Privacy Policy
Information on data protection at Gerolsteiner / Privacy Policy
The Gerolsteiner Brunnen GmbH & Co. KG (hereinafter referred to as Gerolsteiner) is glad to welcome you to its website. Data protection and data security while visiting our site are of utmost importance to us. We are thus committed to protect your privacy and to handle your data confidentially. We would like to inform you of what kind of personal data we collect in regrads to your visit to our website and to what purpose. Since amendments to the law or changes of our company internal processes can necessitate an adaptation of the privacy policy we would like to ask you to regularly read this privacy statement.
1. What is personal data?
Personal data is information that can be utilized to find out about personal or factual circumstances. Information that does not offer a possibility (at least not without a disproportional amount of time and effort) of establishing a direct link to you personally, such as through the use of pseudonyms or through anonymization of the information, is not personal data.
2. What data do we collect process?
You can make use of a major part of our online services without disclosing your identity. Should you however decide to register with one of our personalized services (such as ordering something in our online shops), we will ask you for your name, your e-mail address, residential address or other personal information. It is your personal choice whether or not to provide this information. Should you decide not to we will however be unable to provide the desired service. You can find specific information regarding the exact procedures as well as specific consent forms with the respective input forms, and you are free to decide whether or not to submit them. In connection with the accessing of the information you require, data necessary to providing this service or information vital to security will be stored that possibly allows identification (for instance date, time and pages visited). This data is deleted immediately following the end of the session unless it is analyzed anonymously.
3. Does Gerolsteiner use cookies?
We make use of "cookies" (small files containing configuration information) in adherence with the specifications of the "Informationsgemeinschaft zur Feststellung der Verbreitung von Werbeträgern eV (IVW)". They are used only to ascertain our website's user frequency and user number. It is possible to make use of our services without cookies. Most browsers are preconfigured to automatically accept cookies. You can however deactivate the storing of cookies or configure your browser to notify you before accepting cookies. We would like to point out that the refusal of cookies relevant to specific functionality may hamper the use of our website due to technical reasons.
4. What does Gerolsteiner use your data for?
There is no personalized analysis. We reserve the right to statistical analysis of psydonymized or anonymized data. Information like this, for instance from IP-logs, is stored for system security purposes (to prevent misuse) for the purpose of improving the website and for statstical purpose (number of users and of page hits). Personal data is however queried and processed for accounting purposes where it is necessary (for instance when placing orders in our shop). In these cases you will be specifically informed. There will be no processing of your data for other purposes unless you explicitly agree to it. Without your consent your data will not be utilized for things such as advertising. You will only receive adverts from us if we have your explicit consent. You can revoke your consent at any time by canceling the Gerolsteiner Newsletter or by retracting you privacy statement. In This case the service provided by Gerolsteiner may no longer be offered. We do not compile personalized user profiles. General information is registered, such as pages visited at Gerolsteiner or what pages were visited most frequently. This data does not offer information on who the user was - it is completely anonymous.
5. Is your data referred to third parties?
You data is only stored in our database and on our servers, respectively at our data service provider´s, unless you are specifically informed of - and consent to - the fact that your data will be referred to other companies, such as cooperation partners or advertising partners. In certain cases we are obliged to refer your personal data to third parties due to legal requirements. This is for instance the case when there is reason to believe a crime has been committed or misuse of our website is suspected. We are then oliged to refer your data to the law enforcement agency. Our website contains so called hyperlinks to websites of other companies. Here you are transferred directly from our website to the other company´s website. Amongst other things this is noticeable by the change in the URL.We take no responsibility for the privacy of your data in this case, since we have no influence on whether these companies adhere to our privacy policy.
6. Security measures to protect the data we store
Data that we collect is stored on specially protected servers. Only very few persons, charged with the technical, commercial or editorial care of the content, have access. To prevent the loss or misuse of data stored at Gerolsteiner we have taken extensive technical and operational security precautions that are regularly checked and upgraded depending on technological development. Nevertheless we would like to point out that it is possible for other people and institutions outside of our area of influence and responsibility to ignore the rules regarding data protection and the above mentioned security measures due to the structure of the internet. Especially data that is sent unencrypted - even by E-mail - can be read by third parties. We have no technological influence on this. It is the user's responsibility to protect the data he provides against misuse through encryption or other means. Our online presence contains links to other sites. We have no influence on whether or not the operators of these sites adhere to the privacy policy.
7. Contact
Should you have further questions or suggestions regarding data security we look forward to hearing from you:
Gerolsteiner Brunnen GmbH & Co. KG
Data protection officer Dr.Gregor Scheja
Last updated: May 2008