Privacy Policy

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(* for “Cookie Policy” please scroll down or click here)

LearnGermanOnline.org is committed to protecting your privacy and does everything it can to fulfill this obligation. The following paragraphs specify all issues related to collecting and using information about visitors of LearnGermanOnline.org as well as some of the steps taken to safeguard protection of such information. Read this page in full so as to make an informed decision about sharing your personal information at LearnGermanOnline.org.

No Automatic Collection of Personally Identifiable Information

Please note that this website does not automatically collect any personal data from you as a human visitor. Personally identifiable data is defined as any information such as name, e-mail/postal address or mobile phone number that is unique to an individual and can be thus used to identify them as a person. As a result of this policy, LearnGermanOnline.org can only receive personally identifiable information from its visitors when they provide it intentionally and voluntarily through Contact Form.

Contact Form

Personal and other information, such as e-mail addresses or first and last names provided by visitors through Contact Form, is not collected or stored anywhere and is used solely for purposes that this form fulfills. Moreover, the private information you provide in the message will under no circumstances be passed onto anybody else and the entire communication will be deleted no later than three months after the last interaction between you and the webmaster of LearnGermanOnline.org. This website is non-commercial, therefore, disclosure of any personally identifiable information through Contact Form is expressly done on a voluntary basis.

Non-Personal Information Collected Automatically

Because of the nature of Internet data transfers, some visitor information is collected automatically by the web server hosting LearnGermanOnline.org and is saved in a so-called server log-file. However, this information is non-personal (including such data as your IP address, time of visit, landing page, referring website or type of your browser) and is used for routine administrator tasks only (and in aggregated – that is, completely anonymised – form for statistical purposes). Such information cannot be used to personally identify a visitor and, therefore, does not need to be protected in a way that the personally identifiable information normally is. Nonetheless, server log-files are not stored on the web server or elsewhere but are overwritten with fresh data every 24 hours.

Google Analytics 4

This website employs Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to measure visitor traffic. An essential component of GA4’s functionality is the use of cookies. These are small data files that are stored in the web browser to distinguish unique visitors as well as unique sessions from a single visitor. GA4 is at LearnGermanOnline.org configured to a bare minimum to ensure the maximum privacy of visitors. The aim is to record visits to the site rather than to track visitor behavior. Please note that GA4 by principle does not collect any personally identifiable information such as individual visitors’ IP-addresses.

Use of GA4 Cookies

GA4 relies on the use of first-party cookies to track visitor sessions. For more information on the use of cookies by this website and your choices regarding cookies, please refer to the “Cookie Policy” section below.

Type of Data Collected

GA4 collects information such as browser type, operating system, page views, time spent on site and geographic location based on an IP-address of a visitor. However, the individual IP-addresses cannot be read as they are neither logged nor stored.

GA4 Data Privacy

GA4 does not log or store individual IP-addresses. The obtained data is anonymized immediately upon collection and aggregated and used only briefly to understand traffic patterns such as visitor location (city/country). The GA4 data is not used to identify visitors personally or merged with other personally identifiable information. This process is automatic and cannot be disabled. The aim of this approach is to help ensure the GA4’s compliance with international privacy regulations such as GDPR.

For information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit the Google’s Privacy Policy page.

Transferring of GA4 Data

GA4 transfers the collected visitor data to Google’s servers that are often located in the US. That is, as a US-owned company, Google processes and stores most GA4 data in the US. For increased privacy, GA4 removes IP-addresses of EU users before logging the data on EU servers (in fact this process is the same for all users irrespective of their geographic location). Therefore, the IP-addresses of the EU users cannot be transferred to the US.

GA4 Data Sharing

Consented visitor data is used by GA4 and is not shared with any other service. For information on cookie consents and consented data please refer to the “Cookie Policy” section.

Retention of User Data by Google

Under our current GA4 configuration, which is set to default, Google retains GA4 user-level data for fourteen months and event data for two months before automatically deleting them.

Cookie Policy

LearnGermanOnline.org uses cookies to measure visitor traffic and to store visitors’ cookie consents. Those two types of cookies are connected to each other. Cookies are small text files that the website places in your web browser to remember you. The key to measuring traffic is the use of first-party cookies by Google Analytics 4 (GA4). A consent cookie, on the other hand, is needed for compliance with privacy regulations such as GDPR. This website only serves first-party cookies that do not collect any personally identifiable information.

Types of Cookies and their Expiration

The only cookies set by this website are GA4 cookies and complianz cookies. GA4 places two cookies in your browser, namely _ga and _ga_, which have an expiration of two years. The expiration date resets every time you return to the site. However, some browsers, e.g., Chrome or Safari, may enforce shorter expiration of first-party cookies such as a maximum of 400 days or just seven days, respectively.

In conjunction with GA4, complianz consent banner cookies are set to store the visitor’s consent for GA4 cookies to comply with GDPR regulations. They include: cmplz_banner_status, cmplz_preferences, cmplz_policy_id, cmplz_statistics, cmplz_marketing, cmplz_functional and cmplz_consented_services (provided you accepted all cookies). This prevents the cookie banner from reappearing on every subsequent page load. These cookies have an expiration of twelve months. Just like the GA4 cookies, the complianz cookies are first party cookies that do not collect any personally identifiable information.

Other than mentioned above, no other cookies, such as for example third-party advertisements, are served on this site that would allow third parties to monitor your behavior at LearnGermanOnline.org.

Managing Cookies

You can refuse the use of GA4 cookies by installing the official Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on which is available for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. Moreover, you can adjust your browser settings to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. For detailed information on how to adjust settings to manage and delete cookies in major web browsers check out this page.

Furthermore, all website visitors are shown a consent banner at the bottom of the landing page which gives them control over refusing or accepting all cookies or allowing only certain categories of cookies. Hence, unless your browser is set up to block cookies or you refuse cookies by hitting “Reject All” button on the cookie banner, the cookies may be placed into your browser. Whether you accept some or all cookies, the data derived from the use of accepted cookies is regarded as consented data.

Information Disclosure

LearnGermanOnline.org respects and protects the privacy of its visitors. The basic rule it follows is not to exchange or disclose to third parties any information about its visitors and that particularly applies to personally identifiable information submitted through Contact Form as this is the only personal data this website ever obtains. Since LearnGermanOnline.org does not automatically collect any personal or personally identifiable data, no such data is stored on its server or shared with anybody else.

Policy Changes and Effective Date

These policy terms may change at any time and at the sole discretion of the webmaster of LearnGermanOnline.org. When published here on this webpage, the changes become effective immediately. It is your responsibility to make yourself familiar with current privacy policy terms while visiting this website. Hence, you are encouraged to review this policy statement on every visit to LearnGermanOnline.org before accessing the rest of the website so that you know what information is collected and how it is treated.

Agreeing to Policy Terms

If you do not agree to the Privacy Policy of LearnGermanOnline.org as presented here on this page, please do not use this website and leave it immediately. Otherwise, your use of LearnGermanOnline.org indicates your full acceptance of its Privacy Policy.

The Privacy Policy forms an integral part of the Terms & Conditions of LearnGermanOnline.org and, therefore, by agreeing to the Privacy Policy of LearnGermanOnline.org you are automatically also accepting its Terms & Conditions.

How to Contact Us

If you have any questions regarding this Policy, you can contact us by sending us a message through our Contact Form with a subject “Privacy Policy” or “Cookie Policy”. Alternatively, send an email to email address.