Legal Notice (Impressum)

Information obligation according to §5 E-Commerce Act, §14 Austrian Commercial Code, §63 Trade Regulation Act, and disclosure obligation according to §25 Media Act.

Kunst- & Kulturwelten ZVR (Central Register of Associations): 380861563 Rennweg 37/14, 1030 Vienna, Austria

Authorized Representatives Chairman/Chairwoman: Wladislaw Winokurow Association Headquarters: Vienna, Austria Tel.: +43 650 9246215 E-Mail: info@kulturwelten.at

Purpose of the Association: Promotion of Art and Culture

EU Dispute Resolution In accordance with the Regulation on Online Dispute Resolution in Consumer Matters (ODR Regulation), we would like to inform you about the Online Dispute Resolution platform (OS platform). Consumers have the opportunity to submit complaints to the European Commission’s Online Dispute Resolution platform at http://ec.europa.eu/odr?tid=121655300. You can find the necessary contact details above in our Legal Notice. However, we would like to point out that we are not willing or obliged to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

Liability for Content on this Website We are constantly developing the content of this website and strive to provide correct and up-to-date information. Unfortunately, we cannot assume liability for the correctness of all content on this website, especially for content provided by third parties. If you notice any problematic or illegal content, we ask you to contact us immediately. You will find the contact details in the Legal Notice.

Liability for Links on this Website Our website contains links to other websites for whose content we are not responsible. According to § 17 ECG, we are not liable for linked websites, as we had and have no knowledge of illegal activities, we have not noticed such illegalities so far, and we would remove links immediately if we became aware of illegalities. If you notice illegal links on our website, we ask you to contact us. You will find the contact details in the Legal Notice.

Copyright Notice All content on this website (images, photos, texts, videos) is subject to copyright. If necessary, we will legally pursue the unauthorized use of parts of the content of our site. If you find content on this website that violates copyright, we ask you to contact us.

Image Credits The images, photos, and graphics on this website are protected by copyright. The image rights are held by the following photographers and companies:

Privacy Policy

Table of Contents

Data Protection We have written this privacy policy (Version 01.01.1970-121655300) to explain to you, in accordance with the requirements 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. Privacy policies usually sound very technical. This version, however, intends to describe the most important things to you as simply and clearly as possible. Wherever possible, technical terms are explained in a reader-friendly manner. Furthermore, we want to convey that we only collect and use information with this website if there is a corresponding legal basis. This is certainly not possible if one provides concise, technical explanations, as is often standard on the Internet when it comes to data protection. We hope you find the following explanations interesting and informative and perhaps there is some information included that you did not know yet. If questions remain, we ask you to follow the existing links and look at further information on third-party sites, or simply write us an e-mail. You can find our contact details in the Legal Notice.

Automatic Data Storage When you visit websites today, certain information is automatically created and stored, including on this website. This collected data should be collected as sparingly as possible and only with justification. By website, we mean the totality of all web pages on your domain, i.e., everything from the start page (homepage) to the very last sub-page (like this one). By domain, we mean for example example.com or https://www.google.com/search?q=sampleexample.com.

Even while you are visiting our website right now, our web server – that is the computer on which this website is stored – usually automatically saves data for reasons of operational security, to create access statistics, etc., such as:

To illustrate: Generally, these files are stored for two weeks and then automatically deleted. We do not pass on this data, but we cannot rule out that this data may be viewed by authorities in the event of illegal conduct. In short: Your visit is logged by our provider (company that runs our website on special computers (servers)), but we do not pass on your data!

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 privacy policy.

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 also other cookies for different application areas. HTTP cookies are small files stored by our website on your computer. These cookie files are automatically placed in the cookie folder, essentially the “brain” of your browser. A cookie consists of a name and a value. When defining a cookie, one or more attributes must additionally be specified. Cookies store certain user data about you, such as language or personal page settings. When you call up 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 the settings you are used to. In some browsers, every 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, as each cookie stores different data. The expiration 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:

A browser should be able to support these minimum sizes:

What types of cookies are there? The question of which cookies we specifically use depends on the services used and will be clarified in the following sections of the privacy policy. At this point, we would like to briefly discuss the different types of HTTP cookies. One can distinguish between 4 types of cookies:

  1. Essential Cookies: These cookies are necessary to ensure basic functions of the website. For example, these cookies are needed when a user puts a product in the shopping cart, then continues surfing on other pages and only goes to checkout later. Through these cookies, the shopping cart is not deleted, even if the user closes their browser window.
  2. Functional Cookies: These cookies collect info about user behavior and whether the user gets any error messages. In addition, the loading time and the behavior of the website with different browsers are also measured with the help of these cookies.
  3. Target-oriented Cookies: These cookies ensure better user-friendliness. For example, entered locations, font sizes, or form data are saved.
  4. Advertising Cookies: These cookies are also called targeting cookies. They serve to deliver individually adapted advertising to the user. This can be very practical, but also very annoying.

Usually, when you visit a website for the first time, you are asked which of these cookie types you would like to allow. And of course, this decision is also stored in a cookie.

How can I delete cookies? How and whether you want to use cookies is up to you. Regardless of which service or which website the cookies come from, you always have the option to delete, deactivate, or only partially allow cookies. For example, you can block third-party cookies but allow all other cookies. If you want to determine which cookies have been stored in your browser, or if you want to change or delete cookie settings, you can find this in your browser settings:

If you generally do not want cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. This way, 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 for the instructions in Google with the search term “delete cookies Chrome” or “disable cookies Chrome” in the case of a Chrome browser.

How about my data protection? Since 2009, there have been the so-called “Cookie Guidelines”. It states that storing cookies requires your consent. Within the EU countries, however, there are still very different reactions to these guidelines. In Austria, however, the implementation of this directive took place in § 96 Para. 3 of the Telecommunications Act (TKG). If you want to know more about cookies and do not shy away from technical documentation, we recommend https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6265, the Request for Comments of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) named “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 details in the context of submitting a form or comments in the blog, will be used by us together with the time and IP address only for the specified purpose, kept safe, and not passed on to third parties. We thus use your personal data only for communication with those visitors who explicitly wish contact and for the processing of the services and products offered on this website. We do not pass on your personal data without consent, but we cannot rule out that this data may be viewed in the event of illegal conduct. If you send us personal data by e-mail – thus outside of this website – we cannot guarantee secure transmission and the protection of your data. We recommend that you never transmit confidential data unencrypted by e-mail.

Rights according to the General Data Protection Regulation

According to the provisions of the GDPR and the Austrian Data Protection Act (DSG), you have the following rights in principle:

If you believe that the processing of your data violates data protection law or your data protection claims have otherwise been violated in any way, you can complain to the supervisory authority. In Austria, this is the Data Protection Authority, whose website can be found at https://www.dsb.gv.at/.

Evaluation of Visitor Behavior

In the following privacy policy, 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 conclusions about your person from your behavior on this website. You can find out more about how to object to this evaluation of visit data in the following privacy policy.

TLS Encryption with https

TLS, encryption, and https sound very technical, and they are. We use HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) to transmit data securely on the Internet. This means that the complete transmission of all data from your browser to our web server is secured – no one can “listen in.” With this, we have introduced an additional layer of security and meet data protection by 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 data transmission security by the small lock symbol at the top left of the browser next to the internet address (e.g., example.com) and the use of the https scheme (instead of http) as part of our internet address. If you want to know more about encryption, we recommend a Google search for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure wiki” to get good links to further information.

Google Fonts Privacy Policy

We use Google Fonts on our website. These are the “Google fonts” from Google Inc. For the European area, the company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services. You do not need to log in or set a password to use Google fonts. Furthermore, no cookies are stored in your browser. The files (CSS, 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 do not need to worry that your Google account data will be 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. We will look at exactly how data storage works 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 published under the SIL Open Font License, while others are published 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 without having to upload them to our own server. Google Fonts is an important building block for maintaining the high quality of our website. All Google fonts are automatically optimized for the web; this saves data volume and is a great advantage, especially for use on mobile devices. When you visit our site, the small file size ensures a 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 sometimes optically 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 common 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). We, therefore, use Google Fonts so that we can present our entire online service as beautifully and consistently as possible.

What data is stored by Google? When you visit our website, the fonts are reloaded via a Google server. Through this external call, data is transmitted to the Google servers. In this way, Google also recognizes that you or your IP address is visiting our website. The Google Fonts API was developed to reduce the use, storage, and collection of end-user data to what is necessary for the proper provision of fonts. By the way, API stands for “Application Programming Interface” and serves, among other things, as a data transmitter in the software sector. Google Fonts stores CSS and font requests securely at Google and is thus protected. Through the collected usage figures, Google can determine how well the individual fonts are received. Google publishes the results on internal analysis pages, such as Google Analytics. Inaddition, Google also uses data from its own web crawler to determine which websites use Google fonts. This data is published in the BigQuery database of Google Fonts. Entrepreneurs and developers use the Google web service BigQuery to be able to examine and move large amounts of data. However, it should be noted that with every Google Font request, information such as language settings, IP address, browser version, browser screen resolution, and browser name is automatically transmitted to the Google servers. Whether this data is also stored is not clearly determinable 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 allows us to use the fonts with the help of a Google stylesheet. A stylesheet is a template with which one can easily and quickly change, for example, the design or the font of a website. The font files are stored by Google for one year. Google pursues the goal of fundamentally improving the loading time of websites. If millions of websites refer to the same fonts, they are cached after the first visit and appear immediately 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. To delete this data prematurely, you must contact Google Support at https://support.google.com/?hl=de. You can only prevent data storage in this case if you do not visit our site. Unlike other web fonts, Google allows us unlimited access to all fonts. We can therefore access a sea of fonts without limit 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. Although Google addresses data protection-relevant matters there, really detailed information about data storage is not included. It is relatively difficult to get precise information about stored data from Google. You can also read about what data is generally collected by Google and what this data is used for at https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/.

Google Analytics Privacy Policy

We use the analysis tracking tool Google Analytics (GA) of the American company Google Inc. on our website. For the European area, the company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services. Google Analytics collects data about your actions on our website. For example, if you click a link, this action is stored in a cookie and sent to Google Analytics. With the help of the reports we receive from Google Analytics, we can better adapt our website and service to your wishes. In the following, we will go into more detail about the tracking tool and inform you, in particular, about what data is stored and how you can prevent this.

What is Google Analytics? Google Analytics is a tracking tool used for traffic analysis of our website. 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 perform 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 get reports on your user behavior. These may include the following reports:

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 achieve this goal. The statistically evaluated data shows us a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of our website. On the one hand, we can optimize our site so that it is easier for interested people to find on Google. On the other hand, the data helps us to better understand you as a visitor. We, therefore, know very precisely what we need to improve on our website to offer you the best possible service. The data also serves us to carry out our advertising and marketing measures more individually and cost-effectively. Finally, it only makes sense to show our products and services to people who are interested in them.

What data is stored by Google Analytics? Google Analytics uses a tracking code to create a random, unique ID 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 is the only way it is possible to evaluate pseudonymous user profiles. Through identifiers such as cookies and app instance IDs, your interactions on our website are measured. Interactions are all types of actions that you perform 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 authorize it. Exceptions may occur if required by law.

The following cookies are used by Google Analytics:

Note: This list cannot claim to be complete, as Google changes the choice of its cookies from time to time.

Here we show you an overview of the most important data collected with Google Analytics:

Other data includes contact details, any ratings, playing media (e.g., if you play a video via our site), sharing content via social media, or adding to your favorites. The list does not claim to be complete and only serves as a general orientation of data storage by Google Analytics.

How long and where is the data stored? Google has its servers distributed all over the world. Most 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=en Your data is distributed on various physical data carriers. This has the advantage that the data can be retrieved faster and is better protected against manipulation. In every Google data center, there are corresponding emergency programs for your data. If, for example, the hardware at Google fails or natural disasters paralyze servers, the risk of service interruption at Google remains low. By default, Google Analytics is set to a retention period for your user data of 26 months. Then your user data is deleted. However, we have the option to choose the retention period for user data ourselves. We have five variants available for this:

When the specified period has expired, the data is deleted once a month. This retention period applies to your data linked to cookies, user recognition, and advertising IDs (e.g., cookies from the DoubleClick domain). Reporting 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 receive information about your data, to update it, to delete it, or to restrict it. Using the browser add-on to deactivate Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, dc.js), you prevent Google Analytics from using your data. You can download and install the browser add-on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en. Please note that this add-on only deactivates data collection by Google Analytics.

If you generally want to deactivate, delete, or manage cookies (independently of Google Analytics), there are separate instructions for each browser:

Google Analytics 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 on this at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt000000001L5AAI. We hope we were able to bring you closer to the most important information regarding 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/us.html and https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=de.

Newsletter Privacy Policy

When you subscribe to our newsletter, you submit the personal data mentioned above and give us the right to contact you by email. We use the data stored in the context of the newsletter registration exclusively for our newsletter and do not pass it on to third parties. If you unsubscribe from the newsletter – you will find the link for this at the bottom of every newsletter – we delete all data that was stored when you subscribed to the newsletter.

Embedded Social Media Elements Privacy Policy

We embed elements from social media services on our website to display images, videos, and texts. By visiting pages that display these elements, data is transmitted from your browser to the respective social media service and stored there. We do not have access to this data. The following links will take you to the websites of the respective social media services where it is explained how they handle your data:

Facebook Privacy Policy

We use selected tools from Facebook on our website. Facebook is a social media network of the company Facebook Ireland Ltd., 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland. With the help of these tools, we can offer you and people interested in our products and services the best possible offer. In the following, we provide an overview of the various Facebook tools, what data is sent to Facebook, and how you can delete this data.

What are Facebook Tools? In addition to many other products, Facebook also offers the so-called “Facebook Business Tools”. This is the official name given by Facebook. Since the term is hardly known, we have decided to simply call them Facebook Tools. These include, among others:

Through these tools, Facebook extends services and has the possibility to obtain information about user activities outside of Facebook.

Why do we use Facebook Tools on our website? We want to show our services and products only to people who are really interested in them. With the help of advertisements (Facebook Ads), we can reach exactly these people. However, in order to show users suitable advertising, Facebook needs information about the wishes and needs of people. Thus, information about user behavior (and contact details) on our website is made available to the company. As a result, Facebook collects better user data and can show interested people the appropriate advertising about our products or services. The tools thus enable tailored advertising campaigns on Facebook.

Facebook calls data about your behavior on our website “Event Data”. These are also used for measurement and analysis services. Facebook can thus create “campaign reports” on our behalf about the impact of our advertising campaigns. Furthermore, through analysis, we get a better insight into how you use our services, website, or products. This allows us to optimize your user experience on our website with some of these tools. For example, with social plug-ins, you can share content on our site directly on Facebook.

What data is stored by Facebook Tools? By using individual Facebook tools, personal data (customer data) can be sent to Facebook. Depending on the tools used, customer data such as name, address, phone number, and IP address can be sent. Facebook uses this information to match the data with the data it has about you itself (provided you are a Facebook member). Before customer data is transmitted to Facebook, a so-called “hashing” takes place. This means that a data set of any size is transformed into a character string. This also serves to encrypt data. In addition to contact details, “Event Data” is also transmitted. By “Event Data,” we mean the information we receive about you on our website. For example, which subpages you visit or which products you buy from us. Facebook does not share the information received with third parties (such as advertisers) unless the company has explicit permission or is legally obliged to do so. “Event Data” can also be combined with contact details. This allows Facebook to offer better personalized advertising. After the matching process mentioned above, Facebook deletes the contact details again. In order to deliver advertisements in an optimized manner, Facebook only uses Event Data if it has been combined with other data (collected by Facebook in other ways). Facebook also uses this Event Data for security, protection, development, and research purposes. Many of these data are transferred to Facebook via cookies. Cookies are small text files used to store data or information in browsers. Depending on the tools used and whether you are a Facebook member, a different number of cookies are created in your browser. We will go into more detail about individual Facebook cookies in the descriptions of the individual Facebook tools. You can also find general information about the use of Facebook cookies at https://www.facebook.com/policies/cookies.

How long and where is the data stored? Basically, Facebook stores data until it is no longer needed for its own services and Facebook products. Facebook has servers distributed all over the world where its data is stored. However, customer data is deleted within 48 hours after it has been matched with its own user data.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage? According to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have the right to information, correction, portability, and deletion of your data. A complete deletion of the data only occurs if you delete your Facebook account completely. And this is how deleting your Facebook account works:

  1. Click on Settings on the right side of Facebook.
  2. Then click on “Your Facebook Information” in the left column.
  3. Now click on “Deactivation and Deletion”.
  4. Now select “Delete Account” and then click on “Continue to Account Deletion”.
  5. Now enter your password, click on “Continue” and then on “Delete Account”.

The storage of data that Facebook receives via our site takes place, among other things, via cookies (e.g., with social plugins). You can deactivate, delete, or manage individual or all cookies in your browser. Depending on which browser you use, this works in different ways. The following instructions show how to manage cookies in your browser:

If you generally do not want cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. This way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether to allow it or not. Facebook is an active participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data. More information can be found at https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000GnywAAC. We hope we have brought you closer to the most important information about the use and data processing by Facebook Tools. If you want to learn more about how Facebook uses your data, we recommend the data policies at https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/update.

YouTube Privacy Policy

We have integrated YouTube videos on our website. This allows us to present interesting videos directly on our site. YouTube is a video portal that has been a subsidiary of Google since 2006. The video portal is operated by YouTube, LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA. When you visit a page on our website that has an embedded YouTube video, your browser automatically connects to the servers of YouTube or Google. Depending on the settings, various data is transferred. Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all data processing in the European area. In the following, we want to explain to you in more detail which data is processed, why we have integrated YouTube videos, and how you can manage or delete your data.

What is YouTube? On YouTube, users can watch, rate, comment on, and upload videos for free. Over the last few years, YouTube has become one of the most important social media channels worldwide. So that we can display videos on our website, YouTube provides a code snippet that we have built into our site.

Why do we use YouTube videos on our website? YouTube is the video platform with the most visitors and the best content. We strive to offer you the best possible user experience on our website. And of course, interesting videos should not be missing. With the help of our embedded videos, we provide you with further helpful content in addition to our texts and images. Furthermore, our website is easier to find on the Google search engine due to the embedded videos. Even if we run advertisements via Google Ads, Google can – thanks to the collected data – show these ads only to people who are interested in our offers.

What data is stored by YouTube? As soon as you visit one of our pages that has a YouTube video built-in, YouTube sets at least one cookie that stores your IP address and our URL. If you are logged into your YouTube account, YouTube can usually assign your interactions on our website to your profile using cookies. This includes data such as session duration, bounce rate, approximate location, technical information such as browser type, screen resolution, or your internet provider. Other data can be contact details, any ratings, sharing content via social media, or adding to your favorites on YouTube. If you are not logged into a Google account or a YouTube account, Google stores data with a unique identifier linked to your device, browser, or app. For example, your preferred language setting is retained. But many interaction data cannot be stored because fewer cookies are set.

In the following list, we show cookies that were set in a test in the browser. We show cookies that are set without a logged-in YouTube account on the one hand. On the other hand, we show cookies that are set with a logged-in account. The list cannot claim to be complete because user data always depends on interactions on YouTube.

Other cookies that are set when you are logged in with your YouTube account:

How long and where is the data stored? The data that YouTube receives from you and processes is stored on Google servers. Most of these servers are located in America. Under https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=en you can see exactly where the Google data centers are located. Your data is distributed on the servers. This means the data can be retrieved faster and is better protected against manipulation. Google stores the collected data for different lengths of time. You can delete some data at any time, others are automatically deleted after a limited time, and still others are stored by Google for a longer period. Some data (such as elements from “My Activity”, photos or documents, products) stored in your Google account remain stored until you delete them. Even if you are not logged into a Google account, you can delete some data linked to your device, browser, or app.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage? Basically, you can manually delete data in the Google Account. With the automatic deletion function of location and activity data introduced in 2019, information is stored depending on your decision – either 3 or 18 months – and then deleted. Regardless of whether you have a Google account or not, you can configure your browser to delete or deactivate Google cookies. Depending on which browser you use, this works in different ways. The following instructions show how to manage cookies in your browser:

If you generally do not want cookies, you can set up your browser so that it always informs you when a cookie is to be set. This way, you can decide for each individual cookie whether to allow it or not. Since YouTube is a subsidiary of Google, there is a common privacy policy. If you want to learn more about how your data is handled, we recommend the privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en.

Google reCAPTCHA Privacy Policy

Our ultimate goal is to secure and protect our website for you and for us as best as possible. To ensure this, we use Google reCAPTCHA from the company Google Inc. For the European area, the company Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services. With reCAPTCHA, we can determine whether you are really a flesh-and-blood person and not a robot or other spam software. By spam, we mean any unwanted electronic unsolicited information that comes to us. With classic CAPTCHAs, you usually had to solve text or image puzzles for verification. With reCAPTCHA from Google, we usually don’t have to bother you with such puzzles. In most cases, it is sufficient here if you simply tick a box and confirm that you are not a bot. With the new Invisible reCAPTCHA version, you don’t even have to tick a box anymore. You can find out exactly how this works and, above all, what data is used for this in the course of this privacy policy.

What is reCAPTCHA? reCAPTCHA is a free captcha service from Google that protects websites from spam software and abuse by non-human visitors. This service is most frequently used when you fill out forms on the Internet. A captcha service is a kind of automatic Turing test, which is intended to ensure that an action on the Internet is carried out by a human and not by a bot. In the classic Turing test (named after the computer scientist Alan Turing), a human determines the distinction between bot and human. With Captchas, the computer or a software program also takes over this task. Classic Captchas work with small tasks that are easy for humans to solve, but present considerable 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 am not a robot” or with Invisible reCAPTCHA even that is no longer necessary. With reCAPTCHA, a JavaScript element is integrated into the source code and then the tool runs in the background and analyzes your user behavior. From these user actions, the software calculates a so-called Captcha Score. Google uses this score to calculate how likely it is that you are a human even before you enter the captcha. reCAPTCHA or Captchas in general are always used when bots could manipulate or abuse certain actions (such as registrations, surveys, etc.).

Why do we use reCAPTCHA on our website? We only want to welcome people of flesh and blood on our site. Bots or spam software of all kinds are welcome to stay at home. That is why we are pulling out all the stops to protect ourselves and offer the best possible user friendliness for you. For this reason, we use Google reCAPTCHA from the company 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 really are a human. reCAPTCHA thus serves the security of our website and subsequently also your security. For example, without reCAPTCHA, it could happen that a bot registers as many e-mail addresses as possible during registration in order to subsequently “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 humans. So the IP address and other data required by Google for the reCAPTCHA service can be sent to Google. IP addresses are almost always truncated beforehand within the member states of the EU or in 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:

It is undisputed that Google uses and analyzes this data even before you click on the “I am not a robot” checkbox. With the Invisible reCAPTCHA version, even the ticking is omitted and the whole recognition process runs in the background. How much and which data Google stores exactly is not learned from Google in detail.

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

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

How long and where is the data stored? By inserting reCAPTCHA, data is transferred from you to the Google server. Where exactly this data is stored, Google does not make clear, 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 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 plug-in, the data will be merged. The deviating privacy policies of the company Google apply to this.

How can I delete my data or prevent data storage? If you want that no data about you and your behavior is transmitted to Google, you must log out completely from Google and delete all Google cookies before you visit our website or use the reCAPTCHA software. Basically, the data is automatically transmitted to Google as soon as you call up our site. To delete this data again, you must contact Google Support at https://support.google.com/?hl=de. So when 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/. Although Google goes into more detail about the technical development of reCAPTCHA here, exact information about data storage and data protection-relevant topics is looked for in vain there too. A good overview of the basic use of data at Google can be found in the in-house privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en.

You cannot copy content of this page