Dataprotection
Privacy Policy
We have written this privacy policy (version 05.06.2021-111753669) to provide you with information in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 as well as to explain what information we collect, how we use data and what choices you have as a visitor to this website.
Privacy policies usually sound very technical. However, this version should describe the most important things as simply and clearly as possible. Moreover, technical terms are explained in a reader-friendly manner whenever possible. We would also like to convey that we only collect and use information via this website if there is a corresponding legal basis for it. This is certainly not possible if you give very brief technical explanations, as are often standard on the Internet when it comes to data protection. We hope you find the following explanations interesting and informative. Maybe you will also find some information that you did not know yet.
Should you still have questions, we kindly ask you to follow the existing links to see further information on third-party websites, or to simply write us an email. You can find our contact information in our website’s imprint.
Contact details of the data protection controller
If you have any question about data protection, please find the contact details of the body or person responsible for data protection below:
SHH GmbH
Triester Strasse 377, 8055 Graz
Email: management@shome-hotels.com
Phone: +43 316 341011
Company details: https://www.shomehotels.com/imprint
Rights in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation
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):
- 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)
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/.
TLS encryption with https
The terms TLS, encryption and https sound very technical, which they are indeed. We use HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) to securely transfer data on the Internet.
This means that the entire transmission of all data from your browser to our web server is secured – nobody can “listen in”.
We have thus introduced an additional layer of security and meet privacy requirements 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 in the left of the internet address (e.g. examplepage.uk), as well as by the display of the letters https (instead of http) as a part of our web address.
If you want to know more about encryption, we recommend you to do a Google search for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure wiki” to find good links to further information.
Automatic Data Retention
Every time you visit a website nowadays, certain information is automatically created and stored, just as it happens on this website. This data should be collected as sparingly as possible, and only with good reason. By website, we mean the entirety of all websites on your domain, i.e. everything from the homepage to the very last subpage (like this one here). By domain we mean example.uk or examplepage.com.
Even while you are currently visiting our website, our web server – this is the computer this website is stored on, usually automatically retains data such as the below – for reasons such as operational security or for creating access statistics etc.
- the full address (URL) of the accessed website (e. g. https://www.examplepage.uk/examplesubpage.html/)
- browser and browser version (e.g. Chrome 87)
- the operating system used (e.g. Windows 10)
- the address (URL) of the previously visited site (referrer URL) (z. B. https://www.examplepage.uk/icamefromhere.html/)
- the host name and the IP-address of the device the website is accessed from (e.g. COMPUTERNAME and 194.23.43.121)
- date and time
- in so-called web server log files.
Generally, these files are stored for two weeks and are then automatically deleted. We do not pass these data to others, but we cannot exclude the possibility that this data may be looked at by the authorities in case of illegal conduct.
In short: your visit is logged by our provider (company that runs our website on servers), but we do not pass on your data!
Cookies
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.
What exactly are cookies?
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is an example of how cookie-files can look:
name: _ga
value: GA1.2.1326744211.152111753669-9
purpose: differentiation between website visitors
expiration date: after 2 years
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
Which types of cookies are there?
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.
There are 4 different types of cookies:
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.
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.
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.
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.
How can I delete cookies?
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.
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:
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
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.
How is my data protected?
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).
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”.
Google Analytics Privacy Policy
We use the tracking and analysis tool Google Analytics (GA) of the US-American company Google LLC (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA). Google Analytics collects data on your actions on our website. Whenever you click a link for example, this action is saved in a cookie and transferred to Google Analytics. With the help of reports which we receive from Google Analytics, we can adapt our website and our services better to your wishes. In the following, we will explain the tracking tool in more detail, and most of all, we will inform you what data is saved and how you can prevent this.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a tracking tool with the purpose of conducting data traffic analysis of our website. For Google Analytics to work, there is a tracking code integrated to our website. Upon your visit to our website, this code records various actions you perform on your website. As soon as you leave our website, this data is sent to the Google Analytics server, where it is stored.
Google processes this data and we then receive reports on your user behaviour. These reports can be one of the following:
- Target audience reports: With the help of target audience reports we can get to know our users better and can therefore better understand who is interested in our service.
- Advertising reports: Through advertising reports we can analyse our online advertising better and hence improve it.
- Acquisition reports: Acquisition reports provide us helpful information on how we can get more people enthusiastic about our service.
- Behaviour reports: With these reports, we can find out how you interact with our website. By the means of behaviour reports, we can understand what path you go on our website and what links you click.
- Conversion reports: A conversion is the process of leading you to carry out a desired action due to a marketing message. An example of this would be transforming you from a mere website visitor into a buyer or a newsletter subscriber. Hence, with the help of these reports we can see in more detail, if our marketing measures are successful with you. Our aim is to increase our conversion rate.
- Real time reports: With the help of these reports we can see in real time, what happens on our website. It makes us for example see, we can see how many users are reading this text right now.
Why do we use Google Analytics on our website?
The objective of our website is clear: We want to offer you the best possible service. Google Analytics’ statistics and data help us with reaching this goal.
Statistically evaluated data give us a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of our website. On the one hand, we can optimise our page in a way, that makes it easier to be found by interested people on Google. On the other hand, the data helps us to get a better understanding of you as our visitor. Therefore, we can very accurately find out what we must improve on our website, in order to offer you the best possible service. The analysis of that data also enables us to carry out our advertising and marketing measures in a more individual and more cost-effective way. After all, it only makes sense to show our products and services exclusively to people who are interested in them.
What data gets stored by Google Analytics?
With the aid of a tracking code, Google Analytics creates a random, unique ID which is connected to your browser cookie. That way, Google Analytics recognises you as a new user. The next time you visit our site, you will be recognised as a “recurring” user. All data that is collected gets saved together with this very user ID. Only this is how it is made possible for us to evaluate and analyse pseudonymous user profiles.
Your interactions on our website are measures by tags such as cookies and app instance IDs. Interactions are all kinds of actions that you perform on our website. If you are also using other Google systems (such as a Google Account), data generated by Google Analytics can be linked with third-party cookies. Google does not pass on any Google Analytics data, unless we as the website owners authorise it. In case it is required by law, exceptions can occur.
The following cookies are used by Google Analytics:
Name: _ga
Value:2.1326744211.152111753669-5
Purpose: By deafault, analytics.js uses the cookie _ga, to save the user ID. It generally serves the purpose of differenciating between website visitors.
Expiration date: After 2 years
Name: _gid
Value:2.1687193234.152111753669-1
Purpose: This cookie also serves the purpose of differentiating between website users
Expiration date: After 24 hours
Name: _gat_gtag_UA_<property-id>
Value: 1
Verwendungszweck: It is used for decreasing the demand rate. If Google Analytics is provided via Google Tag Manager, this cookie gets the name _dc_gtm_ <property-id>.
Expiration date: After 1 minute
Name: AMP_TOKEN
Value: No information
Purpose: This cookie has a token which is used to retrieve the user ID by the AMP Client ID Service. Other possible values suggest a logoff, a request or an error.
Expiration date: After 30 seconds up to one year
Name: __utma
Value:1564498958.1564498958.1564498958.1
Purpose: With this cookie your behaviour on the website can be tracked and the site performance can be measured. The cookie is updated every time the information is sent to Google Analytics.
Expiration date: After 2 years
Name: __utmt
Value: 1
Purpose: Just like _gat_gtag_UA_<property-id> this cookie is used for keeping the requirement rate in check.
Expiration date: Afer 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 gets sent to Google Analytics.
Expiration date: After 30 minutes
Name: __utmc
Value: 167421564
Purpose: This cookie is used to determine new sessions for recurring visitors. It is therefore a session cookie, and only stays saved until you close the browser again.
Expiration date: After closing the browser
Name: __utmz
Value: m|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/
Purpose: This cookie is used to identify the source of our website’s visitor number. This means, that the cookie saves information on where you came to our website from. This could be another site or an advertisement.
Expiration date: After 6 months
Name: __utmv
Value: No information
Purpose: The cookie is used to store custom user data. It gets updated whenever information is sent to Google Analytics.
Expiration date: After 2 years
Note: This list is by no means exhaustive, since Google are repeatedly changing the use of their cookies.
Below we will give you an overview of the most important data that can be evaluated by Google Analytics:
Heatmaps: Google creates so-called Heatmaps an. These Heatmaps make it possible to see the exact areas you click on, so we can get information on what routes you make on our website.
Session duration: Google calls the time you spend on our website without leaving it session duration. Whenever you are inactive for 20 minutes, the session ends automatically.
Bounce rate If you only look at one page of our website and then leave our website again, it is called a bounce.
Account creation: If you create an account or make an order on our website, Google Analytics collects this data.
IP-Address: The IP address is only shown in a shortened form, to make it impossible to clearly allocate it.
Location: Your approximate location and the country you are in can be defined by the IP address. This process is called IP location determination.
Technical information: Information about your browser type, your internet provider and your screen resolution are called technical information.
Source: Both, Google Analytics as well as ourselves, are interested what website or what advertisement led you to our site.
Further possibly stored data includes contact data, potential reviews, playing media (e.g. when you play a video on our site), sharing of contents via social media or adding our site to your favourites. This list is not exhaustive and only serves as general guidance on Google Analytics’ data retention.
How long and where is the data saved?
Google has servers across the globe. Most of them are in America and therefore your data is mainly saved on American servers. Here you can read detailed information on where Google’s data centres are located: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=en
Your data is allocated to various physical data mediums. This has the advantage of allowing to retrieve the data faster, and of protecting it better from manipulation. Every Google data centre has respective emergency programs for your data. Hence, in case of a hardware failure at Google or a server error due to natural disasters, the risk for a service interruption stays relatively low.
Google Analytics has a 26 months standardised period of retaining your user data. After this time, your user data is deleted. However, we have the possibility to choose the retention period of user data ourselves. There are the following five options:
- Deletion after 14 months
- Deletion after 26 months
- Deletion after 38 months
- Deletion after 50 months
- No automatical deletion
As soon as the chosen period is expired, the data is deleted once a month. This retention period applies to any of your data which is linked to cookies, user identification and advertisement IDs (e.g. cookies of the DoubleClick domain). Any report results are based on aggregated information and are stored independently of any user data. Aggregated information is a merge of individual data into a single and bigger unit.
How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?
Under the provisions of the European Union’s data protection law, you have the right to obtain information on your data and to update, delete or restrict it. With the help of a browser add on that can deactivate Google Analytics’ JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, dc.js), you can prevent Google Analytics from using your data. You can download this add on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en-GB. Please consider that this add on can only deactivate any data collection by Google Analytics.
Should you generally want to deactivate, delete or manage all cookies (independently of Google Analytics), you can use one of the guides that are available for any browser:
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
Google Analytics is an active participant of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates correct and save transfer of personal data.
You can find more information on this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI&tid=111753669. We hope we were able to make you more familiar with the most important information on Google Analytics’ data processing. If you want to learn more about the tracking service, we recommend both of the following links: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/gb/ and https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=en.
Google Analytics IP Anonymisation
We implemented Google Analytics’ IP address anonymisation to this website. Google developed this function, so this website can comply with the applicable privacy laws and the local data protection authorities’ recommendations, should they prohibit the retention of any full IP addresses.
The anonymisation or masking of IP addresses takes place, as soon as they reach Google Analytics’ data collection network, but before the data would be saved or processed.
You can find more information on IP anonymisation at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2763052?hl=en.
Google Analytics Reports on demographic characteristics and interests
We have turned on Google Analytics’ functions for advertising reports. These reports on demographic characteristics and interests contain details about age, gender and interests. Through them we can get a better picture of our users – without being able to allocate any data to individual persons. You can learn more about advertising functions at auf https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3450482?hl=en&%3Butm_id=ad.
You can terminate the use of your Google Account’s activities and information in “Ads Settings” at https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated via a checkbox.
Email-Marketing
Of course, we want to stay in contact with you and keep you in the loop of the most important news about our company. For this, we use email marketing, which is an essential part of our online marketing. If you agree to this or if it is permitted by law, we will send you newsletters, emails or other notifications. When the term “newsletter” is used in the following text, it mainly refers to emails that are sent regularly.
How can you register for our Email-Marketing?
If you want to participate in our email marketing (usually via newsletter), you usually have to register with your email address only. You will simply have to fill an online form and submit it. However, we may also ask you to fill in your title and name so we will be able to address you more personally.
Generally, the registration for newsletters is carried out with the so-called “double opt-in procedure”. After registering for our newsletter on our website, you will receive an email for you to confirm the newsletter registration. This will ensure that you own your email address and that no one registers with an email address that is not owned by them. Every single registration is stored either by us or by a notification tool we use. This is necessary for us to ensure that registration processes are legally correct. Therefore, the time of your registration, the time of confirmation of your registration and your IP address are usually retained. It will also be logged if you make changes to your stored data.
How long can we store your email address?
If you unsubscribe from our email/newsletter distribution list, we may store your address for up to three years on the basis of our legitimate interests, so that we can still prove your consent at the time. We are only allowed to process this data if we have to defend ourselves against any claims.
However, if you confirm that you have given us your consent to subscribe to the newsletter, you can submit an individual request for deletion at any time. Should you object to your consent permanently, we reserve the right to save your email address in a blacklist. We will of course keep your email address for as long as you are voluntarily subscribed to our newsletter.
On what legal basis do we operate email marketing?
Our newsletter is sent on the basis of your consent. This means that we are only allowed to send you a newsletter if you have actively registered for it beforehand. If consent is not required, newsletters will be sent on the basis of the legitimate interest in direct marketing, provided it is legally permitted. Should we commission a service provider, this will be done on the basis of our legitimate interest also. We record your registration process for the purpose of using it as proof that it is in compliance with our laws.
What is in our newsletters?
Of course, we do not want to bother you with our newsletter in any way. Therefore, we really strive to offer only relevant and interesting content, such as more information about our company, our services or our products. Since we are continuously improving our offers, our newsletter will always update you on any news or special offers and lucrative promotions.
If we commission a service provider with a professional mailing tool for our email marketing, we do this in order to be able to offer you our newsletter fast and securely.
Which data are retained?
If you subscribe to our newsletter via our website, you will confirm your membership in our email list via an email that we will send to you. In addition to your IP address and email address, your name, address and telephone number may also be saved. However, this will only be done if you agree to this data retention. Moreover, information about your device or the type of content you prefer on our website may also be stored. In the “Automatic data storage” section you can find out more about how your data is stored when you visit a website.
You can find information on special email marketing services in the following sections, provided the information you are looking for is available.
How can I cancel my subscription?
You have the option to cancel your newsletter subscription at any time. All you have to do is revoke your consent to the newsletter subscription. This usually only takes a few minutes or a few clicks. Most of the time you will find a link directly in our newsletter, with which you will be able to cancel the subscription. Should you not be able to find the link in the newsletter, you can contact us by email and we will cancel your newsletter subscription for you.
Google Ads (Google AdWords) Conversion Tracking Privacy Policy
We use Google Ads (previously Google AdWords) as an online marketing measure, to advertise our products and services. Thus, we want to draw more people’s attention on the internet to the high quality of our offers. As part of our advertising measures with Google Ads, we use the conversion tracking of Google LLC., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA (“Google”) on our website. With the aid of this free tracking tool we can tailor our advertising offer better to your interests and needs. In the following article we will explain, why we use conversion tracking, what data gets saved and how you can prevent this data retention.
What is Google Ads conversion tracking?
Google Ads (previously Google AdWords) is the internal online advertising sxstem of the company Google LLC. We are convinced of our offer‘s quality and would like as many people as possible to discover our website. For this, Google Ads offers the best platform within the online environment. Of course, we also want to get an overview of the cost-benefit factor of our advertising campaigns. Thence, we use Google Ads’ conversion tracking tool.
But what is a conversion actually? A conversion occurs, when you turn from an interested visitor into an acting website visitor. This happens every time you click on our ad and then make another action, such as paying a visit to our website. With Google’s conversion tracking tool, we can understand what happens after a user clicks our Google ad. It shows us for instance if products get bought, services are used or whether users have subscribed to our newsletter.
Why do we use Google Ads conversion tracking on our website?
We use Google Ads to show our offer also across other websites. Our aim is for our advertising campaigns to reach only those people, who are interested in our offers. With the conversion tracking tool, we see what keywords, ads, ad groups and campaigns lead to the desired customer actions. We see how many customers interact with our ads on a device, to then convert. With this data we can calculate our cost-benefit-factor, measure the success of individual ad campaigns and therefore optimise our online marketing measures. With the help of the obtained data we can give our website a more interesting design and customise our advertising offer better to your needs.
What data is stored with Google Ads conversion tracking?
For a better analysis of certain user actions, we have integrated a conversion tracking tag, or code snippet to our website. Therefore, if you click one of our Google ads, a Google domain stores the cookie “conversion” on your computer (usually in the browser) or on your mobile device. Cookies are little text files that save information on your computer.
Here are data of the most significant cookies for Google’s conversion tracking:
Name: Conversion
Value: EhMI_aySuoyv4gIVled3Ch0llweVGAEgt-mr6aXd7dYlSAGQ111753669-3
Purpose: This cookie saves every conversion you make on our website 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 that records various actions on our website.
Expiry date: after 3 months
Note: The cookie _gac only appears in connection with Google Analytics. The above list does not claim to be exhaustive, as Google repeatedly change the cookies they use for analytical evaluation.
As soon as you complete an action on our website, Google identifies the cookie and saves your action as a so-called conversion. For as long as you surf our website, provided the cookie has not expired, both Google and us can determine that you found your way to us via a Google ad. Then, the cookie is read and sent back to Google Ads, together with the conversion data. Moreover, other cookies may also be used for measuring conversions. Google Ads‘ conversion tracking can be fine-tuned and improved with the aid of Google Analytics. Furthermore, ads which Google displays in various places across the web, might be placed under our domain with the name “__gads” or “_gac”.
Since September 2017, analytics.js retains various campaign information with the _gac cookie. This cookie stores data, as soon as you open one of our sites that has been set up for Google Ads’ auto-tagging. In contrast to cookies that are placed for Google domains, Google can only read these conversion cookies when you are on our website. We do neither collect nor receive any personal data. We do obtain a report with statistical evaluations by Google. With the help thereof, we can not only see the total number of users who clicked our ad, but also what advertising measures were well received.
How long and where is the data stored?
At this point we want to reiterate, that we have no influence on how Google use the collected data. According to Google, the data are encrypted and saved on a secure server. In most cases, conversion cookies expire after 30 days, and do not transmit any personalised data. The cookies named “conversion“ and “_gac“ (which is used with Google Analytics) have an expiry date of 3 months.
How can I delete my data or prevent data retention?
You have the possibility to opt out of Google Ads’ conversion tracking. The conversion tracking can be blocked by deactivating the conversion tracking cookie via your browser. If you do this, you will not be considered for the statistic of the tracking tool. You can change the cookie settings in your browser anytime. Doing so, works a little different in every browser. Hence, in the following you will find an instruction on how to manage cookies in your browser:
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
If you generally do not want to allow any cookies at all, you can set up your browser to notify you whenever a potential cookie is about to be set. This lets you decide upon permitting or denying the cookie’s placement. By downloading and installing the browser plugin at https://support.google.com/ads/answer/7395996 you can also deactivate all “advertising cookies”. Please consider that by deactivating these cookies, you cannot prevent all advertisements, only personalised ads.
Due to the certification for the American-European data protection convention “Privacy Shield”, the American corporation Google LLC must comply to the EU’s applicable data protection laws. If you want to find out more on data protection at Google, we recommend Google’s general Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-GB.
Google Maps Privacy Policy
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.
What is Google Maps?
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.
Why do we use Google Maps on our website?
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.
What data is stored by Google Maps?
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.
The following cookies are set in your browser due to the integration of Google Maps:
Name: NID
Value: 188=h26c1Ktha7fCQTx8rXgLyATyITJ111753669-5
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
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.
How long and where is the data saved?
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
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.
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.
How can I delete my data, or prevent data retention?
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.
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:
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
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.
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.
jQuery CDN Privacy Policy
We use jQuery CDN services by the jQuery Foundation to deliver our website and our subpages to you quickly and easily on different devices. jQuery is distributed via the Content Delivery Network (CDN) of the American software company StackPath (LCC 2012 McKinney Ave. Suite 1100, Dallas, TX 75201, USA). This service stores, manages and processes your personal data.
A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of regionally distributed servers that are connected to each other via the Internet. Through this network content and especially very large files, can be delivered quickly – even in peak demand periods.
jQuery uses JavaScript libraries to be able to deliver our website content quickly. For this, a CDN server loads the necessary files. As soon as a connection to the CDN server is established, your IP address is recorded and stored. This only happens if the data has not already been saved in your browser during a previous website visit.
StackPath’s privacy policy explicitly mentions that StackPath uses aggregated and anonymised data of various services (such as jQuery) for both, security enhancement and its own services. However, it is impossible for you to be personally identified with the use of this data.
If you want to avoid this data transfer, you always have the option to use JavaScript blockers such as ghostery.com or noscript.net. You can also simply deactivate the execution of JavaScript codes in your browser. If you decide to deactivate JavaScript codes, the usual functions will also change. For example, websites may no longer load as quickly.
StackPath is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. You can find more information at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000CbahAAC&status=Active.
Also, you can find more information about StackPath’s data protection at https://www.stackpath.com/legal/privacy-statement/ and jQuery’s data protection at https://openjsf.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/84/2019/11/OpenJS-Foundation-Privacy-Policy-2019-11-15.pdf.
All texts are copyrighted.
Source: Created with the Datenschutz Generator by AdSimple