Cookie statement

WHAT ARE COOKIES? 

A cookie is a small, simple text file that is stored on your computer, tablet or smartphone during your visit to a website. There are different categories of cookies, and each one has a different purpose. More information on these purposes is provided in this cookie statement.  

WHICH COOKIES DOES THIS WEBSITE USE?  

Please refer to the overview in our cookie banner to find out exactly which cookie categories this website uses. This always contains an up-to-date overview of all specific cookies and their individual purposes. You can also use it to change your preferences by ticking and unticking the specific categories.

COOKIE CATEGORIES  

Our cookies are split into the following categories: 

  1. Functional cookies  These are essential cookies that help make our website more usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation and access to secure areas of the website. Our website cannot function properly without these cookies.  

  2. Preferential cookies  Preferential cookies allow our website to remember information that affects the behaviour and design of the website, such as your preferred language and the region you live in. 

  3. Statistical cookies  Analytical cookies are used to improve the website by gathering statistical information. This information, which is stored anonymously, allows us to see which pages are visited most frequently, which pages bring up error messages, which browser visitors are using to navigate our website and so on. That way, we can assess the quality and effectiveness of our website and make it easier to use. We do not track individual users as part of this. 

  4. Marketing cookies  These cookies are used to tailor adverts based on a profile (which is not linked to any name, address, e-mail address, etc.) and to optimise our online adverts and campaigns. That way, we can prevent the same adverts from coming up again and again. Tracking cookies may also be used to see whether you have visited any other websites in our network. If these cookies are switched on, the content of our website will be tailored to your interests as far as possible. 

SOCIAL MEDIA BUTTONS 

Many of our websites include buttons to promote (“like”) or share (“tweet”) web pages on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. These buttons are located right at the bottom of the website, and they work based on code originating from Facebook and Twitter themselves respectively. This code is used to place cookies. These cookies do not fall under our control, but you can delete them yourself at any time as described below. You can also view the privacy statements published by Facebook and Twitter (which are subject to regular change) to see which data they collect using these cookies. 

VIEWING, CHANGING AND DELETING COOKIES 

Our cookie banner always provides an up-to-date overview of the different cookies we use for each category and their specific purpose. You can also use it to manage and change your cookie preferences and purposes.  We use session cookies and permanent cookies. Sessions cookies are automatically deleted as soon as you close your browser. Permanent cookies are used to recognise visitors and remember their preferences when they return to our website. You can delete or block these cookies yourself at any time via your browser settings.