Our Principles

We have a pretty simple approach to data protection and privacy, which can be summarised as follows:

We believe in full disclosure

This Privacy Policy is designed to give you full transparency regarding our data protection practices. If there’s anything that’s not clear from this Privacy Policy, please feel free to email us at privacy@muendecke.com.

Information we collect about you

We collect personal information about you from various sources:

Information provided by you

You don’t need to provide us with any personal information in order to visit the Website. However, certain Services do require that you register and, by doing so, you will provide us with certain personal information:

• Essential Information: When you register, you will need to provide your email address and choose a password.

Information we collect automatically

There is certain information that we collect automatically as the result of your use of the website, or through the use of web analytics services as described in the Cookies and Similar Technology section below. This information includes:

• the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the device from which you access the Website (this can sometimes be used to derive the country or city from which you are accessing the Website)
• the site that you visited immediately prior to visiting the Website
• the specific actions that you take on the Website, including the pages that you visit, posting a comment, or performing a search
• any search terms that you may enter on the Website
• the time, frequency and duration of your visits to the Website
• your browser type and operating system
• the nature of the device from which you are accessing the Website, for example, whether you are accessing the Website from a personal computer or from a mobile device
• information collected through cookies and similar technology, as described below
• information regarding your interaction with email messages, for example, whether you opened, clicked on, or forwarded the email message

How we use your personal information

We use the information that we collect about you for the following purposes:

• Your email address and password are used to identify you when you log into the website.
• Any additional information that you provide as part of your public profile, such as your real name, and links to your website and other social media profiles (but not your email address), will be published on your profile page. This information will be publicly accessible and may be viewed by anyone accessing the Website, or using our API. Please bear this in mind when considering whether to provide any additional information about yourself.
• Your email address will be used to send you newsletters and email notifications if you have elected to receive them using your account preferences. For information about how to change your preference, and to unsubscribe from newsletters and email notifications, please see the Choice and Control section, below.

Your personal information is also used for the following general purposes:

• To operate and maintain your account, and to provide you with access to the Website and use of those Services that you may request from time to time.
• To identify you as the creator of the comments that you post and/or the other contributions that you make to the Website.
• To seek your participation in surveys, and to conduct and analyse the results of those surveys if you choose to participate.
• To analyse the use of the Website, and the people visiting the Website and using the Services, in order to improve the Website.
• To respond to you about any comment or enquiry you have submitted.
• To customize your use of the Website and/or the content of any email newsletter or other material that we may send to you from time to time.
• To prevent or take action against activities that are, or may be, in breach of our Terms of Use or applicable law.
• For other purposes, provided we disclose this to you at the relevant time, and provided that you agree to the proposed use of your personal information.

Sharing of your personal information

We will not share your personal information with any third party, except as described in this Privacy Policy.
There are circumstances where we may need to share some of the personal information we collect about you or which you provide to us – these circumstances are as follows:

• Other Users:
  Any personal information in your public profile (other than your email address) will be accessible by other users of the Website, who may view your profile information, add themselves to your list of followers, and send you messages.
• With your consent:We will disclose your personal information if you have explicitly agreed that we may do so. In particular, we will disclose personal information where you have elected to connect your account to other social networks, or have elected to have your activity on the Website published to other networks such as Facebook. For information on how to control the information that your share, please see the Choice and Control section below.
• Service Providers:
  We use certain reputable third parties to provide us with certain specialized services related to the Website. These third parties will have access to certain information about you, but only where this is necessary in order for those third parties to provide their services to us. Where we transfer personal information to these third parties, we ask and require these third parties to implement appropriate organisational and technical security measures to protect against unauthorised disclosure of personal information, and only to process personal information in accordance with our instructions and to the extent necessary to provide their services to us.
• As aggregated data:
  We may aggregate your personal data with similar data relating to other users of the Website in order to create statistical information regarding the Website and its use, which we may then share with third parties. None of this information would include any email address or other contact information, or anything that could be used to identify you in real life.
• If required by law:
  We will disclose your personal information if we believe in good faith that we are permitted or required to do so by law, including in response to a court order, subpoena or other legal demand or request.
• To protect our interests:
  We may disclose your personal information if we feel this is necessary in order to protect or defend our legitimate rights and interests, or those of our users, employees, directors or shareholders, and/or to ensure the safety and security of the Website and/or the community.
• In the context of a business transfer:
  We may disclose your personal information to any person or company that acquires all or substantially all of the assets or business of //muendecke.//, or on a merger of our business, or in the event of our insolvency.

Cookies and similar technology

In common with most other websites, we use cookies to help us improve the Website and the Services we provide. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. These text files can be read by these websites and help to identify you when you return to a website. Cookies can be “persistent” or “session” cookies. Persistent cookies remain on your computer when you have gone offline, while session cookies are deleted as soon as you close your web browser.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses cookies to help us analyze how users use the Website. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the Website (including your truncated IP address) is transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your, and other users’, use of the Website, compiling reports for us on website activity and providing other services relating to website activity and Internet usage. Please note that Google only receives your truncated IP address. This is sufficient for Google to identify (approximately) the country from which you are visiting the Website, but is not sufficient to identify you, or your computer or mobile device, individually. You can find more information on Google Analytics here, including a link to Google’s privacy policy.

For information on how to opt-out of having your data collected by Google, please see the “Cookies” paragraph in the Choice and Control section below.

In addition to cookies, we use the following standard Internet technology in connection with your use of the Website:

• Clear GIFs:
  We use “clear GIFs”, sometimes known as “web bugs”, which are small image files that we embed into our email newsletters. These clear GIFs tell us whether you opened the newsletter, clicked on any of the content or forwarded the newsletter to someone else. This provides us with useful information regarding the effectiveness of our email newsletters, which we can use to ensure that we are delivering information that is relevant to our users.

For information on your choices regarding cookies and similar technologies, please see the Choice and Control section below.

Choice and Control

We do our best to give you as much choice as possible regarding the amount of personal information you provide to us, and the control you have over that information.

It is not necessary for you to provide us with any information in order to visit the Website, although certain information will be collected automatically by virtue of your visit (as described above). However, if you do decide to register a //muendecke.// account, you can control your personal information in the following ways.

Email preferences

Check out the “Email” page within “Settings”. When you are logged in to your account, you can access your Settings at the top left of the screen, and you’ll find the link to the Email page down the right side of the Settings page.

From the Email page you can tell us:

• which email notifications (if any) you would like to receive from us, and how often; and
• any additional or alternative email addresses that you may wish us to use to communicate with you.

You can also turn off email notifications from the “Account” page within your Settings. By clicking on the link on the Account page, you will immediately disable all email notifications, other than essential account notifications such as important service updates, reports of copyright infringement and other essential information relating to your account and your use of the Website.

It is also possible to unsubscribe from email newsletters and notifications (other than essential account notifications) at any time by clicking on the link at the end of each email.

Please note that this Privacy Policy does not apply to any third party sites or applications, and we cannot control the activities of those sites or applications. You are advised to read the privacy policies of those sites or applications before sharing your information with, or connecting your account to, any of these third party sites or applications.

Cookies

You can use the settings within your browser to control the cookies that are set on your computer. However, please be aware that cookies are important to many aspects for the Website – if you set your browser to reject cookies, you may not be able to enjoy all of the features of the Website. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to reject and delete cookies, please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org.

To opt-out of being tracked by Google Analytics on the Website and other websites, please visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Please Note: We have done our best to provide you with clear and comprehensive information about our use of cookies and similar technologies. If you choose to use the Website without blocking or disabling these technologies, you consent to our use, in accordance with this Privacy Policy, of any personal information that we collect using these technologies.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account from the “Account” page within your Settings. Please bear in mind that, if you delete your account, all data associated with your account will be deleted and may not be recoverable. You are therefore advised to copy or back up all content uploaded to your account before you delete your account.

Access to your Data

As described above, most of the personal information you provide to us can be accessed and updated in the “Settings” page of your account. If you wish to access, amend or delete any other personal information we hold about you, or if you have any objection to the processing of any information that we hold about you, please contact us at privacy@muendecke.com, or the address provided below.

If you ask us to delete your account (either via the Settings page or by email), we will do so within a reasonable period of time, but we may need to retain some of your personal information in order to satisfy our legal obligations, or where we have a legitimate reason for doing so.

Children

This Website is not intended for use by children. Anyone under the age of 13 is not permitted to use the Website and must not attempt to register an account or submit any personal information to us. We do not knowingly collect any personal information from any person who is under the age of 13 or allow them to register an account. If it comes to our attention that we have collected personal data from a person under the age of 13, we will delete this information as quickly as possible. If you have reason to believe that we may have collected any such data, please notify us immediately at privacy@muendecke.com.

Changes and Updates to this Privacy Policy

We may occasionally update this Privacy Policy, and when we do so, we will also revise the Effective Date set out below. Any changes to our Privacy Policy will always be available here so that users are always aware of what information we gather, and how we might use and share that information. Please be sure to check back here from time to time to ensure that you are aware of any changes to this Privacy Policy. Any material changes to this Privacy Policy will be communicated to registered users by email (to the then current email address provided in their account), by a notification to their account, and/or by posting a notice of the change on the Website.

Questions?

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, want to suggest changes to this Privacy Policy or want to know, what information we store about you, please contact us by email at privacy@muendecke.com, or write to us at:

Markus Muendecke
betahaus, Prinzessinnenstr. 19
10969 Berlin
Germany

Don’t want to give us your information?

If you decide that you do not want us to access your personal information in the manner described in the Privacy Policy, please do not use the Website.