Privacy policy

Privacy policy

I appreciate your interest in my website. The protection of your privacy is very important to me. Below I inform you in detail about the handling of your data.

This website is operated by FORMA Photography, Mag. Martin Allinger, Schützenweg 49, A-6134 Vomp, Austria, hereinafter referred to as “I” and “Company”. This privacy policy describes what data is collected when you visit this website and for what purpose it is used.

I therefore ask you to read the following privacy policy carefully before you agree to it and continue to use the website.

Scope of this privacy policy

This privacy policy informs you as a user of this website about the nature, scope and purposes of the collection and use of personal data – for example cookies – of this website.

What are cookies?

A “cookie” is a sequence of text characters that is transmitted via the web server to the cookie file of your browser on the hard drive of your computer. This allows the website to recognize you when a connection is (re)established between the web server and your browser. The main purpose of a cookie is therefore to recognize visitors to the website, furthermore to analytically evaluate non-personal data to gain information about time, geographical location and usage of my website. I therefore use on this website both so-called “session cookies”, which are stored only temporarily until you leave the website, and so-called “persistent or tracking cookies”, which remain in the cookie file of your browser for a longer period of time in order to transmit information to the server when you return to the website.

Which cookies & data are stored on this website?

This website stores so-called “first party cookies” to enable measurement and optimization of user behavior on this website based on (non-)personal data.

  1. The tool used for this purpose is “Google Analytics”. Specifically, the following Analytics cookies are applied in the default configuration and these are stored for a period of 30 days:

– _ga

– _gat

These cookies are set by Google Analytics and allow us to monitor the use of this website and improve the user experience. They are used to collect data about the use of my website, which is used to create reports and improve the website. Anonymous data is collected such as the number of visitors, the website last visited by a user, and the pages accessed by users on this website.

  1. In addition, the following cookies are stored for the duration of your visit to this website:

– phpsessid

This cookie identifies your current session ID on the web server. It is set as soon as you visit this website and deleted as soon as you leave the site.

Use and disclosure of data

  1. The data collected from you will be passed on to third parties if this is necessary to fulfill a judicial or official order or if this is requested by yourself. Otherwise, your data – especially for the purpose of marketing – will not be passed on to third parties.
  2. Your data will be stored – unless otherwise specified elsewhere in this privacy policy for certain data records – as long as this is necessary for the performance of the contract or due to legal provisions.
  3. The personal data that you provide on the website will be used, on the one hand, for the purpose of improving your experience while on this website and for troubleshooting. In addition, your data will be used to record and evaluate – by means of Google Analytics – user behavior on this website. In any case, your data will not be processed for contact or marketing purposes. A separate consent is required for this, which you must provide at a suitable point (e.g. when registering for the newsletter).
  4. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is used to provide a web analysis service by Google Inc, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. This service uses so-called “cookies” (see above). The information generated by cookies about your use of this website is generally transmitted to a Google server in the USA and stored there.

If IP anonymization is activated on this website, however, your IP address will be shortened in advance by Google within member states of the European Union or in other contracting states to the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Only in certain cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the USA or another third country and shortened there.

On my behalf, Google uses this information to evaluate your use of this website, to compile reports on website activity and to provide other services related to website and internet use to the website operator. The IP address transmitted by your browser as part of Google Analytics will not be merged with other Google data.

The storage of cookies required by Google Analytics can be prevented by a corresponding setting of your browser software; however, this may result in you not being able to use all functions of this website to their full extent. You can prevent the collection of data generated by the cookie and related to your use of the website (including your IP address) as well as its transmission and processing by Google by downloading and installing the browser plugin available at the following link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de.

If you would like more information about the type, scope and purpose of the data collected by Google, please read this privacy policy.

Consent to be contacted electronically

By agreeing to this Privacy Policy, you also grant me the right to contact you electronically at the email address you provide to keep you informed of my activities.

Links to other websites and social media

  1. This website links to other websites; this is for informational purposes only. These websites are not under my control and are therefore not covered by the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you activate a link, it is possible that the operator of this website collects data about you and uses it in accordance with its privacy policy, which may differ from ours.
  2. On this website, there is also the possibility to interact with various social networks via plugins. These are:

– Facebook, operated by Facebook Ireland Ltd, 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland.

– Twitter, operated by Twitter Inc, 795 Folsom Street, Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA

– Google+, operated by Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

– Linked In, operated by LinkedIn Inc., 2029 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

– Pinterest, operated by Pinterest Inc., 808 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA

– Youtube, operated by Youtube LLC, 901 Cherry Avenue, San Bruno, CA 94066 USA

When you click on a plugin of one of these social networks, it is activated and a connection to the respective server of this network is established. I have no influence on the scope and content of the data that is transmitted to the respective operator of the respective social network by clicking on the plugin.

Should you wish to inform yourself about the type, scope and purpose of the data collected by the operators of these social networks, I may request you to read the privacy policy of the respective social network.

Comments on the blog

When you post a comment on the blog, your IP address is stored. This is done for my security, in case someone writes illegal content in comments (insults, forbidden political propaganda, etc.). In this case I could be prosecuted for the comment myself and therefore I am interested in the identity of the comment author.

Akismet Anti-Spam

This site uses the service “Akismet”, which is provided by Automattic, Inc. 132 Hawthorne Street San Francisco, CA 94107, USA. This service is used to distinguish comments from real people from spam comments. For this purpose, all comment details are sent to a server in the USA, where they are analyzed and stored for four days for comparison purposes. If a comment has been classified as spam, the data is stored beyond this time. This information includes the name entered, the email address, the IP address, the comment content, the referrer, information about the browser used as well as the computer system and the time of the entry.

More information on the collection and use of data by Akismet can be found in Automattic’s privacy policy: https://automattic.com/privacy/.

You are welcome to use pseudonyms, or to refrain from entering your name or email address. You can prevent the transfer of data completely by not using my commenting system. That would be a pity, but unfortunately I don’t see any other alternatives that work as effectively.

Comment images from Gravatar

This website uses the external avatar service Gravatar, which is operated by Automattic, Inc. 132 Hawthorne Street San Francisco, CA 94107, USA, to display user images in the comments. The e-mail address provided in the comments is transmitted to Gravatar in order to display a user image possibly linked to this e-mail address within the comments. The email address is transmitted in encrypted form to Gravatar’s servers, which in turn deliver the user images to our website and are embedded in the comments on our site.

By displaying the images, Gravatar may store the IP address of the users. More information on the collection and use of data by Gravatar can be found in Gravatar’s privacy policy: https://automattic.com/privacy/. If users do not want a user image associated with their Gravatar email address to appear in the comments, you should use an email address that is not on file with Gravatar to comment.

Jetpack (WordPress.com Stats)

I use the plugin Jetpack (here the sub-function “WordPress Stats”), which embeds a tool for statistical analysis of visitor traffic and is provided by Automattic, Inc. 132 Hawthorne Street San Francisco, CA 94107, USA. Jetpack uses “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyze how users use the site.

The information generated by the cookie about your use of this website is stored on a server in the USA. In the process, user profiles can be created from the processed data, although these are only used for analysis purposes and not for advertising purposes. For more information, please refer to the privacy statements of Automattic: https://automattic.com/privacy/ and notes on Jetpack cookies: https://jetpack.com/support/cookies/.

Newsletter notices and consents

With the following information, I inform you about the contents of my newsletter as well as the registration, dispatch and statistical evaluation process and your rights of objection. By subscribing to my newsletter, you agree to receive it and to the described procedures.

Content of the newsletter

I send newsletters, e-mails and other electronic notifications with promotional information (hereinafter “newsletter”) only with the consent of the recipients or a legal permission. If in the context of a registration for the newsletter its contents are specifically described, they are decisive for the consent of the users. In addition, my newsletters contain information about photography, weddings, travel tips and workshops.

Double-Opt-In and Logging

The registration for my newsletter is done in a so-called double opt-in process. This means that you will receive an e-mail after registration asking you to confirm your registration. This confirmation is necessary so that no one can register with other email addresses.

The registrations to the newsletter are logged in order to be able to prove the registration process according to the legal requirements. This includes the storage of the registration and confirmation time, as well as the IP address.

Use of the “MailChimp” dispatch service provider

The newsletter is sent using “MailChimp”, a newsletter sending platform of the US provider Rocket Science Group, LLC, 675 Ponce De Leon Ave NE #5000, Atlanta, GA 30308, USA.

The email addresses of my newsletter recipients, as well as their other data described in the context of these notes, are stored on MailChimp’s servers in the USA. MailChimp uses this information to send and evaluate the newsletter on my behalf. Furthermore, according to its own information, MailChimp may use this data to optimize or improve its own services, e.g. to technically optimize the dispatch and display of the newsletters or for economic purposes to determine from which countries the recipients come. However, MailChimp does not use the data of my newsletter recipients to write to them itself or pass the data on to third parties.

I trust in the reliability and IT and data security of MailChimp. MailChimp is certified under the US-EU data protection agreement “Privacy Shield” and thus commits to comply with EU data protection regulations. Furthermore, I have concluded a “Data Processing Agreement” with MailChimp. This is a contract in which MailChimp undertakes to protect the data of our users, to process it on our behalf in accordance with its data protection provisions and, in particular, not to pass it on to third parties. You can view MailChimp’s privacy policy here.

Registration data

To sign up for the newsletter, it is sufficient to provide your email address and name.

“Note on the newsletter according to the sample of lawyer Dr. Thomas Schwenke”.

Statistical collection and analysis

The newsletters contain a so-called “web-beacon”, i.e. a pixel-sized file that is retrieved from the MailChimp server when the newsletter is opened. Within the scope of this retrieval, technical information, such as information about the browser and your system, as well as your IP address and the time of the retrieval are initially collected. This information is used for the technical improvement of the services based on the technical data or the target groups and their reading behavior based on their retrieval locations (which can be determined with the help of the IP address) or the access times.

The statistical surveys also include the determination of whether the newsletters are opened, when they are opened and which links are clicked. For technical reasons, this information can be assigned to individual newsletter recipients. However, it is neither our endeavor nor that of MailChimp to observe individual users. The evaluations serve us much more to recognize the reading habits of our users and to adapt our content to them or to send different content according to the interests of our users.

Online call and data management

There are cases where I direct newsletter recipients to MailChimp’s websites. For example, my newsletters contain a link that newsletter recipients can use to retrieve the newsletters online (e.g., in case of display problems in the email program). Furthermore, newsletter recipients can subsequently correct their data, such as the email address. Likewise, the privacy policy of MailChimp is only available on their site.

In this context, I would like to point out that cookies are used on the websites of MailChimp and thus personal data is processed by MailChimp, their partners and service providers used (e.g. Google Analytics). We have no influence on this data collection. You can find more information in the privacy policy of MailChimp. I would also like to point out that you have the option to object to the collection of data for advertising purposes on the websites http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ and http://www.youronlinechoices.com/ (for the European region).

Cancellation / Revocation

You can cancel the receipt of my newsletter at any time, i.e. revoke your consent. This will also terminate your consent to the sending of the newsletter via MailChimp and the statistical analyses. A separate revocation of the dispatch via MailChimp or the statistical analysis is unfortunately not possible.

You will find a link to cancel the newsletter at the end of each newsletter.

Google Re/Marketing Services

I use the marketing and remarketing services (in short “Google Marketing Services”) of Google Inc, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA, (“Google”).

The Google Marketing Services allow me to display advertisements of my website in a more targeted manner in order to present users only with ads that potentially match their interests. For example, if a user is shown ads for products he or she has been interested in on other websites, this is referred to as “remarketing”. For these purposes, when our website and other websites on which Google marketing services are active are called up, a code is executed directly by Google and so-called (re)marketing tags (invisible graphics or code, also known as “web beacons”) are integrated into the website. With their help, an individual cookie, i.e. a small file, is stored on the user’s device (similar technologies can be used instead of cookies). The cookies can be set by various domains, including google.com, doubleclick.net, invitemedia.com, admeld.com, googlesyndication.com or googleadservices.com. This file records which websites the user has visited, which content he is interested in and which offers he has clicked on, as well as technical information on the browser and operating system, referring websites, time of visit and other information on the use of the online offer. The IP address of the user is also recorded, whereby we inform Google Analytics that the IP address is shortened within Member States of the European Union or in other contracting states to the Agreement on the European Economic Area and only in exceptional cases is transferred in full to a Google server in the USA and shortened there. The IP address is not merged with the user’s data within other Google offerings. The aforementioned information may also be linked on the part of Google with such information from other sources. If the user subsequently visits other websites, he can be shown ads tailored to his interests.

The user’s data is processed pseudonymously as part of Google’s marketing services, i.e. Google does not store and process the user’s name or e-mail address, for example, but processes the relevant data on a cookie basis within pseudonymous user profiles. I.e. from Google’s perspective, the ads are not managed and displayed for a specifically identified person, but for the cookie holder, regardless of who this cookie holder is. This does not apply if a user has expressly allowed Google to process the data without this pseudonymization. The information collected by Google marketing services about users is transmitted to Google and stored on Google’s servers in the USA.

The Google marketing services we use include, among others, the online advertising program “Google AdWords”. In the case of Google AdWords, each AdWords customer receives a different “conversion cookie”. Cookies can therefore not be tracked across the websites of AdWords customers. The information obtained using the cookie is used to create conversion statistics for AdWords customers who have opted in to conversion tracking. The AdWords customers learn the total number of users who clicked on their ad and were redirected to a page tagged with a conversion tracking tag. However, they do not receive information that personally identifies users.

I may include third-party advertisements based on the Google marketing service “DoubleClick”. DoubleClick uses cookies to enable Google and its partner websites to serve ads based on users’ visits to this website or other websites on the Internet.

I may include third party advertisements based on Google’s marketing service “AdSense”. AdSense uses cookies to enable Google and its partner websites to serve ads based on users’ visits to this website or other websites on the Internet.

Furthermore, I may use “Google Tag Manager” to embed and manage Google analytics and marketing services on my website.

For more information about Google’s use of data for marketing purposes, please visit the overview page: https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads, for Google’s privacy policy, please visit: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy.

If you wish to opt-out of interest-based advertising by Google marketing services, you can use the settings and opt-out options provided by Google: http://www.google.com/ads/preferences.

Facebook Social Plugins

My online offer uses social plugins (“plugins”) of the social network facebook.com, which is operated by Facebook Ireland Ltd, 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland (“Facebook”). The plugins are recognizable by one of the Facebook logos (white “f” on blue tile, the terms “Like”, “Like” or a “thumbs up” sign) or are marked with the addition “Facebook Social Plugin”. The list and appearance of Facebook social plugins can be viewed here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/.

When a user calls up a function of this online offer that contains such a plugin, his or her device establishes a direct connection with Facebook’s servers. The content of the plugin is transmitted by Facebook directly to the user’s device and integrated into the online offer by the latter. In the process, usage profiles of the users can be created from the processed data. I therefore have no influence on the scope of the data that Facebook collects with the help of this plugin and therefore inform the users according to my level of knowledge.

By integrating the plugins, Facebook receives the information that a user has accessed the corresponding page of the online offer. If the user is logged into Facebook, Facebook can assign the visit to his Facebook account. If users interact with the plugins, for example by clicking the Like button or posting a comment, the corresponding information is transmitted from your device directly to Facebook and stored there. If a user is not a member of Facebook, there is still the possibility that Facebook will learn and store his or her IP address. According to Facebook, only an anonymized IP address is stored in Germany.

The purpose and scope of the data collection and the further processing and use of the data by Facebook, as well as the related rights and settings options for protecting the privacy of users, can be found in Facebook’s privacy policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/.

If a user is a Facebook member and does not want Facebook to collect data about him or her via this online offer and link it to his or her membership data stored with Facebook, he or she must log out of Facebook and delete his or her cookies before using our online offer. Further settings and objections to the use of data for advertising purposes, are possible within the Facebook profile settings: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads or via the US site http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ or the EU site http://www.youronlinechoices.com/. The settings are made platform-independent, i.e. they are applied to all devices, such as desktop computers or mobile devices.

Use of Twitter buttons

This offer uses the buttons of the Twitter service. These buttons are offered by Twitter Inc, 795 Folsom St, Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA. They are recognizable by terms such as “Twitter” or “Follow”, combined with a stylized blue bird. With the help of the buttons, it is possible to share a post or page of this offer on Twitter or to follow the provider on Twitter.

When a user calls up a web page of this website that contains such a button, his browser establishes a direct connection with the servers of Twitter. The content of the Twitter button is transmitted by Twitter directly to the user’s browser. The provider therefore has no influence on the scope of the data that Twitter collects with the help of this plugin and informs the users according to its state of knowledge. According to this, only the IP address of the user the URL of the respective website is transmitted when the button is referred to, but not used for purposes other than the display of the button.

Further information on this can be found in Twitter’s privacy policy at http://twitter.com/privacy.

Amazon Partner Program

Martin Allinger is a participant in the Amazon EU affiliate program, which was designed to provide a means for websites to earn advertising fees by placing ads and links to Amazon.co.uk. Amazon uses cookies to track the origin of orders. Among other things, Amazon can recognize that you have clicked the affiliate link on this website. For more information about Amazon’s use of data, please see the company’s privacy policy: http://www.amazon.de/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=footer_privacy?ie=UTF8&nodeId=3312401.

Other integration of third-party services and content

It may happen that third-party content, such as videos from YouTube, maps from Google Maps, RSS feeds or graphics from other websites are integrated within this online offer. This always requires that the providers of this content (hereinafter referred to as “third-party providers”) perceive the IP address of the user. Without the IP address, they could not send the content to the browser of the respective user. The IP address is thus necessary for the presentation of this content. I strive to use only such content whose respective providers use the IP address only for the delivery of the content. However, I have no influence if the third-party providers store the IP address, for example, for statistical purposes. As far as this is known to me, I will inform the users about it.

Data subject rights

You have the right to information from the controller about the personal data concerned, as well as the right to rectification or erasure or to restriction of processing or a right to object to processing, as well as the right to data portability. Likewise, you have the right of complaint to the data protection authority (https://www.dsb.gv.at).

Information and contact

If you wish to receive information about the data stored about you, its origin, recipients and the purpose of storage, or have any other questions, comments or requests about this website, please contact me at the address below:

FORMA Photography
Martin Allinger
Schützenweg 49
A-6134 Vomp
Austria
+43 676 695 0038
martin@formafoto.net