Privacy Policy

Data Privacy Policy

Based on section 13 of the Swiss Federal Constitution and the data protection policies of the confederacy every person is entitled of the protection of their privacy and protection against misues of their personal data. We abide to those regulations. Personal data is treated strictly confidential and will neither be sold or transferred to third parties.

In collaboration with our hosting providers we protect all data from access of third parties, of data loss, of misuse or of forgery.

Following data is being stored when visitors browse the website: IP-address, date, time, browser-request and general information about the operating system and browser. This data is the foundation for statistical and anonymous analysis, to detect trends and to better customize the user experience.

Cookies

Our website makes use of so-called cookies in order to recognize repeat use of our website by the same user/internet connection subscriber. Cookies are small text files that your internet browser downloads and stores on your computer. They are used to improve our website and services. In most cases these are so-called “session cookies” that are deleted once you leave our website.

To an extent, however, these cookies also pass along information used to automatically recognize you. Recognition occurs through an IP address saved to the cookies. The information thereby obtained is used to improve our services and to expedite your access to the website.

You can prevent cookies from being installed by adjusting the settings on your browser software accordingly. You should be aware, however, that by doing so you may not be able to make full use of all the functions of our website.

Server Data

For technical reasons, data such as the following, which your internet browser transmits to us or to our web space provider (so called server log files), is collected: – type and version of the browser you use – operating system – websites that linked you to our site (referrer URL) – websites that you visit – date and time of your visit – your Internet Protocol (IP) address. This anonymous data is stored separately from any personal information you may have provided, thereby making it impossible to connect it to any particular person. The data is used for statistical purposes in order to improve our website and services.

Purpose of Registering

We offer you the opportunity to sign up for our website. The information entered when signing up, as shown in the registration form

[PLEASE ENTER: NAME, EMAILADRESS ETC.]

is collected and stored solely for use by our website. When signing up for our website, we also store your IP address and the date and time you registered. This serves to protect us in the event a third party improperly and without your knowledge makes use of your data to sign up for our site. None of this information is transferred to third parties. Nor is any of this information matched to any information that may be collected by other components of our website.

Our website offers you the opportunity to subscribe to our newsletter. The newsletter provides you periodically with information about our services. To receive our newsletter, we require a valid email address. We will review the email address you provide for the purpose of determining whether you are in fact the owner of the email address provided or whether the actual owner of said address is authorized to receive the newsletter. When subscribing to our newsletter, we will store your IP address as well as the date and time you subscribed. This serves to protect us in the event a third party improperly and without your knowledge makes use of your email address to subscribe to our newsletter. We will not collect any other data. The data thereby collected is used solely for the purpose of receiving our newsletter. No data is transferred to third parties. Nor is any of this information matched to any information that other components of our website may collect. You may cancel your subscription to the newsletter at any time. You will find additional details in the email confirming your subscription as well as in each newsletter.

Contacting Us

On our website we offer you the opportunity to contact us, either by email and/or by using a contact form. In such event, information provided by the user is stored for the purpose of facilitating communications with the user. No data is transferred to third parties. Nor is any of this information matched to any information that may be collected by other components of our website.

Posting Comments

On our website we offer you the opportunity to post comments about individual articles. For this purpose, the IP address of the user/internet connection subscriber is stored. This information is stored for our security in the event the author through his/her comments infringes against third party rights and/or unlawful content is entered. Consequently, we have a direct interest in the author’s stored data, particularly since we may be potentially liable for such violations. No data is transferred to third parties. Nor is any of this information matched to any information that may be collected by other components of our website.

Subscribing to Comments

On our website we offer you the opportunity to subscribe to subsequent comments about an article which you intend to comment on. When you choose this option, you will receive a confirmation email which is used to determine if you are actually the owner of the email address entered. You may at any time revoke your decision to subscribe to such follow-on comments. You will find additional details in the confirmation email. No data hereby obtained is transferred to third parties. Nor is any of this information matched to any information that may be collected by other components of our website.

Use of Google Analytics with anonymization

Our website uses Google Analytics, a web analysis service from Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA, hereinafter referred to as “Google“. Google Analytics employs so-called “cookies“, text files that are stored to your computer in order to facilitate an analysis of your use of the site.

The information generated by these cookies, such as time, place and frequency of your visits to our site, including your IP address, is transmitted to Google’s location in the US and stored there.

We use Google Analytics with an IP anonymization feature on our website. In doing so, Google abbreviates and thereby anonymizes your IP address before transferring it from member states of the European Union or signatory states to the Agreement on the European Economic Area.

Google will use this information to evaluate your usage of our site, to compile reports on website activity for us, and to provide other services related to website- and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties if this is required by law or to the extent this data is processed by third parties on Google´s behalf.

Google states that it will in never associate your IP address with other data held by Google. You can prevent cookies from being installed by adjusting the settings on your browser software accordingly. You should be aware, however, that by doing so you may not be able to make full use of all the functions of our website.

Google also offers a disabling option for the most common browsers, thus providing you with greater control over the data which is collected and processed by Google. If you enable this option, no information regarding your website visit is transmitted to Google Analytics. However, the activation does not prevent the transmission of information to us or to any other web analytics services we may use. For more information about the disabling option provided by Google, and how to enable this option, visit https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en

Use of Google+ recommendation components

Our website employs the “+1“-buttom from Google+ belonging to Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA, hereinafter referred to as “Google“. Each time our website receives an access request equipped with a “+1“ component, the component prompts your browser to download an image of this component from Google. Through this process, Google is informed precisely which page of our website is being visited. As specified by Google, your visit undergoes additional analysis in the event you are not logged into your Google account. If you access our site while logged into Google and press the “+1″ button, Google can collect information about your Google account, websites you recommend as well as your IP address, along with other browser-related information. This allows your “+1“ recommendation to be stored and publicized. Your Google “+1“ recommendation can then appear as a reference in other Google services, such as search results, your Google account or other places, such as on websites and ads in the internet, , together with your account name and, if applicable, a picture you provided to Google. Furthermore, Google can link your visit to our site with data stored by Google. Google also records this information for the purpose of further improving Google services. If you wish to minimize the collection of information by Google as previously described, you must log out of your Google account before visiting our website.

You can access Google‘s data protection policies relating to the “+1“ button together with all relevant information on the collection, transfer and use of data by Google, your rights in this regard as well as your profile settings options at the following link:
https://developers.google.com/+/web/buttons-policy

The use of Google Maps with recommendation component

We use the “Google Maps” component on our website in combination with the so-called “Share function”. “Google Maps” is a service of Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA, hereinafter “Google.”

Each time this component is called up, Google sets a cookie in order to process the user configuration and data when the page with the integrated “Google Maps” component is displayed. As a general rule, this cookie is not deleted by closing the browser, but rather expires after a certain time, as long as it is not previously manually deleted by you.

If you do not agree with this processing of your data, you may choose to deactivate the “Google Maps” service and thereby prevent the transfer of data to Google. To do this, you must deactivate the Java Script function in your browser. However, we would like to point out that in this case you will not be able to use “Google Maps” or at least only to a limited extent.

The use of “Google Maps” and the information obtained through “Google Maps” is according to Google’s Terms of Use
http://www.google.de/intl/de/policies/terms/regional.html

as well as the additional Terms and Conditions for “Google Maps”
https://www.google.com/intl/de_de/help/terms_maps.html.

The Google Maps function also includes the following recommendation buttons:

“Google+-Button” from the company Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA;
“Facebook-Button” from the company Facebook Inc., 1601 S. California Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA;
“Twitter-Button” from the company Twitter Inc., 795 Folsom St., Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA.
By calling up the “Google Maps” page, these “Recommendation components” cause the browser you are using to download a corresponding display of the component from the respective provider. In this way, the respective provider mentioned above will be informed about which specific page of our internet site you are currently visiting.

If you are logged in to your personal account at the provider previously mentioned at the time of calling up the “Google Maps” page, this will be able to collect the information obtained about the websites recommended by you as well as your IP address and other browser relevant information and link it to your respective account.

If you want to prevent this transmission and storage of data by the respective provider about you and your behaviour on our website, you must log out of those providers before you visit our site.

You can find out more about the data collection of the respective providers via the following links:

Privacy Policy Twitter: https://twitter.com/privacy?lang=de
Privacy Policy Facebook: https://de-en.facebook.com/about/privacy
Privacy Policy Google+: https://developers.google.com/+/web/buttons-policy

Use of Google Maps

We use the “Google Maps” component of Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA, hereinafter “Google.”

Google sets a cookie in order to process the user configuration and data when the page with the integrated “Google Maps” component is displayed. As a general rule, this cookie is not deleted by closing the browser, but rather expires after a certain time, as long as it is not previously manually deleted by you.

The use of “Google Maps” and the information obtained through “Google Maps” is according to Google’s Terms of Use

http://www.google.de/intl/de/policies/terms/regional.html

as well as the additional Terms and Conditions for “Google Maps”

https://www.google.com/intl/de_de/help/terms_maps.html.

Use of reCAPTCHA

In order to protect input forms on our site, we use the “reCAPTCHA” service of Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA, hereinafter “Google.” By means of this service it can be distinguished whether the corresponding input is of human origin or is created improperly by automated machine processing.

To our knowledge, the referrer URL, the IP address, the behaviour of the website visitors, information about the operating system, browser and length of stay, cookies, display instructions and scripts, user input behaviour and mouse movements in the “reCAPTCHA” checkbox are conveyed to “Google.”

Google uses the information obtained, among other things, to digitize books and other printed matter as well as to optimize services such as Google Street View and Google Maps (e.g. house number and street name recognition).

The IP address provided as part of “reCAPTCHA” is not merged with other data from Google unless you are logged into your Google Account at the time the “reCAPTCHA” plug-in is used. If you want to prevent this transmission and storage of data by “Google” about you and your behaviour on our website, you must log out of “Google” before you visit our site or before using the reCAPTCHA plug-in.

The use of the “reCAPTCHA” service is according to the Google Terms of Use:

https://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/.

Use of Facebook components

Our website employs components provided by facebook.com. Facebook is a service of Facebook Inc., 1601 S. California Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA.

Each time our website receives an access request equipped with a Facebook component, the component prompts your browser to download an image of this Facebook component. Through this process, Facebook is informed precisely which page of our website is being visited.

When you access our site while logged into Facebook, Facebook uses information gathered by this component to identify the precise page you are viewing and associates this information to your personal account on Facebook. Whenever you click on the “Like“ button, for example, or enter a comment, this information is transmitted to your personal account on Facebook and stored there. In addition, Facebook is informed of your visit to our website. This occurs regardless of whether you click on a component or not.

If you wish to prevent the transfer to and storage of data by Facebook about you and your interaction with our website, you must first log out of Facebook before visiting our website. The data protection policies of Facebook provide additional information, in particular about the collection and use of data by Facebook, your rights in this regard as well as the options available to you for protecting your privacy: https://de-de.facebook.com/about/privacy/

You can find an overview of Facebook plugins at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/

Use of Twitter recommendation components

Our website employs components provided by Twitter. Twitter is a service of Twitter Inc., 795 Folsom St., Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA.

Each time our website receives an access request equipped with a Twitter component, the component prompts your browser to download an image of this component from Twitter. Through this process, Twitter is informed precisely which page of our website is being visited. We have no control over the data that Twitter collects in the process, or over the extent of the data that Twitter collects. To the best of our knowledge, Twitter collects the URL of each website accessed as well as the IP address of the user, but does so solely for the purpose of displaying Twitter components. Additional information may be obtained from the Twitter data privacy policy, at: http://twitter.com/privacy.
You may change your data privacy settings in your account settings, at http://twitter.com/account/settings.

Use of Xing recommendation components

Our website employs components provided by the network XING.com. These components are a service of XING AG, Dammtorstraße 29-32, 20354 Hamburg, Germany. Each time our website receives an access request equipped with a XING component, the component prompts your browser to download an image of this component from XING.

To the best of our knowledge, XING does not store any personal information from the user obtained through accessing our website. XING also does not store IP addresses. In addition, no analysis of user activity occurs through the use of cookies in connection with the “XING Share-Button”. Additional information may be found in the data privacy provisions relating to the XING Share-Button, at: https://www.xing.com/app/share?op=data_protection

Use of LinkedIn recommendation components

Our website employs components provided by the network LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a service of LinkedIn Corporation, 2029 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Each time our website receives an access request equipped with a LinkedIn component, the component prompts your browser to download an image of this component from LinkedIn. Through this process, LinkedIn is informed exactly which page of our website is being accessed. By clicking the LinkedIn “recommend button“ while logged into your LinkedIn account, you can link content from our website to your LinkedIn profile. This allows LinkedIn to associate your visit to our site with your LinkedIn account.

We have no control over the data that LinkedIn collects thereby, nor over the extent of the data that LinkedIn collects. Nor do we have any knowledge of the content of data transferred to LinkedIn. Details on data collection by LinkedIn as well as your rights in this regard and your browser setting options may be obtained from the LinkedIn data privacy policy, which may be accessed at: http://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy

Use of YouTube components with enhanced data protection mode

On our website we use components (videos) of YouTube, LLC 901 Cherry Ave., 94066 San Bruno, CA, USA, a company belonging to Google Inc., Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA.

To this end, we use the “ – enhanced data protection mode – ” option provided by YouTube.

When you display a page that has an embedded video, a connection will be made to the YouTube server and the content will appear on the website via a communication to your browser.

According to the information provided by YouTube, in “ – enhanced data protection mode -”, data is only transferred to the YouTube server, in particular which of our websites you have visited, if you watch the video. If you are logged onto YouTube at the same time, this information will be matched to your YouTube member account. You can prevent this from happening by logging out of your member account before visiting our website.

Further information about data protection by YouTube is provided by Google under the following link:

https://www.google.de/intl/de/policies/privacy/

Use of Vimeo components

We use Vimeo components on our site. Vimeo is a service of Vimeo LCC, 555 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011, USA. Whenever you visit our website, which is equipped with such a component, this component causes the browser you are using to download a corresponding display of the Vimeo component. When you visit our site and are at the same time logged into Vimeo, Vimeo recognizes by means of the information collected by the component, which specific page you are visiting and assigns this information to your personal account at Vimeo. If, for example, you click on the “Play” button or make comments, this information will be conveyed to your personal user account at Vimeo and stored there. In addition, the information that you have visited our site will be passed on to Vimeo. This is done regardless of whether you click on the component/comment or not.

If you want to prevent this transmission and storage of data by Vimeo about you and your behaviour on our website, you must log out of Vimeo before you visit our site. Vimeo’s Privacy Policy provides more detailed information concerning this, in particular regarding the collection and use of data by Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/privacy

Use of MailChimp

Newsletter Consent
You will be asked to consent to the use of your personal data to receive our newsletter as follows:

“I have read the privacy policy and I give my consent to data being processed by a service provider located in the United States”.

We use the newsletter to provide you with regular updates about our offers. To receive our newsletter, you will need a valid email address. We will then check the email address entered to ensure that you are actually its owner or if its owner has agreed to receive our newsletter. By registering for the newsletter, we will save your IP address and date and time of registration. This will be used in case a third party misuses your email address to subscribe to our newsletter without your knowledge.

We will not compare the data collected during newsletter registration with any other data that might be collected by other components of our site.

Newsletter by MailChimp

We use MailChimp to send our newsletter to our subscribers. MailChimp is a service provided by The Rocket Science Group, LLC, 512 Means Street, Suite 404, Atlanta, GA 30318, USA.

The data stored when you registered for the newsletter (email address, name, IP address, and time and date of registration) will be sent to a server operated by The Rocket Science Group in the United States and stored there in accordance with the EU-US Privacy Shield.

Further information about the data protection offered by MailChimp can be found at:

http://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/

Further information about the EU-US Privacy Shield can be found at:

Die Bundesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/international-transfers/eu-us-privacy-shield/index_en.htm

You may cancel your newsletter subscription and revoke your consent to the storage of this data at any time with future effect. For instructions to take this step, please refer to the confirmation email and each newsletter.

Newsletter tracking

Our newsletter includes so-called web bugs that allow us to recognise if and when an email has been opened and which links in the email have been clicked by its recipient.

This data is stored by us so that we can best align our newsletter to the wishes and interests of our subscribers. Accordingly, the data thus collected is used to send personalised newsletters to each recipient.

You will be asked to consent to the use of your personal data as follows:

“I agree that my data and my user responses will be stored electronically by newsletter tracking so that I can receive a personalised newsletter. The revocation of the consent to receive the newsletter constitutes a revocation of the consent for the tracking described above.”

By revoking the consent to receive the newsletter, the consent to the aforementioned tracking is revoked.

The use of Instagram

We promote the service Instagram on our website. Instagram is a service of Instagram Inc. By means of the integrated “Insta” button on our page, Instagram receives the information that you have accessed the corresponding page of our website. If you are logged into Instagram, Instagram may assign the visit to our site to your Instagram account and link the data by this means. The data transmitted by clicking the “Insta” button is stored by Instagram. You can find more information regarding the purpose and scope of data collection, its processing and use, as well as your related rights and settings options for protecting your privacy in the Instagram data protection notice under https://help.instagram.com/155833707900388.

To prevent your visit to our site from being accessed by your Instagram account, you must log out of your Instagram account before visiting our site.

Using PayPal as a payment method

If, while completing your order, you decide to use PayPal as an online payment service, your contact details will be sent to PayPal during the order process. PayPal is a service from PayPal (Europe) S.à.rl & Cie. SCA, 22-24 Boulevard Royal, L-2449 Luxembourg. PayPal assumes the function of an online payment service and trustee, and offers buyer protection services.

The personal data transmitted to PayPal usually includes your first name, last name, address, telephone number, IP address, e-mail address, or other data required to process your order, such as the quantity of articles ordered, the article number, invoice amount, percentage taxes and invoice details, etc.

This information needs to be transferred to process your order using your chosen payment method, mainly in order to confirm your identity and manage your payment and the customer relationship.

Please note the following however: PayPal may also pass on your personal data to subcontractors or other affiliates, to the extent necessary for fulfilling the contractual obligations arising from your order or for processing personal data in your order.

Depending on the payment type you pre-select in your PayPal account, which may include payment by invoice or direct debit, PayPal will transfer the personal data transferred to PayPal to credit agencies. The information transferred serves to identify you and to verify your creditworthiness with regard to the order you have placed. Please refer to the PayPal Privacy Policy for more information on the credit agencies PayPal transfers data to and which data is collected, processed, stored and passed on by PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/de/webapps/mpp/ua/privacy-full

Use of Google-Adwords

For purposes of promotion, our website also employs the Google ad tool “Google-Adwords”. As part of this, our website employs the analysis service “Conversion-Tracking” from Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA, hereinafter referred to as “Google“. If you access our site by way of a Google ad, a cookie is placed on your computer. Cookies are small text files that your internet browser downloads and stores to your computer. These so-called “conversion cookies” cease to be active after 30 days and are not used to identify you personally. If you visit certain pages of our website while the cookie is still active, we and Google know that you, as user, have clicked on ads placed on Google and were redirected to our site. Google uses the information obtained through “conversion cookies” to compile statistics for our website. These statistics tell us the total number of users who have clicked on our ad as well as which pages of our site were then accessed by each user. However, neither we nor other advertisers who use “Google-Adwords” receive any kind of information that can be used to personally identify users. You can prevent the installation of “conversion cookies” by making the appropriate change to your browser settings, for example by setting your browser so that the automatic placement of cookies is deactivated or by blocking cookies from the domain “googleadservices.com“.

You can obtain the relevant data privacy policy from Google at the following link:
https://services.google.com/sitestats/de.html

The use of Google Remarketing

On our website, we promote the service Google Remarketing belonging to the company Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA, hereinafter “Google”. Advertisements may appear for users who have already visited our website in the past with Google Remarketing. Within the Google network, advertisements adapted to your interests can hereby be displayed on our site. Google Remarketing uses cookies for this evaluation. Cookies are small text files stored on your computer which allow the use of the website to be analyzed. This makes it possible to recognize our visitors if these sites are accessed within the advertising network of Google. In this way, advertisements can be presented within the advertising network of Google based on content which has previously been accessed on websites within the Google advertising network by visitors who are also using the Google Remarketing feature. Google does not itself collect any personal data. You can disable this feature by making the appropriate settings under http://www.google.com/settings/ads.

The use of HotJar

We use Hotjar in order to better understand our users’ needs and to optimize this service and experience. Hotjar is a technology service that helps us better understand our users experience (e.g. how much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don’t like, etc.) and this enables us to build and maintain our service with user feedback. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our users’ behavior and their devices (in particular device’s IP address (captured and stored only in anonymized form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), preferred language used to display our website). Hotjar stores this information in a pseudonymized user profile. Neither Hotjar nor we will ever use this information to identify individual users or to match it with further data on an individual user. For further details, please see Hotjar’s privacy policy by clicking on this link.

You can opt-out to the creation of a user profile, Hotjar’s storing of data about your usage of our site and Hotjar’s use of tracking cookies on other websites by following this opt-out link.

Publication of vacancy announcements / job applications

We electronically collect and process your application data for the purpose of completing the application process. If your application results in the conclusion of an employment contract, the data collected from you may be stored in your personnel file for purposes of normal organizational and administrative processes in compliance with appropriate legal requirements.

Upon rejection of your application, data you have provided is automatically deleted two months after notification of rejection. This does not apply in such instances where, due to legal requirements (such as the burden of proof obligation stipulated in the Equal Treatment Act) a longer storage period is necessitated or when you expressly agreed to have your data stored for a longer period in our database of prospective applicants.

Information/Cancellation/Deletion

On the basis of the Federal Data Protection Act, you may contact us at no cost if you have questions relating to the collection, processing or use of your personal information, if you wish to request the correction, blocking or deletion of the same, or if you wish to cancel explicitly granted consent. Please note that you have the right to have incorrect data corrected or to have personal data deleted, where such claim is not barred by any legal obligation to retain this data.

Model Data Protection Statement for Anwaltskanzlei Weiß & Partner