Account or have objected to the merge), the collection of data is based on Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO. The website operator has a legitimate interest in analysing anonymous user behaviour for promotional purposes.

For more information and the Google Privacy Policy, go to: https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/.
Google AdWords and Google Conversion Tracking
This website uses Google AdWords. AdWords is an online advertising program from Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States (“Google”).
As part of Google AdWords, we use so-called conversion tracking. When you click on an ad served by Google, a conversion tracking cookie is set. Cookies are small text files that your internet browser stores on your computer.
These cookies expire after 30 days and are not used for personal identification of the user. Should the user visit certain pages of the website and the cookie has not yet expired, Google and the website can tell that the user clicked on the ad and proceeded to that page.

Each Google AdWords advertiser has a different cookie. Thus, cookies cannot be tracked using the website of an AdWords advertiser. The information obtained using the conversion cookie is used to create conversion statistics for the AdWords advertisers who have opted for conversion tracking. Customers are told the total number of users who clicked on their ad and were redirected to a conversion tracking tag page. However, advertisers do not obtain any information that can be used to personally identify users. If you do not want to participate in tracking, you can opt-out of this by easily disabling the Google Conversion Tracking cookie by changing your browser settings. In doing so, you will not be included in the conversion tracking statistics.

Conversion cookies are stored based on Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO. The website operator has a legitimate interest in analysing user behaviour to optimize both its website and its advertising.
For more information about Google AdWords and Google Conversion Tracking, see the Google Privacy Policy:
https://www.google.de/policies/privacy/.
You can configure your browser to inform you about the use of cookies so that you can decide on a case-by-case basis whether to accept or reject a cookie. Alternatively, your browser can be configured to automatically accept cookies under certain conditions or to always reject them, or to automatically delete cookies when closing your browser. Disabling cookies may limit the functionality of this website.

Google reCAPTCHA

We use “Google reCAPTCHA” (hereinafter “reCAPTCHA”) on our websites. This service is provided by Google Inc.,
1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA (“Google”). reCAPTCHA is used to check whether the data entered on our website (such as on a contact form) has been entered by a human or by an automated program. To do this, reCAPTCHA analyses the behaviour of the website visitor based on various characteristics. This analysis starts automatically as soon as the website visitor enters the website. For the analysis, reCAPTCHA evaluates various information (e.g. IP address, how long the visitor has been on the website, or mouse movements made by the user). The data collected during the analysis will be forwarded to Google.

The reCAPTCHA analyses take place completely in the background. Website visitors are not advised that such an
analysis is taking place.
Data processing is based on Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO. The website operator has a legitimate interest in protecting its site
from abusive automated crawling and spam.
For more information about Google reCAPTCHA and Google’s privacy policy, please visit the following links:
https://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/ and https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/android.html
Except for essential cookies, all cookies will expire after 2 years from the date of this policy.