Privacy Statement

A. General Provisions

§ 1 Information regarding the collection of personal data

(1) Hereinafter we inform you about the collection of personal data using our website. Personal data means any information relating to you as an identified or identifiable natural person, such as name, address, email address or user behaviour.

(2) Controller pursuant to Art. 4 Section 7 General Data Protection Regulation is Renato Turri [email protected]. A data protection officer can be contacted via [email protected] or via our postal address, labelled: “data protection officer”.

(3) If you contact us via email or using our contact form we will retain your reported information (such as your email address, your name or your telephone number) in order to answer your questions. Any data accruing in this connection shall either be deleted immediately after the storing of the data is no longer necessary or the possession of this data shall be restricted in case legal retention obligations apply.

(4) In case we use a professional data processor or if we intend to use your data for advertising purposes, we shall inform you in detail about these processes below. Thereby we shall also inform you about the criteria used to determine the period for which the personal data will be stored.

§ 2 Your rights

(1) Regarding your personal data, you have the right to:

- request from the controller (us) access to your personal data,
- request from us rectification or erasure of your personal data,
- request from us restriction of processing personal data concerning you,
- object to processing your personal data,
- the right to data portability.

(2) You furthermore have the right to lodge a complaint with the competent supervisory authority regarding our processing of your personal data.

§ 3 Data collection when visiting our website

(1) If you are visiting our website without registration or otherwise transmitting information, we only collect the personal data that your browser is sending to our server. If you view our website, we collect the following information, which are technically necessary to properly display our website on your screen and to ensure the stability and security of our site (legal basis: Art. 6 I S. 1 lit. f GDPR):

- IP address
- date and time of your query
- time zone difference to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
- content of the request (specific site)
- access status (http-status code)
- data volume transferred
- website from which the request was received
- browser
- Operating systems and user interface
- language and version of your browser software.

(2) In addition to the information mentioned before this website stores cookies on your computer when using our website. Cookies are small text files which are associated with the browser software used and stored on your local hard drive. Cookies allow us to recognise and remember your browser, user preferences and other information. B ymeans of the cookies certain information is provided to us. Cookies cannot to be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies allow us to make our website more user friendly, effective and safer.

(3) Use of cookies:

a) This website uses different types of cookies. The scope and functionality of which are explained below:
- transient cookies (b)
- persistent cookies (c)

b) Transient cookies will be automatically deleted once you close your browser software. An example of transient cookies are session cookies. Those session cookies contain a particular session ID. This session ID can be used to allocate different queries of your browser to one common browser session. By these means your device can be recognised when you return to our website. Session cookies will be deleted once you log out or close your browser.

c) Persistent cookies will be erased once they expire. The duration until the expiry may differ depending on the respective cookie. You can delete these cookies in the security settings of your browser at any time.

d). You can configure your browser settings to your liking, e. g. configure your browser software to refuse all third party cookies or all cookies whatsoever. However, if you configure your browser software to refuse all or specific cookies this may cause some features of our website to not work correctly.

e) We use cookies to identify you on subsequent visits in case you have an account with us. Otherwise you have to log in every time you visit our site.

f) Flash cookies used on this site will not be collected via your brother software but instead using your flash plugin. We also use HTML5 storage objects which are stored on the device you are using. These objects store information independently of your browser and do not expire automatically. If you do not wish the processing of flash cookies you have to install an appropriate add-on, e. g. “Better Privacy” for Mozilla Firefox or the “AdobeFlash-Killer-Cookie” for Google Chrome. You can also prevent the usage of HTML5 storage objects by using the private mode of your browser software. We also recommend, that you periodically delete all cookies and your browser history manually.

§ 4 Additional functions and offerings on our website

(1) Apart from using our website on an informational basis only, our site does offer different services that you may use. To use these services you have to submit further personal data which we need to properly perform our services. The principles on the processing of personal data mentioned above also apply in these cases.

(2) To perform our services we may use external agents or third parties. These third parties have been carefully selected by us and are bound by our instructions and will be monitored by us on a regular basis.

(3) Furthermore we may transfer your personal data to third parties if special actions, competitions or special agreements are offered in cooperation with third parties by us. Further information hereto will be provided to you when you submit your personal data or in the description of the individual offering below.

(4) In case our partners or third parties, to whom personal data is transferred, are located in a country outside the European economic area (EEA) we shall inform you about the consequences of this in the description of the individual offering.

§ 5 Objection to or withdrawal of consent regarding the processing of personal data

(1) If you have given us consent to the processing of your personal data you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Such a withdrawal of consent shall immediately affect the lawfullness of the processing of your personal data from the time your withdrawal is received.

(2) Insofar as the processing of your personal data is based on Art. 6 I S. 1 lit. f GDPR you have the right to object to the processing of your data. This will apply in case the processing is (especially) not a requirement for the fulfilment of a contract with you which we shall explain in the context of the description of the different functionalities below. When you exercise your right to object to the processing of your personal data, we would ask you to explain the reasons, why your personal data should not be processed in the way it is currently done. If your objection is to be considered well founded we shall examine the situation and shall either discontinue/amend this particular processing of data or state our legitimate grounds, based on which we shall continue the particular form of data processing.

(3) Of course you may object to the processing of your personal data for marketing or data analysing purposes at any time. You may inform us about your objection using the following contact information:

PSA Publishers Ltd.
Mainaustrasse 15
CH 8008 Zürich
Schweiz
[email protected]

B. Special Services on our website

1. Using our online portal

(1) Insofar as you wish to use our online portal, you have to register stating your email address and an individual password. You do not have to use your real name, a pseudonymous use is indeed possible. For your registration we use the so called double-opt-in-process, meaning the registration procedure can only be completed if you confirm your registration by clicking on the link in the confirmation email that we have sent to you. If you do not confirm your registration within 24 hours the registrations will automatically be deleted from our data base. Submission of your email address and a password is mandatory. The reporting of all other data is voluntary when using our portal.

(2) If you use our portal, we store your personal data that is necessary for fulfilling your contract with us, e. g. your payment details, until you terminate your account with us. In addition we will also store the personal data that you have provided voluntarily until you terminate your account with us if you have not deleted these informations prior to that time by yourself. You can manage and change your personal information in your protected user area. The legal basis is Art. 6 I S.1 lit. f GDPR.

(3) When using our portal, your personal data may – depending on the nature of the conctractual services in your case – become accessible for other users of our portal.

(4) To prevent unauthorised access to your personal data, especially your financial data, the connection will be encrypted using the TLS protocol.

2. eMagazine

(1) With your consent you can subscribe to our eMagazines with which we try to keep you up to date to the world of architecture.

(2) For subscription to our eMagazines we use the so called double-opt-in-procedure. That means after filling out the registration form, we will send an email to the indicated email address asking you to confirm your subscription to the specific eMagazine. If you do not confirm your subscription within 24 hours your personal data will be made unavailable and will be automatically deleted within a month. In addition to that we also record the individual IP address and the time of the subscription and the confirmation of the subscription. The purpose of that being, to verify your subscription and to be able to resolve a possible abuse of your personal data.

(3) Mandatory details for the subscription to one of more of our eMagazines are an email address and a first and last name. The first and last name submitted do not necessarily have to be your real first and last name. The submitting of further (and specially indicated) information is voluntarily and will be used to personally address you. After your confirmation, we will safe your email address for sending you the eMagazines. Legal basis is Art. 6 I S. 1 lit. a GDPR.

(4) You may withdraw your consent to receiving our eMagazines at any time and unsubscribe from one or all eMagazines. The withdrawal of consent can either be performed by clicking on the unsubscribe link provided in every eMagazine, by sending an email to [email protected] or by sending a mail to the address provided in the imprint.

(5) For dispatching the eMagazines to our subscribers, we use the service provider Mailgun. Please note that our eMagazines contain web beacons or tracking pixels (tracking pixels are one pixel sized image files that are saved on our website) to statistically track and assess your user behaviour. For this purpose also cookies may be used. For the evaluation of your user behaviour the data set out in § 3 and the web beacons will be linked to your email address and an individual ID. This individual ID is also contained in links in our eMagazines. The data will only be collected in a strictly pseudonymous form, meaning the ID will not be linked to your additional personal data. By this means the possibility of a direct personal reference is excluded. Using the aforementioned means we can recognise the time you read our magazines, which links you click and thereby infer your personal interests. The results from these findings will be linked to your activities on our website.

For the aforementioned purposes your data will be transferred to the USA and analysed there. It is possible that Mailgun may disclose your personal data to third parties or to government authorities. Further information hereto and to the purposes and the scope of data collection and data processing you may obtain at Mailgun Technologies Inc, 535 Mission Street, San Francisco, California 94105, USA; [email protected]; https://mailgun.com/privacy-policy. Mailgun participates and has certified its compliance with the EU-US privacy shield framework, https://www.privacyshield.gov/euus-framework, which the European Commission has recognised in the Implementing Decision EU No. 2016/1250 to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data comparable to the protection of personal data in the European Union.

You may object to this tracking by clicking the special link provided in each eMagazine or by informing us by email or regular mail. Your personal information will be stored as long as you have subscribed to one or more eMagazines. After you have unsubscribed from all eMagazines your data will only be stored statisticly and anonymously. You can also prevent tracking by deactivating the display of pictures in your email program by default. In this case the eMagazine might be displayed inchoately or incorrectly. If you manually activate display of the pictures the tracking described above will also occur.

C. Web analytics

Use of Google Analytics

(1) This website uses Google Analytics a web analytics service offered by Google Inc. (“Google”). Google analytics uses cookies, which are small text files that can be stored on your computer or similar device, allowing us to monitor the usage of our website by you. The information generated by the use of these cookies regarding your usage of this website will normally be sent to a Google server in the USA and stored there. If you activate anonymization on this website, your IP address will only be processed further in abbreviated form with the abbreviation process being conducted within the territory of the European Union or contracting states of the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases the full IP address will be sent to a Google server in the United States and abbreviated there. Google will use these informations under contract from the website operator to track your usage of the website and to create reports regarding website activity and for providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage for the site operator.

(2) The IP address communicated by your internet browser to the Google Analytics service will not be pooled or compiled with other Google data.

(3) You can prevent cookies from being stored on your hard disk by choosing “accept no cookies” in your browser settings; however in this case it is possible that you will not be able to use all functions of this website in their entirety. It is also possible to prevent the collection and processing of the data created by the cookie and relating to your use of this website (including your IP address) by Google by installing a special browser plug-in which can be downloaded here.

(4) This website uses Google Analytics with the extension “_anonymise Ip()” so that IP addresses are only processed further in truncated form in order to rule out any direct personal reference. Insofar as the data collected about you contains any direct personal reference this direct personal reference will be immediately excluded and personal data promptly deleted.

(5) We use Google Analytics on our website to analyse the traffic on our website and to be able to improve our website on a regular basis. The statistics compiled by Google Analytics allow us to improve our services in order to make them more appealing to you as a user. For those exceptional cases in which personal data will be transferred into the United States Google participates and has certified its compliance with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, https://www.privacyshield.gov/eu-us-framework. Legal basis for the use of Google Analytics is Art. 6 I S. 1 lit f GPDR.

(6) Information regarding the operator of the Google Analytics component: Google Dublin, Google Ireland Ltd., Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland, Fax: +353 (1) 436 1001. The terms of service can be found here, an overview regarding data privacy can be found here, an overview regarding the usage of data and options regarding privacy settings or and possibilities to object can be found here. The privacy policy of Google can be found here.

(7) This website uses the universal analytics version of Google Analytics enabling cross-platformtracking of visitors of our site by using a unique User-ID. This cross-platform-tracking can be prevented by different measures, e.g.:

a) Installation of a suitable browser-plug-in that can block tracking mechanisms on each of your devices, e.g. the browser extension UBlock Origin, which can be downloaded here. You will also find instructions that may guide you through the installation process there.

b) Setting of an opt-out cookie on each of your devices.

D. Advertising

1. Use of Smart Adserver

(1) This website uses the online ad service Smart Adserver, enabling us to present advertisements tailored to your individual interests. We especially want to:

- show you advertisements that may be of special interest to you and therefore making our website more interesting to you,
- to perform optimisation in respect to a campaign, including to limit the number of times you see a particular advertisement,
- to customise advertisements to a particular location.

For these purposes statistical information regarding you are collected and processed by our advertising partners. These advertisements can be identified by the heading “ads” in the individual advertisement.

(2) When you visit our website, Smart Adserver receives the information that you have opened our website. For this Smart Adserver uses cookies, tags and functions that are implemented into mobile applications (e.g. IOS, Android) that are saved on your local hard drive. According to Smart Adserver the following data might be transferred and processed:

- IP address; cookie information, such as your individual browser ID;
- technical information regarding the used device, such as: browser, operating system, screen size;
- the geographical position of the device that is accessing the website;
- pseudonymous ID of audience segmentation
- information about other identifiers assigned to the device (IDFA, AAID);
- information about the users activity on the device, including web pages and mobile apps visited or used.

According to Smart Adserver it is possible that your data will be shared with trusted third parties that provide services for Smart Adserver and with business partners in order to perform or enhance Smart Adserver’s products and services or will be disclosed to official authorities if Smart Adserver is required to do so on account of national or international law or legislation. Thereby your data may also be transferred to countries outside of the European Union where no data privacy laws exist that offer a comparable level of data privacy to the level in the European Union. According to Smart Adserver, Smart Adserver does sign with partners located in third countries not providing adequate protection regarding data protection standard contraction clauses adopted by the European Commission to ensure an adequate level of protection. According to Smart Adserver personal data may also be transferred to the United States of America. Smart Adserver states, that in these cases they ensure that the other party is complying with the Privacy Shield Framework, regarding the collection, use and retention of personal information transferred from the European Union to the United States. We neither have any influence on the collected data nor are we fully acquainted with the amount of data that is collected. Smart Adserver also does not inform us to which particular third parties and business partners and authorities your data might be transferred. According to Smart Adserver, data may be stored between 2 days and 13 months. The storage duration is dependent on the individual cookie or tag that is linked to the respective date. After the storage period has elapsed, the data is no longer active and stored in a compressed form in the archive data base of Smart Adserver for a maximum of 36 months for security and regulatory purposes. Further details to this can be found in the privacy policy of Smart Adserver (c.f. page 3 seq.) which can be found here: http://smartadserver.de/unternehmen/unsere-datenschutzerklarung/. Legal basis for the processing of your data is Art. 6 I S. 1 lit f GPDR. This website has enabled the option: “display ads from third parties”.

(3) You may prevent the installation of cookies by Smart Adserver by the following measures:

a) by selecting the appropriate settings in your browser software, e.g. selecting the option: “reject all third party cookies” will prevent the display of third party advertisements;

b) by submitting your objection against the processing of your personal data to Smart Adserver using the email address [email protected]. For this you will need your Smart Adserver ID. For instructions on how to find out your Smart Adserver ID, we refer you to page 5 of the Privacy Policy of Smart Adserver which can be found here: http://smartadserver.com/company/privacy-policy/. There you will also find information about the cookies that Smart Adserver can place on your local hard drive and how you can delete those cookies individually.

c) choosing the opt-out-option provided by Smart Adserver using the following . If you are logged into your Facebook-account, you may also use the following link: www.facebook.com/ads/website_custom_audiences/.

(4) Legal basis for the processing of your personal data is Article 6 I S. I lit. f GDPR. Further information regarding data processing by Facebook can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy.

E. Social Media

1. Use of social media plug-ins


(1) We use the following social media plug-ins: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Xing, LinkedIn. For the implementation of these plug-ins we use the so-called “two-click-solution”. This means no personal data will be transmitted to the providers of the plug-ins at the time you visit our website. You may recognise the provider of the respective plug-in by the label on the box which is located above the first letter or by the logo of the plug-in provider. By clicking the button of the plug-in, we enable you to directly communicate with the provider of the plug-in. Only after clicking and thereby activating the button, the provider of the plug-in receives the information that you have visited the particular section of our website. In the course of this also the information outlined in § 3 of this privacy policy will be transmitted. In case of Facebook and Xing, according to the statements of these providers, the ip-address will be immediately anonymised on servers located in Germany. This means by activating the plug-in, personal data will be submitted to the respective service provider and also stored there (in case of US-based service providers this means in the USA). As this data collection by the providers of the plug-ins is mainly effected by the use of cookies, we recommend that you delete all cookies in your browser software before clicking the plug-in button.

(2) We neither have any influence on the data collected and the processing of this data, nor are we aware about the scope and purpose of the processing of your personal data, nor do we have any knowledge regarding the period of time this data is retained. We also have no knowledge regarding the erasure of the data collected by the plug-in-provider.

(3) The plugin-provider will store your personal data in the form of user profiles and use them for the purpose of advertising, market research and/or needs based design of his website. Such an analysis of personal data (which includes also users that are not logged into their social media account) is made in particular in order to perform interest-based advertising and to inform other users of the social network about your activities on our website. You have the right to object to the creation of such a user profile. To exercise this right, you have to make contact with the respective plug-inprovider. By use of these plug-ins we want to provide you with the opportunity to interact with the social networks and other users, improving our services and making them more interesting for you as a user. The legal basis for use of the plug-ins is Article 6 I S. 1 lit. f GDPR.

(4) The data will be transferred irrespective of whether or not you have an account with the plug-inprovider or are logged into your social media account. If you are logged into your account with a plug-in-provider, the data collected will be directly assigned to your account with the plug-inprovider. If you activate the button and also link to the site, the plug-in-provider will also store this information in your user account and share it with your social media contacts. We recommend that you always log out of the social network after using it, but particularly so before activating the plugin-buttons, as this might prevent an assignment to your profile with the respective plug-in-provider.

(5) Further information regarding the purpose and scope of the data collection and data processing by the plug-in-provider may be found in the privacy policies of the respective plug-in-providers. There you may also obtain further informations regarding your individual rights and configuration options in relation to your personal data.

(6) Contact information and privacy policies of the respective Plug-in providers:

a) [Facebook Inc., 1601 S California Ave, Palo Alto, California 94304, USA; http://www.facebook.com/policy.php; further information regarding the collection and processing of personal data can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/help/186325668085084, here: http://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/your-info-on-other#applications and here: http://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/your-info#everyoneinfo. Facebook participates and has certified its compliance with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, to learn more about the Privacy Shield Framework visit: https://www.privacyshield.gov/EU-US-Framework.

b) Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountainview, California 94043, USA; https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites?hl=en-GB. Google participates and has certified its compliance with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, to learn more about the Privacy Shield Framework visit: https://www.privacyshield.gov/EU-US-Framework.

c) Twitter, Inc., 1355 Market St, Suite 900, San Francisco, California 94103, USA; https://twitter.com/privacy. Twitter participates and has certified its compliance with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, to learn more about the Privacy Shield Framework visit: https://www.privacyshield.gov/EU-US-Framework.

d) Xing AG, Gänsemarkt 43, 20354 Hamburg, DE; https://privacy.xing.com/en.


e) LinkedIn Corporation, 2029 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, California 94043, USA; http://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy. LinkedIn participates and has certified its compliance with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, to learn more about the Privacy Shield Framework visit: https://www.privacyshield.gov/EU-US-Framework.

2. Integration of Youtube-Videos

(1) We have integrated Youtube-videos into our website. These videos are stored on Youtube servers and can be played directly from our website. All these videos are integrated using the “extended data privacy mode”, meaning no personal data relating to your person will be transferred to Youtube if you do not decide to play back the video. Not until you start playback of the video, the data specified in section 2 will be transferred. We have no influence of the processing of the transferred data.

(2) By playing back the video, Youtube receives the information that you have visited the relevant sub-page of our website. Also the data specified in § 3 of this privacy policy will be transferred. This transfer of data will occur irrespective of whether or not you are logged into your account with Youtube and even occur in case you do not have a user account with Youtube. If you are logged into your Google account, the data will be directly assigned to this account. If you do not wish the assignment of the data to your account, you should log out of your account before activating the button.

(3) Further information on the purpose and scope of data collection and processing by YouTube can be found in the data protection declaration. You will also find more information about your rights and privacy settings at https://policies.google.com/privacy/update?hl=de&gl=de. Google also processes your personal data in the USA and has submitted to the EU-US Privacy Shield, https://www.privacyshield.gov/EU-US-Framework